METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR TRANSACTING TRAVEL-RELATED GOODS AND SERVICES

• US 20120239669A1
• Filed: 03/14/2012
• Published: 09/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amgine Technologies (US), Inc.
• Original Assignee: Amgine Technologies (US), Inc.
• Inventors: Miller, Jonathan David, Miller, Harold Roy, Seider, Steven Mark
• Granted Patent: US 9,286,629 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/755
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/243 Natural language query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/30 Semantic analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

Provided are methods and systems for efficient matching of suppliers and customers for travel-related and other types of goods and services. These methods and systems are based on an exchange or market concept, in which a computer system performs matching between different parties. Specifically, an exchange system may compare customers'"'"' requests with suppliers'"'"' content records. In certain embodiments, an exchange system sends notifications of customers'"'"' requests to suppliers based on criteria presented by the suppliers. Users'"'"' requests and/or vendors'"'"' content records may be processed using natural language parser to determine appropriate components for searches and matches. This substantially improves efficiency of the exchange system and makes it more user friendly as users and vendors may present different terms in their respective searches and entries. An exchange system may include a pattern recognition component and semantic natural language parser to perform this function.

Claims

1. A method for publishing content in an exchange system for viewing by customers, the method comprising:

receiving a content record from a supplier system and defining a type of the content record;

defining metadata associated with the content record;

publishing the content record in a public domain of the exchange system, the public domain is viewable and searchable by one or more consumers;

processing the metadata to create one or more natural language parser (NLP) components;

receiving and parsing a request from a consumer;

constructing a search query from the request; and

retrieving and transmitting results to the consumer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the type of the content record is selected from a list comprising an air ticket type, a hotel type, a car rental type, and a tour type.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the metadata comprises one or more value sets corresponding to the one or more selected metadata tags.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the metadata is stored in a metadata database of the exchange system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving, defining, and publishing operations are performed simultaneously for multiple content records.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving, defining, and publishing operations are repeated for one or more additional content records.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more natural language parser (NLP) components are created based on the type of the content record and/or one or more tags of the metadata.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the metadata further comprises retrieving additional attributes associated with the content type.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the metadata further comprises defining an equivalence class of phrases corresponding to the one or more natural language parser (NLP) components.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein defining the equivalence class of phrases comprises extracting one or more data points from the metadata, the one or more data points are selected from the group consisting of a metadata record name, a metadata record value type, and a metadata record value set.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the exchange system is configured to add a new phrase to equivalence classes when encountering a metadata record type.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing the request comprises splitting the request into multiple line items, decoding each of the multiple lines, determining a type of the request, and matching a node to the type.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the search query constructed from the request is an SQL search expression supported by a database of the exchange system.

14. A method for delivering a content record to a consumer using an exchange system, the method comprising:

receiving and parsing a request from a consumer;

determining a profile associated with the consumer or with the request;

publishing the request in a database of the exchange system;

receiving one or more offers from one or more supplier systems; and

transmitting the one or more offers to the consumer.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising receiving, from the consumer, an acceptance corresponding to an accepted offer selected from the one or more offer and changing a status of the content record associated with the accepted offer.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising processing a payment associated with the accepted offer.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising matching the profile with metadata tags published by one or more vendors, selecting one or more selected vendors having metadata tags matching the profile, and sending one or more notifications to the one or more selected vendors.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising matching the request with one or more content records available in the database of the exchange system and automatically generating at least one of the one or more offers.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the request corresponds to multiple different types of content records in the database of the exchange system.

20. An exchange system for matching one or more content record of one or more vendors with one or more requests received from one or more consumers, the exchange system comprising:

an exchange content data base for storing the one or more content records provided by the one or more vendors;

a metadata database for storing the one or more requests and corresponding metadata received from the one or more consumers;

a pattern recognition component for recognizing one or more predefined patterns in the one or more requests received from the one or more consumers;

a semantic natural language parser;

a content requirement module; and

a content search engine.