System and Method for Facilitating Bilateral and Multilateral Decision-Making

• US 20100191664A1
• Filed: 04/05/2010
• Published: 07/29/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dalton Sentry LLC
• Original Assignee: DecisionSorter, LLC
• Inventors: Shapiro, Eileen C., Mintz, Steven J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,069,073 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/347
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1053 Employment or hiring
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0203 Market surveys; Market polls
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/2053 Education institution selection, admissions, or financial aid

Abstract

Techniques for facilitating evaluation, in connection with the procurement or delivery of products or services, in a context of at least one of (i) a financial transaction and (ii) operation of an enterprise, are disclosed. The techniques involve retrieving party and counterparty preference data from digital storage media; performing multilateral analyses of the combined preference data by computing a closeness-of-fit value; and delivering a list matching the at least one party and the at least one counterparty using the computed closeness-of-fit values.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for facilitating evaluation, in connection with the procurement or delivery of products or services, in a context of at least one of (i) a financial transaction and (ii) operation of an enterprise, such context involving a first class of parties in a first role and a second class of counterparties in a second role, the method comprising:

in a first computer process, retrieving first preference data from a first digital storage medium, the first preference data including party responses to a series of choices made by at least one of the parties in the first class;

in a second computer process, retrieving second preference data from a second digital storage medium, the second preference data including counterparty responses to a series of choices made by at least one of the counterparties in the second class;

in a third computer process, for a selected party, performing multilateral analyses of the selected party'"'"'s preference data and the preference data of each of the counterparties, by computing a closeness-of-fit value based thereon; and

in a fourth computer process, using the computed closeness-of-fit values to derive and provide a list matching the selected party and at least one of the counterparties.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the list is ranked according to closeness of fit.

3. A method according to claim 1, further comprising receiving co-evaluator responses to a series of choices made by a party co-evaluator or a counterparty co-evaluator, wherein the list matches the at least one party and the at least one counterparty according to a multilateral analysis of preference data determined using such co-evaluator responses.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the party responses reveal, with respect to each level of each of a first series of attributes, a utility value which indicates the value that the party places on the level of the attribute.

5. A method according to claim 4, wherein the party responses reveal the utility values without the utility values being provided explicitly.

6. A method according to claim 4, wherein the counterparty responses reveal, with respect to each level of each of a second series of attributes that complements the first series of attributes, a utility value which indicates the value that the counterparty places on the level of the attribute.

7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the counterparty responses reveal the utility values without the utility values being provided explicitly.

8. A method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the first preference data, second preference data, and the list is obtained from a remote server over a communication network.

9. A method according to claim 1, wherein the party responses and the counterparty responses are provided to a remote server over a communication network.