| AMADEUS S.A.S. Patent applications |
| Patent application number | Title | Published |
|---|
| 20120059802 | METHOD ALLOWING VALIDATION OF LARGE VOLUME OF UPDATES IN A LARGE PRODUCTION DATABASE OF NEW ENTERED DATA PRIOR TO THEIR RELEASE - A method of insuring the integrity of a plurality of updates brought in real-time to a large production database concurrently used by one or more software applications is described. The large production database includes a plurality of products participating to the definition of objects. The method first comprises the step of requesting the issuance of a unique filing number associated to a draft state version of the plurality of updates while keeping them invisible to the end-users of the large production database. Then, a set of product items identified as a whole by the unique filing number and on which the updates applies is created or copied in the large production database and gathered under the form of a meta-product on which the plurality of updates is applied. When updating is complete, the meta-product is successively set into a customizable flow of one or more validation states in order to perform a cross-validation of the plurality of updates. Finally, when validation is complete, the meta-product is set into a production state where the uniquely identified meta-product becomes immediately visible and useable by the end-users of the one or more software applications. | 03-08-2012 |
| 20110276910 | COMPUTER NAVIGATION METHOD - A computer navigation method includes the steps of:
| 11-10-2011 |
| 20110185348 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DEPLOYING NON-BACKWARD COMPATIBLE SERVER VERSIONS IN A CLIENT/SERVER COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT - A method and a system for managing the introduction of a new non-backward compatible version of an application server into a client/server networking, the method includes first distributing to a client system to be served by the new non-backward compatible version of the application server a client application operable in a mode compatible with the current version of the application server and in a mode compatible with the new non-backward compatible version. Upon installation in the client system the client application is set into a downgraded mode compatible with the current version of the application server. While the current version of the application server is still in production, the client application is kept operated in the downgraded mode. Upon introduction of the new non-backward compatible version of the application server, the client application is set into a valid mode compatible with the new version of the application server. From that point on, the client application is operated in the valid mode. | 07-28-2011 |
| 20110137666 | MULTI-TRAVEL AGGREGATOR - A method and a system for aggregating travel solutions from a plurality of travel sources are described which first includes setting up: markets, each made of a pair of geographic criteria with an optional directional indicator; sources of travel solutions per market; baskets of compatible travel sources including provider types and travel product characteristics; and basket rules for grouping baskets per market and product characteristics. Then, upon receiving a travel request including an itinerary and preferences, the basket rule best fitting the travel request is selected; the appropriate baskets for the selected basket rule are identified. After which, for each basket, the sources of travel solutions are determined and travel requests forwarded to each determined source. Responses are aggregated and displayed in a common format; thereby, allowing a transparent comparison of the travel solutions from the plurality of travel providers. | 06-09-2011 |
| 20110099023 | METHOD OF DISPLAYING MARKET DATA WHEN APPLYING A MARK-UP TO NET FARES - A method of applying a mark-up to net fares from agency selling records received by a selling updater is described. Upon request of the selling updater the method includes enabling the display of market data corresponding to the agency selling records. The display of market data includes first requesting a list of city pairs to be built on the basis of default search. The city pairs matching the default search criteria are then retrieved from a fares database and returned to the selling updater. After the selling updater has selected some or all city pairs, a list of net fares is further requested and retrieved from the fares database. Rule records for the retrieved net fares are also retrieved from a rules database. Net fares and rule records are associated and returned to the selling updater to be further associated with each matching item of the agency selling record. The method allows the display of the requested market data and permits the selling updater to decide on what mark-up to apply on the net fare. | 04-28-2011 |
| 20110071864 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SETTLING THE PAYMENT OF A TRAVEL E-TICKET - A system for settling the payment of a travel e-ticket includes: data storage elements for storing passenger name records in a database; elements for identifying passenger name records eligible for a late payment service in the database, each passenger name record being associated to at least one segment, elements for detecting when a predetermined event occurs prior to transportation carrier departure, a server associated to the database and arranged for retrieving therefrom all passenger name records eligible for the late payment service; elements for selecting at least one segment that can be priced for each retrieved passenger name record; elements for pricing the segment; elements for issuing a coupon associated to the segment; elements for updating the database with issuance information concerning the segment; elements for voiding all travel coupons for which no change of coupon status has been reported by an airport departure control system handling the carrier departure; elements for receiving a change of coupon status indicating that the coupon has been used, then triggering a reporting of the segments for which a change of coupon status has been reported by departure control system; elements for settling the payment of coupons for which change of status has been reported on the basis of the prices determined by the pricing elements. | 03-24-2011 |
