Intelligent agents for electronic commerce
First Claim
1. A method, comprising:
- a first computer system storing electronic product advertisements corresponding to products from two or more providers, wherein the electronic product advertisements are associated with respective values that are indicative of one or more time periods during which ones of the electronic product advertisements are active;
the first computer system determining a set of currently active product advertisements from the plurality of electronic product advertisements based on the associated respective values;
the first computer system receiving a query specified by a consumer, wherein the query includes one or more search terms;
the first computer system matching the query against the set of stored currently active product advertisements, wherein said matching uses one or more of the search terms and produces one or more matched advertisements; and
the first computer system sending at least one of the matched advertisements to a second computer system, wherein the sent advertisements are displayable on the second computer system in response to the query, and wherein the sent advertisements include at least a first advertisement advertising a website associated with a first of the two or more providers.
9 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system for electronic commerce (10) having personal agents (12 and 13) that represent consumers and providers in a virtual marketplace (28). Consumer personal agents conceal the identity of the consumer and are capable of creating decision agents (14) that shop for products and assist consumers in comparing and ranking products. Provider personal agents are capable of creating demand agents (16) that quantify demand and target specific consumers without learning the identity of the consumers. Based on data generated by the activities of the decision agents and on preference data maintained by consumer personal agents, provider personal agents can quantify current, historical, and future demand, simulate demand, and target specific consumers for advertising and other messages. Provider personal agents can cooperate with consumer personal agents to collect data about reasons for sales and lost sales and to offer consideration payments to consumers. Consumer personal agents can automatically reject unsolicited messages that do not satisfy the consumer'"'"'s preferences.
117 Citations
17 Claims
-
1. A method, comprising:
-
a first computer system storing electronic product advertisements corresponding to products from two or more providers, wherein the electronic product advertisements are associated with respective values that are indicative of one or more time periods during which ones of the electronic product advertisements are active; the first computer system determining a set of currently active product advertisements from the plurality of electronic product advertisements based on the associated respective values; the first computer system receiving a query specified by a consumer, wherein the query includes one or more search terms; the first computer system matching the query against the set of stored currently active product advertisements, wherein said matching uses one or more of the search terms and produces one or more matched advertisements; and the first computer system sending at least one of the matched advertisements to a second computer system, wherein the sent advertisements are displayable on the second computer system in response to the query, and wherein the sent advertisements include at least a first advertisement advertising a website associated with a first of the two or more providers. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
-
-
9. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable program instructions that, in response to execution by a first computer system, cause the first computer system to:
-
store a plurality of electronic advertisements that are associated with respective values that are indicative of time periods during which ones of the electronic advertisements are active, wherein the plurality of advertisements correspond to products from a plurality of providers and include advertisements of websites associated with various ones of the plurality of providers; determine a set of currently active advertisements from the plurality of electronic advertisements using the associated respective values; receive a consumer-specified query that includes one or more search terms; select at least one of the set of currently active advertisements using the one or more of the search terms; and send at least one of the selected advertisements to a second computer system, wherein the at least one of the selected advertisements is displayable on the second computer system. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12)
-
-
13. A first computer system, comprising:
-
one or more processors; and memory storing a plurality of stored electronic product advertisements corresponding to products from two or more providers, wherein the stored electronic product advertisements are associated with respective values indicative of one or more time periods during which ones of the electronic product advertisements are active; and memory storing program instructions executable by the first computer system to cause the first computer system to; determine a set of currently active advertisements from the plurality of stored electronic advertisements based at least in part on the associated respective values; receive a query specified by a consumer, wherein the query includes one or more search terms; match the query against the set of currently active advertisements using the one or more of the search terms to produce one or more matched advertisements; and send at least one of the matched advertisements to a second computer system, wherein the sent advertisements are displayable on the second computer system in response to the query and include at least a first advertisement advertising a website associated with a first of the two or more providers. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17)
-
Specification