Portal site for serving data monitored and observed and method of using data monitored and observed

• US 7,222,102 B2
• Filed: 03/20/2002
• Issued: 05/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Sato, Yasuo, Suzuki, Hideaki, Fukui, Chihiro
• Primary Examiner(s): CHEUNG, MARY DA ZHI WANG
• Application Number:
  US10/101,445
• Publication Number:
  US 20030018749A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,889 Days
• Field of Search: 705 7- 10, 705 26- 28, 705 51- 52, 705/64, 713/178, 707100-104, 725 9- 10, 379/32, 379/34, 379/38, 379/100, 379/106, 379/114, 379/133, 379/265, 700/1, 700 9- 11, 700 90- 91, 700108-111, 700/143, 700/174, 700/204, 700/222, 700/244, 700/266
• US Class Current: 705/52
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/382 insuring higher security of transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/18 Network protocols supporting networked applications, e.g. including control of end-device applications over a network

Abstract

A portal site for serving data monitored and observed, which can not only act for monitoring and observing services, instead of a facility owner, but also process the data into economically valuable data with the use of the result of monitoring and observation, is connected to a computer network so as to gather sequential data which is observed in time series by a not less than one sensor as to an operation running condition of a facility belonging the facility owner, and event data monitored invariantly, and incorporates a function of obtaining a data disclosure profile for designating a degree of disclosure of the data, from the facility owner, and a function of onerously serving an item of secondary data obtained by processing the data in a range satisfying the data disclosure profile, to a data user different from the facility owner.

Claims

1. A portal site which is connected to a computer network, for:

gathering sequential data monitored and observed in time series in future as to operation of a facility belonging to a facility owner, as to a condition of the facility detected by at least one sensor during the operation of the facility, and event data as to events which occur during the operation of the facility, and

determining a data disclosure profile for defining an allowable time range within which the gathered data is disclosed to a data user requesting a service of the gathered data via the computer network, in consideration of a qualification and the request of the data user and under a contract with the data user; and

onerously serving to the data user an item of data as secondary data, which is obtained by processing the gathered data within the time range defined by the data disclosure profile.

2. A portal site, as set forth in claim 1, characterized in that the data disclosure profile is presented for data users who possibly use the secondary use data so as to advertise the secondary data in order to make a contract to use data with a person who desires the use of the secondary data.

3. A portal site, as set forth in claim 1, characterized by a function of transmitting secondary data obtained by processing the gathered data into a form designated by the data user in a data transmission profile, to the data user.

4. A portal site, as set forth in claim 3, characterized in that the portal site has a function of delivering an instruction to a monitored and observed data processing device installed in a terminal unit belonging to the facility owner, so as to process the data monitored and observed in the terminal unit belonging to the portal site, into secondary data which is transmitted to a terminal unit belonging to the data user in the case of obtaining data in a format desired by the data user during transmission of data to the user.

5. A portal site, as set forth in claim 4, characterized by a function of adding an equivalent to the data from the terminal unit belonging to the facility owner, and contract data when the data indicating the data disclosure profile is transmitted as secondary use data from the terminal unit belonging to the facility owner to a terminal unit belonging to a monitoring and observing system manager.

6. A portal site, as set forth in claim 3, characterized by a function of adding contract data for receiving an equivalent to processing and transmission of data to the terminal unit belonging to the data user when data indicating the data disclosure data is transmitted as secondary data.

7. A portal site, as set forth in any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized by a function of designating time intervals and a time lag of sequential data to be disclosed, as the data disclosure profile for the secondary data.

8. A portal site, as set forth in claim 7, characterized by a function of designating whether not less than one disclosure range of the secondary data can be disclosed in the form of the data disclosure profile or not.

9. A portal site, as set forth in any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized by a function of designating whether processed data obtained through arithmetic statistics of the sequential data in a predetermined time range, can be disclosed or not, as the disclosure profile of the secondary data.

10. A portal site, as set forth in any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized by a function of designating a degree of accuracy of time stamp of event data to be disclosed and a time lag of the event data to be disclosed, as the data disclosure profile for the secondary data.

11. A portal site, as set forth in any one of claims 1 to 6, characterized by a function of designating whether a frequency of status change of the event data in a predetermined time range, and intervals of the status change can be disclosed or not, as the disclosure profile of the secondary data.