| 20110029336 | METHOD TO KEEP COHERENT A TRAVEL SHOPPING BASKET - A method of keeping coherent contents of a travel shopping basket gathering travel products from independent travel service providers is described. The method is characterized in that it includes a first step to synchronize the travel shopping basket upon reception of notifications of changes received from the independent travel service providers, and to further determine what changes have been brought to the gathered travel products by the independent travel service providers. It includes a second step to aggregate the changes into the travel shopping basket so that to transform characteristics of the gathered travel products into specific attributes of the travel shopping basket; and to integrate local attributes into the travel shopping basket. Finally, a third step is aimed at correlating all attributes of the travel shopping basket against each other, matching all attributes functionally equivalent and removing duplicated attributes from the travel shopping basket. | 02-03-2011 |
| 20110025692 | DISPLAY OF TRAVEL ROUTES - A method of displaying a graph of nodes adapted to the display of travel routes is described. The method includes the steps of finding a node of highest weight among all nodes of the graph after each node is attributed a weight based on a number of nodes pertaining to a double-tree structure of nodes of which each node is assumed to be the root. Then, the double-tree structure of nodes having the node of highest weight as root is extracted and a layout is computed. If there are remaining nodes left, they are grouped in one or more sub-graphs and a layout of the one or more sub-graphs is iteratively computed. The one or more sub-graphs are then merged with the double-tree structure of nodes to be displayed. | 02-03-2011 |
| 20100299318 | ONLINE TRAVEL RESERVATION SYSTEM AND METHOD DELIVERING RESTRICTION-AWARE TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES - An online reservation system including a fare search engine is described. The system includes a database of published fares, a database of rules attached to the published fares and a fare family solver to categorize the published fares into sets of predefined generic fare families on the basis of the rules attached to the published fares. The fare family solver further includes a generic partitioning fare family database holding the attributes of each predefined generic fare family allowing to determine to which fare family the published fares belong to. The attributes of each predefined generic fare family are first set up by a fare family composer operated by an administrator of the system. | 11-25-2010 |
| 20100223562 | GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR SEARCH REQUEST MANAGEMENT - A computer apparatus for generating a graphical user interface on a display screen, the graphical user interface has:
| 09-02-2010 |
| 20100217628 | INTERLINE REVENUE SHARE OPTIMIZATION METHOD - A carrier's interline revenue share optimization method in which the carrier is involved in several interline multi-segment journeys with other partner carriers. Each of the involved carriers operate at least one segment of the interline multi-segment journeys and each of these journeys is associated with a fare. The interline revenue share optimization method utilizes a computer system and includes the steps of a) receiving and storing in data structured storing elements of the computer system memory, input data that includes a fixed set of tickets including the journey and the associated fare, a fixed set of prorate factors, a fixed set of partner carriers' interline rules, a set of carrier's interline rules, an interline revenue share determining algorithm and an optimization algorithm, b) defining the variables to optimize, c) splitting the fares of the tickets between the carrier and the partner carriers and calculating an objective function as the carrier's interline revenue share, d) optimizing the objective function and obtaining the optimized set of carrier's interline variables by utilizing a processor of the computer system and e) providing via an output device of the computer system the optimized set of carrier's interline variables. | 08-26-2010 |
| 20100211550 | METHOD ALLOWING VALIDATION IN A PRODUCTION DATABASE OF NEW ENTERED DATA PRIOR TO THEIR RELEASE - A method of insuring the integrity of a plurality of updates brought in real-time to a production database concurrently used by one or more software applications is described. The production database includes a plurality of products participating to the definition of objects. The method first includes requesting the issuance of a unique filing number associated to a draft state version of the plurality of updates while keeping them invisible to the end-users of the production database. Then, a set of product items identified as a whole by the unique filing number are created or copied from the production database and gathered under the form of a meta-product on which the plurality of updates is applied. After updating, the meta-product is successively set into a customizable flow of one or more validation states in order to perform a cross-validation of the plurality of updates. After validation, the meta-product is set into a production state where the uniquely identified meta-product becomes immediately visible and useable by the end-users. | 08-19-2010 |
