Systems and methods to facilitate transactions

• US 8,682,732 B2
• Filed: 06/06/2013
• Issued: 03/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Poon, Alex Dai-Shun, Leahy, Scott, Wilson, Michael K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Trammell, James
• Assistant Examiner(s): Malhotra, Sanjeev
• Application Number:
  US13/911,655
• Publication Number:
  US 20130268386A1
• Time in Patent Office: 292 Days
• Field of Search: 705/37, 482/8, 707/3, 704/277, 370/395.1
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0619 Neutral agent
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

Systems and methods to facilitate programmatic access to a network-based commerce facility via a network are described. In some embodiments, a method includes receiving a request from a third party application via the network at the network based commerce facility. The request performs an action pertaining to electronic commerce and being one of a plurality of requests recognized by the network-based commerce facility. In responsive to the request, the method performs the action pertaining to the electronic commerce and communicates from a result of the action from the network-based commerce facility to the third party application in a programmatically accessible format.

Claims

1. A method to facilitate programmatic access to a network-based commerce facility via a network, the method comprising:

receiving a request from one of one or more third-party applications via a programmatic access application, the request being based on communication between at least one of a plurality of users and the respective third-party application, the request generating a call function to perform an action pertaining to electronic commerce to allow one or more indirect transactions between the network-based commerce facility and the at least one of the plurality of users via the respective third-party application; and

responsive to the request, performing one or more actions pertaining to electronic commerce, and communicating via the programmatic access application one or more results of the one or more actions to the respective third-party application in a programmatically accessible format, wherein with each call function, a session certificate uniquely identifying the associated third-party application is provided, and a determination is made as to whether the associated third-party application is authorized to use the call function based on the session certificate.

2. A method as in claim 1, wherein the one or more actions pertaining to the electronic commerce include any one of registering as a user, selling, trading, buying, obtaining information, submitting information, updating submitted information, and accessing a user profile on the network-based commerce facility.

3. A method as in claim 1, wherein the electronic commerce includes auction transactions occurring on the network-based commerce facility.

4. A method as in claim 1, wherein the one or more actions include one or more of:

listing an item for sale;

re-listing an item for sale;

changing an item attribute of an item for sale;

checking for errors in a listing of an item for sale;

listing auction fees for an item;

obtaining information about an item;

obtaining a listing of items listed in a particular category;

searching for items;

listing all items a particular user is selling;

listing all items a particular user has bid on;

obtaining a list of high bidders for an auction;

obtaining information about a user;

obtaining the feedback scores for a user;

registering feedback about a user;

obtaining a URL associated with a logo of the network-based commerce facility;

obtaining an official time of the network-based commerce facility;

activating a test user;

retrieving custom categories;

retrieving account information of a user; and

adding text to a description field for an item.

5. A method as in claim 1, wherein the request is a call function to interact with a database of the network-based commerce facility.

6. A method as in claim 5, wherein the call function includes one or more of:

registering as a user, selling, trading, buying, obtaining information, submitting information, updating submitted information, and accessing a user profile on the network-based commerce facility.

7. A method as in claim 5, wherein the call function performs one or more of:

listing an item for sale;

re-listing an item for sale;

changing an item attribute of an item for sale;

checking for errors in a listing of an item for sale;

listing auction fees for an item;

obtaining information about an item;

obtaining a listing of items listed in a particular category;

searching for items;

listing all items a particular user is selling;

listing all items a particular user has bid on;

obtaining a list of high bidders for an auction;

obtaining information about a user;

obtaining the feedback scores for a user;

registering feedback about a user;

obtaining a URL associated with a logo of the network-based commerce facility;

obtaining an official time of the network-based commerce facility;

activating a test user;

retrieving custom categories;

retrieving account information of a user; and

adding text to a description field for an item.

8. A method as in claim 1, wherein the one or more results include information to be interpreted by an interpreter and to be arranged into a customized user interface.

9. A method as in claim 8, wherein the customized user interface provides specialized operations designed for specific business needs.

10. A method as in claim 8, wherein the one or more results are parsed to extract raw data.

11. A method as in claim 9, wherein an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) parser parses the one or more results, at least one of the results being an XML document.

12. A method as in claim 1, wherein the programmatically accessible format is an XML format.

13. A method as in claim 1, wherein the one or more results are transmitted from the network-based commerce facility to the third-party application in the programmatically accessible format.

14. A method as in claim 13, wherein the programmatically accessible format is an XML specification having customized tags.

