INTELLIGENT AGENTS FOR ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

• US 20080097872A1
• Filed: 12/14/2007
• Published: 04/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/17/1996
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tumbleweed Holdings LLC (Equitable IP Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Paradox Technical Solutions LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Peckover, Douglas
• Granted Patent: US 7,865,404 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.43
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0202 Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0215 Including financial accounts
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0236 Incentive or reward received by requiring registration or ID from user
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0239 Online discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0246 Traffic
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0615 Anonymizing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0617 Representative agent
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

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.

Claims

1. A computer network agent system for providing communication between an anonymous potential consumer of products which can be goods or services and a provider of such products, comprising in combination:

a consumer personal agent for receiving product queries from the potential consumer and transmitting product recommendations to the potential consumer;

a decision agent for receiving anonymous product queries from the consumer personal agent and transmitting product recommendations to the consumer personal agent;

a provider personal agent for receiving demand queries from the provider and transmitting quantified demand information to the provider;

a demand agent for receiving demand queries from the provider personal agent and transmitting quantified demand information to the provider personal agent; and

a market for gathering information from the agents, organizing the information and distributing organized information to the agents.

2-57. -57. (canceled)