| 20100145740 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DISPLAYING INTERLINING TRAVEL RECOMMENDATIONS - A method for sorting and displaying airline travel recommendations adapted to the display of interlining travel solutions is described. The method is characterized in that it first comprises computing expected airline revenue for each segment operated by a travel carrier involved in the travel recommendation. Then, a weight based on expected airline revenue is determined. This allows sorting the travel recommendations by decreasing order of weights. The interlining travel solutions are displayed accordingly. | 06-10-2010 |
| 20100140399 | METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY MAPPING CABIN AND TRAVEL CLASS STRUCTURES OF AIRLINE DISRUPTED FLIGHTS INTO REPLACEMENT FLIGHTS - In a method for automatically mapping a cabin and travel class structure of an disrupted flight into replacement flights, cabin and travel class structure of the disrupted flight are retrieved. For each affected passenger, a base disrupted flight is determined from the passenger itinerary. For the disruption period, cabin and travel class structure of the replacement flights are split into sub-periods. For each sub-period, mapping begins by establishing a direct match between cabin and travel class structures. The direct match is validated against actual cabin and travel class structure of the replacement flights, including pinpointing all found discrepancies. All class matching tables (CMTs) applying to the disrupted flight and disruption period considered are retrieved from a rule repository. Cabin and travel class structure of the replacement flights are further split in sub-periods to imbed the actual validity periods of retrieved CMTs. Rules of the retrieved CMTs resolve all found discrepancies. | 06-10-2010 |
| 20100131553 | GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM FOR SEARCHING BEST TRAVEL DEALS - A global distribution system (GDS) organized for searching travel deals from a plurality of travel vendor fare databases ( | 05-27-2010 |
| 20100114834 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR STORING AND RETRIEVING INFORMATION - A method of storing and retrieving a utilization data associated to a sensitive information which requires to be secured in an environment including a plurality of application systems that can use the information, includes:
| 05-06-2010 |
| 20100114830 | METHOD OF INTEGRATING IN REAL TIME LARGE VOLUMES OF UPDATES IN A DATABASE - A method of integrating large volumes of updates in a database system is described. Each individual update is comprised of a coherent set of data records supplied by a data provider. The database system includes a master file repository and an active image repository. The method comprises the steps of first obtaining for each individual update a unique modification identifier from a logistic table of the database system. The master file repository is then updated with the coherent set of data records of each uniquely identified individual update. A unique commit identifier is further obtained from the logistic table for each individual update that has been committed by the master file. The active image repository is synchronized by successively loading into the active image, in the order specified by the commit identifier, each individual update. Synchronization includes retrieving from the master file repository the coherent set of data records of each uniquely identified individual update. Finally, completion of the propagation of each individual update into the active image repository is achieved when the loading of each corresponding set of data records is committed by the active image. | 05-06-2010 |
| 20100082504 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SIMULATING AND OPTIMIZING REVENUE FROM SERVICE FEES IN OR RELATING TO ONLINE SERVICE PROCESSES - A method of managing a billing process is provided to optimize or simulate different models in order to reach a predetermined level of a metric associated with the service. The method includes determining an input model to optimize or simulate, determining existing associated models, comparing the existing model and the input model, iterating one or more parameters of the input model in order to achieve the predetermined level of the metric, and determining the iterated input model. | 04-01-2010 |
| 20100082408 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR BUILDING AN OFFER OF OPTIONAL SERVICES FOR A GIVEN SERVICE OR PRODUCT - A method is provided for guaranteeing a set of valid additional services or products to offer to a user, which additional services or products are associated with a main service or product. The method includes building an affinity matrix of a plurality of additional services and products to attribute an affinity level between each additional service or product with at least one other additional service or product based on the association with the main service or product, determining a coherence level between the additional services or products and the main service or products such that an additional service or product can be marked as valid if the coherence level meets a predetermined level, and generating the set of valid additional services or products to offer to the user based on the affinity level and the coherence level. | 04-01-2010 |
