Rating and settlements engine

• US 7,505,962 B2
• Filed: 05/15/2006
• Issued: 03/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gopalakrishnan, Ganesh, Deb, Indrojit N., Shariff, Shafiq, Garg, Neeraj
• Primary Examiner(s): Ali; Mohammad
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shmatov; Alexey
• Application Number:
  US11/383,436
• Publication Number:
  US 20070288933A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,037 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0245 Surveys
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing

Abstract

A rating and settlements engine synthesizes activity data to discover ratable events. The ratable events are processed to produce a rated event. In a described implementation, the ratable events are discovered responsive to an event-generation plug-in and/or the rated events are produced from the ratable events responsive to a rating-model plug-in.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor;

memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory comprising instructions that direct the processor to implement a rating and settlement engine module, the rating and settlement engine being configured to produce one or more rated events to facilitate calculation of proceedings to be exchanged between two or more contracting partners in one or more diverse settlement scenarios, the rating and settlement engine comprising;

an event generator configured to receive activity data and accept at least one event-generation plug-in to extract ratable events from the activity data responsive to the event-generation plug-in and to classify the ratable events into at least trigger events and auxiliary events, wherein;

the event-generation plug-in is configured to discover a type of the ratable events;

the ratable events are user activities relevant to a settlement in the one or more diverse settlement scenarios;

the trigger events are events responsible for initiating the settlement; and

the auxiliary events are events helping rating process of the rating and settlement engine by contributing additional context to the rating and settlement engine;

an event compounder configured to form compound events by combining a particular trigger event with one or more supplementing auxiliary events based on the particular trigger event; and

an event rater configured to produce, responsive to at least a context-based rating (CBR) model plug-in, rated events based on the compound events using at least one rating model implemented by the CBR model plug-in, the rated events serving as a basis for determining an associated rating payment to be exchanged between the two or more contracting partners, wherein;

the CBR model plug-in includes a rating function lookup data structure having multiple entries, each entry of the multiple entries associating one or more attributes with at least one rating function;

the CBR model plug-in matches the one or more attributes that are associated with the compound event to the one or more attributes of an entry in the data structure to determine at least one rating function for the compound event; and

the rated events are produced by;

looking up the at least one rating function determined by the CBR model plug-in; and

creating the rated events based on the at least one rating function.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the rating and settlement engine further comprises:

an event orchestrator that implements an event processing pipeline by facilitating direct or indirect passing of events from the event generator to the event compounder and from the event compounder to the event rater.

3. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the rating and settlement engine further comprises:

an event translator that converts attributes of the compound events in accordance with translation definitions.

4. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the rating and settlement engine further comprises:

an event scheduler that initiates scheduled events based on the compound events and in accordance with scheduler definitions.

5. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the rating and settlement engine further comprises:

an event aggregator that monitors the compound events to detect if the compound events initiate, contribute to, or cause maturation of one or more aggregated events in accordance with aggregation definitions.

6. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the rating and settlement engine further comprises:

an output handler that accepts the rated events and provides the rated events to one or more rated event destinations.

7. One or more computer-readable storage media encoded with computer-executable instructions that, when executed on a computer, configure the computer to implement an adaptable rating and settlements engine configured to produce one or more rated events to facilitate calculation of proceedings to be exchanged between two or more contracting partners in one or more diverse settlement scenarios, the adaptable rating and settlement engine being configured to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving activity data and one or more event-generation plug-ins and synthesizing ratable events from the activity data, wherein;

each of the one or more event-generation plug-ins is configured to discover a different type of the ratable events; and

the ratable events are user activities relevant to a settlement in the one or more diverse settlement scenarios;

classifying the ratable events into trigger events and auxiliary events, wherein;

the trigger events are events responsible for initiating the settlement; and

the auxiliary events are events helping rating process of the rating and settlement engine by contributing additional context to the rating and settlement engine;

forming compound events by combining the trigger events with the auxiliary events based on the trigger events; and

rating, responsive to at least a context-based rating (CBR) model plug-in, the compound events using a rating model implemented by the CBR model plug-in, wherein;

the CBR model plug-in includes a rating function lookup data structure having multiple entries, each entry of the multiple entries associating one or more attributes with at least one rating function;

the CBR model plug-in matches the one or more attributes that are associated with the compound event to the one or more attributes of an entry in the data structure to determine at least one rating function for the compound event;

the rating comprises creating rated event based on the at least one rating function determined by the CBR model plug-in; and

the rated events serve as a basis for determining an associated rating payment to be exchanged between the two or more contracting partners.

8. The one or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 7, wherein the adaptable rating and settlement engine is further capable of accepting multiple rating-model plug-ins, each rating-model plug-in configured to apply a different rating model to the ratable events.

9. The one or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 7, wherein the trigger events are pushed into the event pipeline, and the auxiliary events are pulled into the event pipeline.

10. The one or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 9, wherein the event pipeline retrieves one or more auxiliary events based on a trigger event.

11. The one or more computer-readable storage media as recited in claim 7, wherein the multiple event-generation plug-ins comprise at least one of a sign-up event-generation plug-in that discovers web service subscription sign-up events or a settled charge event-generation plug-in that discovers settled subscription charge events.

12. A computer-implemented method of producing rated events to facilitate calculation of proceedings to be exchanged between two or more contracting partners in one or more diverse settlement scenarios, the method comprising:

initiating a settlement with a trigger event, the trigger event comprising one or more user activities that are generated at a computer having one or more processors and memory and are responsible for the settlement in one or more diverse settlement scenarios;

correlating the trigger event to one or more auxiliary events based on the trigger event, wherein the auxiliary events are generated at the computer and contribute additional context to facilitate the computer producing the rated events;

combining the trigger event with the one or more correlated auxiliary events to form a compound event in the memory of the computer; and

rating, by the one or more processors of the computer and in accordance with a rating model implemented by a context-based rating (CBR) model plug-in, the compound event to produce a rated event, wherein;

the CBR model plug-in includes a rating function lookup data structure having multiple entries, each entry of the multiple entries associating one or more attributes with at least one rating function;

the CBR model plug-in matches the one or more attributes that are associated with the compound event to the one or more attributes of an entry in the data structure to determine at least one rating function for the compound event;

the rating comprises creating the rated event based on the at least one rating function determined by the CBR model plug-in; and

the rated event serves as a basis for determining an associated rating payment to be exchanged between the two or more contracting partners.

13. The method as recited in claim 12, wherein the initiating comprises discovering the trigger event from among activity data using an event-generation plug-in.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, further comprising:

acquiring the activity data from subscription data, billing data, usage data, or financial reporting data.