Method and System Using Intelligent Agents for Dynamic Integration of Buy-Side Procurement Systems with Non-Resident, Web-Enabled, Distributed, Remote, Multi-Format Catalog Sources

• US 20110004534A1
• Filed: 07/09/2010
• Published: 01/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Coupa Software Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Vinimaya Incorporated
• Inventors: Venkiteswaran, Vaidhyanathan
• Granted Patent: US 9,070,164 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/27.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0603 Catalogue ordering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0627 using item specifications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0629 for generating comparisons
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A request for shopping is placed from inside a procurement system. Intelligent agents are launched to retrieve information from catalog sources web-enabled over the internet or within the intranet. Retrieved catalog information is aggregated and associated with other data items. Business rules are applied to make decisions on what part of aggregated information will be rendered to a User. Sorting/multi-level refining operations are enabled. The User selects one or more catalog results, whereupon an XML shopping cart is created and submitted to the procurement system through published interfaces. The procurement system is enabled to place an order on supplier web-enabled transaction systems.

Claims

1-22. -22. (canceled)

23. A system for dynamically integrating a buy-side procurement system with Web-based catalog sources including content associated with products, comprising:

a network connecting the Web-based catalog sources and the procurement system; and

a computer system including;

software, executed by a processor, for providing intelligent agents that interact with the Web-based catalog sources in real-time on behalf of the buy- side procurement system to automatically locate, retrieve, and translate product information from the Web-based catalog sources based on a request from the procurement system,

software, executed by the processor, for automatically, and in real-time, enhancing and organizing the product information retrieved by the intelligent agents based on requirements provided by the procurement system, wherein the intelligent agents include sub-agents that are generated by at least one of the intelligent agents based on the request from the procurement system, and

software, executed by the processor, for providing electronic documents including the organized and enhanced product information to the procurement system in a format compatible with the procurement system regardless of the format of the product information retrieved from the Web-based catalog sources.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the computer system resides behind a firewall associated with the buy-side procurement system.