| 20100076817 | MANAGEMENT OF E-TICKETS - A method and system is provided for managing a sales quota for the sale of one or more services or products, by an agent for a supplier, to ensure the agent does not surpass a first predetermined limit based on a criterion associated with the sales. The method includes measuring the sales of the service or product by the agent during a first predetermined time period, computing associated statistical indicators from the sales measures, and determining a sales quota for the agent to apply during a second predetermined time period. The sales quota is based on the statistical indicators and one or more airline business rules, to enable management of the sales of the agent without the sales surpassing the first predetermined limit. | 03-25-2010 |
| 20100030591 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RECOMMENDING SIMPLIFIED FARES WITH CONSISTENT BUYACROSS - A system and method of retrieving and displaying travel data receives at a computing apparatus data representing a set of recommended travel itineraries. At least one recommended itinerary has a recommended booking class belonging to a predefined group of booking classes. A computing apparatus identifies a reference booking classes that is associated with the recommended booking class. The apparatus computes a fare value for the recommended itinerary based on a fare value of the associated booking class in the reference group plus a buy-across value. The predefined group may have fewer booking classes than the reference group, and most preferably has a single booking class. | 02-04-2010 |
| 20100010978 | METHOD AND SYSTEM TO SEARCH FOR TRAVEL PRODUCTS - Method of searching for travel products related to trip components of a trip includes building a search request by inputting search criteria for a plurality of trip components in a single search window of a user interface of a user device; sending the search request to an application server for initiating a search process; wherein the search process includes, at the application server, splitting the search request to build sub-requests each related to one single trip component of the trip and sending in parallel each of the sub-requests to at least one provider of travel products related to the trip component of the sub-request. | 01-14-2010 |
| 20100010839 | ONE-WAY LIKE DISPLAY OF ROUNDTRIP FARES - A method of evaluating outbound and inbound fare amounts out of a plurality of roundtrip fare recommendations is disclosed. Intended to be displayed in a one-way like display, roundtrip fares are first obtained from a fare-driven availability engine receiving inputs from an online user of a travel website. Further recommendations are deduced by combining the above roundtrip fare recommendations in order to obtain a first improved list of recommendations which comprises more outbound and inbound fare combinations. Then, one-way fare amounts are determined for each combination from the first improved list of recommendations. A second improved list of recommendations, comprising outbound and inbound fare amounts evaluated on the basis of the initial roundtrip fare recommendations, is generated. Outbound and inbound fare amounts can thus be shown in a one-way like display of roundtrip fares to the online user of the travel website. | 01-14-2010 |
| 20090319305 | AUTOMATED SERVICE FEES ASSESSMENT METHODS AND SYSTEM - A computer travel system and methods for assessing travel service fees are described. System of the invention communicates, on one end, with a travel agent from a travel front office and, on the other end, with a system administrator who manages a price scheme database containing unitary fees and rules. Travel agent creates and modifies PNRs (passenger name records) from which service fees are assessed by a fee calculator. Fee calculator interfaces with the price scheme database to obtain unitary fees and rules to apply to get PNR service fees. | 12-24-2009 |
| 20090307020 | SYSTEMS AND METHOD OF MANAGING AN INVENTORY OF SERVICE RESOURCES - In a method of managing an inventory of service resources, a plurality of criteria characterize service resources. The inventory of service resources is divided, based on the criteria, into plural elements, each comprising an exclusive subset of the service resources sharing common criteria. A plurality of groups is also created. Groups aggregate those of the elements that have at least one common criterion value. Groups and elements are offered for sale by the service provider. Elements belong in general to several groups. Service resources are, e.g., travel service or leisure resources such as airplane seats and hotel rooms. Customers or travel agents book in an element or in a group. The invention allows maximizing inventory availability while bookings are done by customers, on the basis of a specific request (in an element) or a more indefinite request (in a group). A specific inventory item is attributed later, i.e., at check-in. | 12-10-2009 |
| 20090287629 | Assignments of places - A method of assigning a place to a customer, including the steps of: determining a set of business rules associated with the provision of the place to the customer; determining a set of available places, the or each of the set of available places having one or more attributes; determining one or more customer preferences in respect of the one or more attributes; applying the business rules to define a set of allowed combinations of place and customer; determining a score in relation to the set of allowed combinations of place and customer; selecting the highest scoring allowed combination from the set of allowed combination of place and customer; and assigning the place to the customer based on the highest scoring allowed combination. | 11-19-2009 |
| 20090287518 | Inventory control and optimization - A method of revenue management of an inventory of items in order to optimize the availability of one or several item(s) requested by a user, method comprising the steps of calculating an online estimate of a first element associated with the request; calculating an online estimate of a second element associated with the request; comparing the estimate of the first and second element to determine whether or not requested items can be granted to the requestor. The optimized calculations take place in real time and are handled by a single on-line system that does not need to rely on uploads of recommendations from an external off-line optimization system. | 11-19-2009 |