15. A computer readable non-transitory medium comprising instructions, which when executed on a processor, cause the processor to facilitate programmatic access to a network-based commerce facility via a network, the instructions performing a method comprising:

receiving a request from one of one or more third-party applications via a programmatic access application, the request being based on communication between at least one of a plurality of users and the respective third-party application, the request generating a call function to perform an action pertaining to electronic commerce to allow one or more indirect transactions between the network-based commerce facility and the at least one of the plurality of users via the respective third-party application; and

responsive to the request, performing one or more actions pertaining to electronic commerce, and communicating via the programmatic access application one or more results of the one or more actions to the respective third-party application in a programmatically accessible format, wherein with each call function, a session certificate uniquely identifying the associated third-party application is provided, and a determination is made as to whether the associated third-party application is authorized to use the call function based on the session certificate.

16. A computer readable non-transitory medium as in claim 15, wherein the one or more results include information to be interpreted and to be arranged into a customized user interface.

17. A computer readable non-transitory medium as in claim 16, wherein the customized user interface provides specialized operations designed for specific business needs.

18. A computer readable non-transitory medium as in claim 15, wherein the one or more results are parsed by an interpreter to extract raw data.

19. A computer readable non-transitory medium as in claim 18, wherein an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) parser parses the one or more results, at least one of the results being an XML document.

20. A computer readable non-transitory medium as in claim 15, wherein the programmatically accessible format is an XML format.

21. A computer readable non-transitory medium as in claim 15, wherein the one or more results are transmitted from the network-based commerce facility to the third-party application in the programmatically accessible format.

22. A computer readable non-transitory medium as in claim 21, wherein the programmatically accessible format is an XML specification having customized tags.

23. A method to facilitate access to a network-based commerce facility, the method comprising:

communicating with a plurality of third-party applications via a programmatic access application to allow indirect transactions between the network-based commerce facility and a plurality of users via the respective third-party applications in a programmatically accessible format, the programmatic access application receiving requests from the third-party application to perform actions pertaining to electronic commerce and being in response to an interaction with the respective third-party application, wherein with each request, a session certificate uniquely identifying the associated third-party application is provided, and a determination is made as to whether the associated third-party application is authorized to use the request based on the session certificate; and

responsive to each request, performing one or more actions pertaining to electronic commerce, and communicating via the programmatic access application one or more results of the one or more actions to the respective third-party application that is associated with each of the plurality of users in a programmatically accessible format.

24. A method as in claim 23, wherein the programmatic access application communicates raw data without any presentation specifications dictating the display of data.

25. A method as in claim 23, wherein at least one of the third-party applications is an independent network-based commerce facility that integrates data received in the programmatically accessible format with proprietary business applications.

26. A method as in claim 23, wherein the one or more actions pertain to an auction and the third-party applications submit requests on behalf of the users via the programmatic interface on the network-based commerce facility.

27. A method as in claim 23, wherein at least one of the third-party applications includes a customized user interface to:

render HTML pages to a user and respond to user requests;

communicate call function requests to the programmatic access application in response to the user requests;

receive raw data from the programmatic access application;

format the raw data into customized pages with display specifications; and

render pages to the user.

28. A method as in claim 23, wherein at least one of the third-party applications is a web-based commerce platform that uses the network-based commerce facility via the programmatic access application to perform auctioning functionality and integrates the one or more results into the web-based commerce platform.

29. A method as in claim 28, wherein the web-based commerce platform integrates the one or more results anonymously so that the user is unaware of a source of a result.

30. A method as in claim 23, wherein at least one of the third-party applications customize the raw data into a format suitable for display on a mobile electronic device.

31. A method as in claim 23, wherein the interaction with the third-party applications is performed using a browser.

32. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform operations comprising:

receiving a request from one of one or more third-party applications via a programmatic access application, the request being based on communication between at least one of a plurality of users and the respective third-party application, the request generating a call function to perform an action pertaining to electronic commerce to allow one or more indirect transactions between the network-based commerce facility and the at least one of the plurality of users via the respective third-party application; and

responsive to the request, performing one or more actions pertaining to electronic commerce, and communicating via the programmatic access application one or more results of the one or more actions to the respective third-party application in a programmatically accessible format, wherein with each call function, a session certificate uniquely identifying the associated third-party application is provided, and a determination is made as to whether the associated third-party application is authorized to use the call function based on the session certificate.