| 20090216568 | GUARANTEED REVENUE AT ELECTRONIC TICKET ISSUANCE AND MODIFICATION - The invention relates to a method for automatically checking revenue in connection with transportation ticket purchases such as airline tickets. A request for issuance or follow-up processing of the ticket is received at an E-ticket server, said request comprising the fare data of the journey. A real time check is then performed so that a fare check status of at least some of the data of the fare data of the ticket is returned. | 08-27-2009 |
| 20090076862 | AUTOMATED SPLIT TICKETING - An enhanced travel search tool aimed at providing travel opportunities includes a ticket splitter operating from a list of flight connections provided by a front-end flight search engine. The ticket splitter comprises a unit for valuating all ticket partitions generated from the provided list of connection flights and a tree of split criteria updated in a cache for determining the partitions and attributing to each partition a probability value of obtaining a split-ticket solution. The ticket splitter also includes a unit for selecting those of the valuated partitions that have a probability value higher than a defined threshold and provides a sorted list of recommended partitions to a back-end fare search engine to price all the selected partitions including a reference single-ticket solution. Travel search tool offering of travel opportunities is enhanced by automatically including multi-ticket travel solutions. | 03-19-2009 |
| 20090063220 | AGREEMENT METHOD AND SYSTEM TO CONSENT TO A PRORATED VALUE OF COUPON OF AN INTERLINE E-TICKET - An enhanced agreement method and system to consent to a prorated value of a coupon of an E-ticket corresponding to a multi-segment transport involving at least two carriers for the transportation. | 03-05-2009 |
| 20090063219 | REVENUE MONITORING METHOD AND SYSTEM, IN PARTICULAR FOR AIRLINE COMPANIES - The invention relates to a method for building a revenue database of an airline company comprising revenue information for all electronic tickets involving the airline, wherein said method includes the steps of:
| 03-05-2009 |
| 20090031207 | Dynamic Method for the Visual Rendering of Data Display and Input Windows on a Computer Screen - The invention concerns a method for visual rendering of data display and input windows on a computer screen. The windows are opened with a browser by a remote Web site user. In response to a request emitted by the user's browser the site returns thereto, via the network whereon they are connected, a generic form of the requested page not including any pre-positioning information. The browser, during a brief display of the generic form of the page, captures the dimensions of the displayed elements, calculates new display widths and redimensions the elements. Thereafter, the browser displays permanently the page whereof the elements have been adjusted to obtain a good visual rendering. The generic form of the page can therefore be defined independently of the user's display means and in particular does not require using a table for positioning the elements to be displayed. | 01-29-2009 |
| 20090024472 | Method and system for generating and controlling the distribution and use of personal promotion codes by targeted customers - A method and a system for generating personal promotion codes from the computing resources of a provider of services are described. Internal promotion codes including a family ID field and a serial ID field comprised of alphanumeric characters are first generated. The internal promotion codes are then encoded into a corresponding series of external promotion codes also comprised of alphanumeric characters, which render the internal promotion codes unintelligible. After which the series of external promotion codes is packed into an encrypted file which is forwarded to a client application of the provider of services to have the external promotion codes distributed to its customers. The external promotion codes later submitted to the client application by the customers are further validated by the provider of services. | 01-22-2009 |
| 20090007009 | User Customizable Drop-Down Control List for Gui Software Applications - An extended computer graphic user interface (GUI) component includes a drop-down list of currently selected items displayed after a selection icon is clicked in a conventional manner. The drop-down list includes an input liner used to enter a new item to be added to the list of currently selected items, and a second selection icon that displays when any item of the list of currently selected items is highlighted while the cursor is moved over it. The second selection icon causes a pop-up menu of options to display if clicked in a conventional manner. The pop-up menu is aimed at further customizing the extended GUI component. Options of the pop-up menu include the possibilities of deleting an item, choosing an item to become a default item and restoring an initial list of items. The selection of the pop-up menu is alternatively obtained in right-clicking over the highlighted item. | 01-01-2009 |
| 20080319946 | Method and system for searching availability of an entity for purchase or reservation - A method of searching for availability of an entity for purchase or reservation. The method comprises the steps of searching for an entity matching a search criterion to obtain a list of entities, wherein the or each entity comprises a parameter having a predetermined availability; automatically searching for one or more available parameters associated with the or each entity at substantially the same time; incrementally generating a list of each entity and one or more available parameters associated therewith to generate a list of entity and available parameters as the automatic search provides one or more results, and displaying the list as it is generated for selection by a user of a predetermined combination of entity and parameter. | 12-25-2008 |
| 20080319945 | Method and system for improving a reservation or a purchase process of an entity - Method of searching for availability of an entity for purchase or reservation. The method comprises the steps of searching for an entity matching a search criteria to obtain a list of entities, wherein the or each entity comprises a parameter having a predetermined availability; automatically searching for one or more available parameters associated with the or each entity; generating a list of each entity and one or more available parameters associated therewith to generate a list of entity and available parameters; displaying the list of entity and available parameters of the or each entity for selection by a user of an appropriate combination of entity and parameter; filtering the list of entity and available parameters in order to remove one or more combination of entity and parameter; and displaying a modified list of entity and available parameter. | 12-25-2008 |
| 20080319866 | METHOD AND SYSTEM TO HAND OVER AN ONLINE TRANSACTION TO A HELP DESK ASSISTANT - A method of providing assistance to an end-user of an online software application running from a web server. While the end-user and the web server communicate through at least one data network, during a web session initiated by the end-user from a client software application, the online software application provides a manner of requesting assistance from a help desk on at least one of the web page returned to the client application. When the end-user activates the manner of requesting assistance he/she obtains from the server of the online software application a keyword associated to the web session. End-user further obtains at least one telephone number of the help desk to call. When the end-user is calling the help desk through a telephone network the keyword is communicated to an assistant. After the assistant has successfully logged in to the web server the web session initiated by the end-user is shared with the assistant. Then, a transaction in progress with the online software application can be handed over to the assistant who will complete it on behalf of the end-user. | 12-25-2008 |
| 20080319803 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR BOOKING TRAVEL PRODUCTS ONLINE ON THE BASIS OF UP-TO-DATE AVAILABILITY DATA DISPLAYED ON A MAP-BASED CLIENT INTERFACE - A method for booking or checking or saving travel products from a travel service provider operating over a network and having at least one server running a travel application delivering map-based interface web pages to at least one client applications, the method, includes:
| 12-25-2008 |
| 20080319649 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INTEGRATING AND DISPLAYING TRAVEL ADVICES GATHERED FROM A PLURALITY OF RELIABLE SOURCES - A computerized travel system and a method for providing advices and warnings per travel destination to end-users. The system has a client service module for receiving queries from the end-users, and delivering to them merged reports of travel advices and warnings for the queried travel destinations. A download and parsing module parses travel raw documents, downloaded from a plurality of online reliable travel sources, into cleaned raw documents sharing a common formatting structure including sections, sections headers and paragraphs. An algorithmic module integrates the cleaned raw documents into the merged reports of travel advices and warnings per travel destination. The integration is performed from a base document chosen among all the relevant clean raw documents for each queried travel destination. Comparable sections are determined on the basis of contents of their section headers and semantically close paragraphs are placed next to each other in corresponding sections of merged reports. | 12-25-2008 |
| 20080301122 | Searching techniques - A method of online searching for a service or product, the method comprising: obtaining a first search request from a user, the first search request including a set of search criteria; storing the set of search criteria at a predetermined location; searching for a service or product which matches the set of search criteria; generating a first set of recommendations of a service or product which matches the set of search criteria for communication to the user; storing the first set of recommendations; generating a second request to change the range of one or more of the set of search criteria of the first search request in a predetermined manner; retrieving the set of search criteria from the predetermined location to form the basis of the search criteria for the second request; changing the or each search criteria of the set of search criteria in said predetermined manner to form an changed set of search criteria; searching for a service or product which matches the changed set of search criteria; generating a second set of recommendations of the service or product which matches the changed search criteria for communication to the user; concatenating the first set of recommendations with the second set of recommendations to form a concatenated set of recommendations having a predetermined result profile. | 12-04-2008 |
| 20080300926 | Method and system for allowing user check-in - A method for changing the state of a pre-booked ticket from a first booked-state to a second check-in state, wherein the method includes a mobile device communicating through an IM communication system with a check-in desk service. The mobile device also comprises an identification instrument for a user, said check-in desk service having access to the pre-booked ticket. The method comprises the steps of connecting the mobile device to an appropriate network in order to communicate with the check-in desk, sending the identification instrument through the IM communication system to the check-in desk in order to access to the pre-booked ticket, requesting to change the pre-booked ticket state from booked to check-in and receiving an electronic boarding pass on the mobile device to access to a boarding gate. | 12-04-2008 |
| 20080288302 | Method and system for automatically keeping travel data consistent between passenger reservation records and corresponding electronic tickets - A method and a system keeps travel data consistent between a database of airline reservations storing passenger name records (PNR's) including travel segments, and a database of electronic tickets (E-tickets) including travel coupons, this latter database being independently controlled from a ticketing server. Whenever a travel segment is updated or added in one of the PNR's an electronic reconciliation service (ERS) receives images of updated PNR's. Corresponding E-ticket images are requested by ERS and received from the database of E-tickets. Then, ERS establishes a matrix of links between orphan PNR travel segments and orphan E-ticket travel coupons so that E-ticket orphan travel coupons are re-associated with matching PNR orphan travel segments. After E-ticket is updated it is revalidated or reissued. Optionally, a penalty generator calculates penalty fees on the basis of changes brought to the revalidated or reissued E-tickets. The penalty fees are then attached to the updated PNR's. | 11-20-2008 |
| 20080270254 | Method and System of Building Actual Travel Fares - A method of building actual travel fares in a computer, from fare databases, is disclosed. A graph of nodes representing travel destinations is built which comprises edges connecting pairs of nodes. Each edge references a lowest travel fare. Also, a tree of fares is built for each graph edge. Trees comprise at least a root node holding the lowest travel fare of the corresponding graph edge. They possibly include more nodes comprising a context key and an associated travel fare. Trees are organized to have children nodes holding a travel fare equal to or larger than travel fare of a parent node. Thus, less expensive fare paths can efficiently be extracted since graph edges, included in the fare paths, reference the associated trees of fares and are gone through in ascending order of their lowest fare values. A learning entity is used to build and update the trees of fares. | 10-30-2008 |
| 20080252910 | Method and apparatus for managing printing solutions in a local area network - A method of managing printing in an environment with a plurality of workstations and a plurality of printers in one or more networks. Each workstation has a unique ID and each printer has a type and a configuration which is dependent on the unique ID. One or more of the printers is connected to a one of the plurality of workstations. The network also includes a document server and a identification generator. The network polls a workstation when it connects to the network to determine what printers are connected thereto;
| 10-16-2008 |
| 20080235292 | System and Method to Maintain Coherence of Cache Contents in a Multi-Tier System Aimed at Interfacing Large Databases - A method and a system for maintaining coherence of cache contents in a multi-tiered architecture of servers are described. This includes a front tier of satellite servers, each operating a local cache, and a middle tier of central servers each operating a central cache. Central servers interface with databases through database servers to retrieve the data elements used to construct objects and store them in central caches. Once constructed, objects are attributed a time-to-live (TTL) and stored in central caches then, forwarded to the satellite servers where they are stored in local caches before being delivered to the software applications that have requested them. They are invalidated when outdated and reconstructed from a central server from where they are forwarded to all central caches and to the local caches where they are needed. | 09-25-2008 |
| 20080208643 | Follow your stars - A system and methods for providing comprehensive travel package to attend an event out of a series of scheduled events are disclosed. The system comprises a server engine having means for gathering all sorts of online travel related information from a plurality of specialized websites. It includes means for storing the gathered travel information. A travel time durations and costs calculator operates from the gathered travel information in order to dynamically build the comprehensive travel packages. Sets of comprehensive travel packages are then delivered to a plurality of client websites in response to the submission by their end-users of queries to attend events out of series of scheduled events. End-user queries include home locations along with further preferences that are used to dynamically build the corresponding set of comprehensive travel packages. The most appropriate event date and location is thus selected allowing to deliver the best travel package for the specified end-user home location. Preferences include minimizing overall trip elapsed times, minimizing overall trip costs and excluding some transportation means. The invention also applies to the organization of professional meetings and for socializing websites to restrict selection of people to meet only to those fitting in a cost or time metric. | 08-28-2008 |
