01st week of 2009 patent applcation highlights part 62 |
Patent application number | Title | Published |
20090006114 | Multi-channel commerce-related data management - An approach to commerce-related data management is described that allows multiple heterogeneous enterprise application systems to utilize a centralized data store for managing and storing data generated and/or used by the enterprise application systems. One implementation of the commerce-related data management system includes a data store, business logic and Web services logic. The data store stores commerce-related data. The business logic is configured to access the commerce-related data stored in the data store. The Web services logic is configured to receive service requests transmitted by multiple heterogeneous enterprise application systems over a network. The business logic is further configured to perform one or more operations upon the commerce-related data stored in the data store responsive to receipt of the service requests by the Web services logic. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006115 | Establishing and updating reputation scores in online participatory systems - The establishment and adjustment of the reputation score of a party in an online transaction system is described. A party may provide consideration to a transaction portal. In response, the transaction portal may increase (or initially establish) a reputation score for the party based upon the consideration. The portal may return to the party at least a portion of the consideration in response to a favorable event. The portal may decrease the score based upon factors such as the value of transactions weighted by user ratings. The transaction portal may also increase the score based upon a function of commissions made in transactions involving the party. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006116 | FEATURE MANAGEMENT OF A COMMUNICATION DEVICE - A system and method for the real-time management of a device, and more particularly to the establishment and enforcement of policies or rules associated with the feature or functions that may be performed with the device. Modern communication devices are capable of many things, including making and receiving calls, exchanging data, playing games and music, sending and receiving email, accessing web sites, and paying for goods and services. Depending on who is using the communication device, such as a child or an employee, there may be a need or desire to regulate how that communication device can be used and to determine who will pay for what goods or services. In addition to providing all of the features associated with a device, service providers need to be able to establish and enforce rules (policies) regulating how and when that device can be used and who will pay for a good or service requested by the user of the device. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006117 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR WARRANTING AGAINST PROPERTY INSPECTION CONTINGENCIES - The invention herein provides a warranty that indemnifies or offsets against the financial risk that a property inspection will reveal a defect that cannot or will not be rehabilitated by a seller, causing a contract contingent on a satisfactory property condition to result in the termination of a contract for the sale of the property. More particularly, the invention includes identifying a property for sale having an associated risk of a defect; recording a contract for sale having an inspection contingency; generating a warranty contract that accounts for the risk of not satisfying the contingency. The invention further include generating statistics from a population of contracts having been voided for failing to meet an inspection contingency; pricing and binding a warranty contract covering one of a prospective buyer or a seller according to a contractual interest in the property for sale and the statistics. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006118 | System and method for providing competitive pricing for automobiles - A preferred embodiment of the invention includes a method and system to provide a competitive pricing tool so that automobile dealers can more efficiently and effectively price their used vehicles. The system achieves the optimal sales price by obtaining the relevant pricing and mileage of vehicles for sale that are similarly situated to the focus vehicle. Once the information is obtained, the system creates a value ranking for each of the vehicles for sale and for the focus vehicle. The user is then able to revise the focus vehicle pricing to determine the optimal sales price. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006119 | WEBSITE AFFILIATION ANALYSIS METHOD AND SYSTEM - A system, method and apparatus for determining an affiliation of visitors to a web-site under scrutiny is disclosed, having a log analyzer, a filter updater, and optionally, one or more affiliation lookup modules and a report creator. The log analyzer accepts and processes log data information relating to visitor traffic at the web-site under scrutiny, such as may be compiled by a conventional web data logger. The log analyzer subjects each log data entry to a series of cascading stakeholder filters, each of which may contain certain constituent filter criteria. If one of the criteria is satisfied by the log data entry, the entry is affiliated or associated with the corresponding stakeholder and stored in a database in association with such stakeholder. If the log data entry is not affiliated with any of the stakeholder filters, it is relegated to a remainder bin for processing by the filter updater. The filter updater attempts to generate filter criteria to trap the log data entry and stores such criteria in one of the stakeholder filters. The choice of stakeholder filter is governed by an affiliation identification exercise which may involve invocation of one or more of the affiliation lookup modules. Preferably, the affiliation identification exercise is facilitated by identification of a domain name corresponding to the IP address maintained in the log data entry. Preferably, the filter updating process operates in parallel with the processing of the log data entries. Further, advantageously, affiliation identification exercises in a first system may provide assistance in affiliation identification in a second system by cross-pollination. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006120 | Social and/or Business Relations Icebreaker: the use of communication hardware and/or software to safely communicate desires to further advance relations without the fear of being rejected and/or unnecessarily revealing information and/or intentions. - Even in this Web 2.0 era, social networking channels fail to address an essential issue; that is the fear of being rejected. Likewise, business relations suffer from the flood of spam emails and junk mails. The lack of safe and quality exchange of information has hindered the progress of positive business relations. This invention involves a new use of currently available web and communication technologies. New inventions we commonly see try to build up methodologies to increase the quality of information about members in a social network. They try to locate members of the like interest real time using global positioning technologies. All these efforts try to expand relations to the unknown world, getting to know people they have never interacted before. My invention targets on people you have seen or acquainted with, or companies you know. Based on the knowledge you have with certain people or companies of interest (“prospects”), this invention provides a safe environment for advancing social and/or business relations. A networked database is being used to facilitate the process. A member's intention to advance relation with a prospect (also one of the network members) will be disclosed to such prospect only when such prospect also intends to advance relation with the member; and only when certain criteria and/or expectations predefined by members are met. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006121 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR WEB BASED AUTOMATIC LETTER WRITING - A computer implemented correspondence writing and delivery service is disclosed. In one embodiment, the service allows a user, who is a subscriber to the service, to log on to a web site and generate portions of a letter, such as the body. The service then presents a number of potential recipients for the letter, such as, in one form, a listing of elected officials from the user's identified voting district. The user selects one or more recipients and a unique letter is generated for each, including their office address. According to one form, each unique letter is printed following creation in a customized fashion and dispatched for delivery to the recipient's address via a delivery method. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006122 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CREATING A COST-EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT RETAIL ELECTRIC POWER EXCHANGE/ENERGY SERVICE PROVIDER LOAD OPTIMIZATION EXCHANGE AND NETWORK THEREFOR - An electric power exchange network includes a series of computerized exchange nodes that provide communications between suppliers and purchasers or users of electric power. Search engines enable suppliers to obtain information, such as load characteristics, from users in the network to allow the supplier to effectively merge or combine its existing loads with those of certain users, whereby a more efficient trading of electric power among members of the exchange network can be achieved. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006123 | Electronic Commerce Transaction Audit System, Electronic Commerce Transaction Audit Method, and Storage Medium Recording Electronic Commerce Transaction Audit Program Thereon - The present invention comprises agent for gathering transaction log means for automatically collecting all exchange messages notarized and recorded depressively by a plurality of electronic notarize means in connection with the electronic commerce transaction so as to reproduce them as an event of the entire wide network area, agent for gathering protocol standards means for automatically collecting protocols of the specifications on the electronic commerce transaction, whereby correctly grasping an event to be generated in the entire wide network area, and a log analysis engine for comparing the event of the entire wide network area reproduced by the agent for gathering transaction log means with the event to be generated in the entire wide network area grasped by the agent for gathering protocol standards means, whereby carrying out an objective audit. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006124 | Method and System Providing Advice and Services to Consumers - The present invention provides a method and system for providing advice and/or services to a consumer including the secure electronic storage of rich private personal data preferably held in trust for and on behalf of a natural person or nominated business or corporate entities. The system provides the applications, processes, controls and data management services to collect from various sources, transfer, store and selectively retrieve data necessary to perform a range of specified planning and decision support activities or events, for which specific applications have been integrated with the secure data store for these purposes. The invention provides for the data owner and authorised persons such as advice and service providers to gain authenticated access to accessible data to undertake permitted tasks. These tasks may include receiving data or record views, or undertaking planning or decision support strategies, or such other tasks as are prescribed. In an embodiment, the system limits access to applications to approved authorised persons and requires specific permissions from the owner in order to manage data privacy standards. The system allows the owner to provide and revoke access permissions to applications and tracks and records all access events. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006125 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMPLEMENTING DIGITAL VIDEO MODELING TO GENERATE AN OPTIMAL HEALTHCARE DELIVERY MODEL - A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for generating an optimal healthcare delivery model. The process parses event data derived from video data to identify patterns of events, wherein the event data comprises metadata describing events associated with a medical care facility. The process then identifies a subset of patterns of events from the patterns of events that achieves a target outcome to form a set of optimized patterns of events. The process generates an optimized healthcare delivery strategy using the set of optimized patterns of events to form the optimized healthcare delivery model for the medical care facility. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006126 | Prescription transmission system and method - A system and method for processing a prescription wherein the prescription may be transmitted to a selected pharmacy from a remote location situated remote from the selected pharmacy is provided. A prescription is described by either a new prescription dataset entered on a prescription form or a refill prescription dataset. A client uses a client computing device situated in the remote location to select the selected pharmacy and to transmit the prescription dataset thereto. The client may then later attend at the selected pharmacy to retrieve the prescription. Prescription datasets may be transmitted to the selected pharmacy either electronically or verbally using client telephony device connected to the client computing device, and preferably housed therewith, in the remote location. A client scanner device may be used for converting new prescription forms for new prescription into scanned images thereof for electronic transfer to the selected pharmacy. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006127 | Personalized nutrition advisor - The instant invention describes various computer program products and methods of using the same in order to provide personalized nutritional advice to end users. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006128 | Life sciences business systems and methods - Improved life sciences business systems and methods are disclosed. One or more genomes are scanned for single nucleotide polymorphisms. The polymorphisms are used in association studies for pharmaceutical and diagnostic developments. In certain embodiments, an association study comprises both genotyping of these polymorphisms and resequencing of genomic regions that contain polymorphisms associated with a phenotypic state of interest. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006129 | Medical Diagnosis, Therapy, And Prognosis System For Invoked Events And Methods Thereof - A diagnosis, therapy and prognosis system (DTPS) and method thereof to help either the healthcare provider or the patient in diagnosing, treating and interpreting data are disclosed. The apparatus provides data collection based on protocols, and mechanism for testing data integrity and accuracy. The data is then driven through an analysis engine to characterize in a quantitative sense the metabolic state of the patient's body. The characterization is then used in diagnosing the patient, determining therapy, evaluating algorithm strategies and offering prognosis of potential use case scenarios. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006130 | SYSTEM, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPARING INJURY RISK ASSESSMENTS - A method of calculating a relative indicator of injury risk for a group of individuals, where injury risk is assessed across at least one risk category associated with an injury risk factor, the method being characterised by the steps of; receiving a plurality of risk values, where a single risk value is received for each individual of the group for each risk category considered, calculating a risk ratio for each possible risk value available for each risk category considered using the received risk values, calculating a category metric for each risk category considered using the risk ratios of each risk category, and calculating a relative indicator of injury risk for the group using a linear combination of the calculated category metrics. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006131 | Electronic medical record-influenced data acquisition, processing, and display system and method - The acquisition, reconstruction, processing, analysis, display and visualization of imaging data in a medical diagnostic context is influenced by information stored in an electronic medical record. The electronic medical record may include past imaging information, as well as parameter settings, protocol identifications, and any other information extracted from the previous imaging data or derived from that data. The EMR may also include non-imaging data, such as clinical data, and results of various examinations performed of a non-imaging type. Based upon the information in the electronic medical record, recommendations of future imaging may be made, as well as recommendations of protocols, and techniques for acquisition, reconstruction, processing, analysis, display and visualization. The information in the EMR may be used directly for setting imaging system parameters in future imaging acquisition and post-acquisition processing. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006132 | Patient-specific electronic medical record and method for making same - A patient-specific electronic medical record may include past imaging information, as well as parameter settings, protocol identifications, and any other information extracted from the previous imaging data or derived from such data. The EMR may also include non-imaging data, such as clinical data, and results of various examinations performed of a non-imaging type. The electronic medical record may be used for a range or purposes, such as diagnosing patient conditions, recommending treatments, recognition of at-risk patients for pre-emptive and reactive care, and so forth. Moreover, the information in the EMR may be used directly for setting imaging system parameters in future imaging acquisition and post-acquisition processing. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006133 | PATIENT INFORMATION INPUT INTERFACE FOR A THERAPY SYSTEM - A patient interface for a therapy system allows a patient to input information that characterizes at least one patient event or condition and from which therapy information can be determined. The patient interface may illustratively be formed by developing a patient model that is configured to simulate the patient's physiological response to the at least one patient event or condition, collecting patient-specific information over time that relates to actual occurrences of the at least one patient event or condition, and defining a graphical interface, based on the patient model and on the collected patient-specific information, that maps input from the patient of the information that characterizes the at least one patient event or condition to corresponding therapy information. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006134 | Referencing of patient-related information in a distributed medical system - A method, a system and a computer program product are disclosed for referencing medical electronically available patient-related data records which are stored in a distributed manner in a computer-based network, including a multiplicity of computer-based entities. In at least one embodiment, a request for patient-related data records is generated on the basis of an original identifier and is sent to an index server. By accessing a table, the index server checks whether entries or data records are stored for the respective patient in the respective repository. If so, it inserts this reference to the storage location into the result. The request is forwarded from index server to index server until all index servers have been processed, so that the end result can be forwarded to the requesting workstation with all references to requested patient-related data records. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006135 | Accelerated Payments for Health Care Plans - A method for accelerating a payment to a merchant for a healthcare related claim. The method comprises submitting a healthcare related claim for payment from the merchant to a payer; determining at the payer whether the member is eligible for services covered as a part of his or her healthcare plan. If the member is determined to be eligible for payment of claim(s) submitted, then a financial institution is notified of an estimated amount of liability for the claim. At least a portion of the estimated amount of liability for the claim is paid to the merchant by the financial institution. The financial institution thereafter receives a reimbursement/payment from a healthcare finding source for the adjudicated amount of liability for the claim. Once the claim is adjudicated, a healthcare management system reconciles with the merchant for any under or over payment. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006136 | System and method for insuring against property inspection contingencies - The invention herein provides indemnity insurance that insures against the risk that a property inspection will reveal a defect that cannot be rehabilitated, causing a contract contingent on a satisfactory property condition to result in the termination of a contract for the sale of the property. More particularly the invention includes identifying a property for sale having an associated risk of a defect; recording a contract for sale having an inspection contingency; generating an insurance policy that accounts for the risk of not satisfying the contingency. The invention further includes generating actuarial statistics from a population of contracts having been voided for failing to meet an inspection contingency; underwriting and binding an insurance policy indemnifying one of a prospective buyer or a seller according to an insurable interest in the property for sale and the actuarial statistics. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006137 | Claims processing hierarchy for designee - Methods and systems are provided for processing claims. A hierarchy is created including a claim management case level and a policy level. The claim management case level includes a claim management case node. The claim management case node relates to a designee under a first insurance policy. The policy level includes one or more policy nodes. Each of the policy nodes is associated with an insurance policy relating to the designee. At least one process for the claim management case is performed at the claim management case level. The process applies to at least one insurance policy relating to the designee. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006138 | Multiple policy claims processing - Methods and systems are provided for processing claims. A claim management case is created for an insured in response to a notice of a claim. One or more insurance policies covering the insured are associated with the claim management case. In some embodiments, all of the insurance policies covering the insured are associated with the claim management case. At least one process relating to the claim management case is performed at a claim management case level. The process performed at the claim management case level applies to at least one of the insurance policies associated with the claim management case. The processes performed at the claim management case level may apply to all the insurance policies associated with the claim management case. One or more processes relating to the claim management case are performed at a policy level. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006139 | Claims processing of information requirements - Methods and systems are provided for processing claims. A claim management case is created for an insured in response to a notice of a claim. One or more insurance policies covering the insured are associated with the claim management case. At least one process is performed at a claim management case level to fulfill an information requirement that applies to at least two of the insurance policies associated with the claim management case. Claims are adjudicated under the one or more of the insurance policies covering the insured. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006140 | Claims processing hierarchy for insured - Methods and systems are provided for processing claims. A hierarchy may be created for claims specific to the insured that includes a claim management case level, a policy level, and a coverage level. The claim management case level may include a claim management case node. The policy level may include one or more policy nodes. Each of the policy nodes may relate to an insurance policy covering the insured. The one or more insurance policies covering the insured are associated with the claim management case. The coverage level may include one or more coverage nodes. Each of the coverage nodes may relate to an insurance coverage covering the insured. Each of the insurance coverages may be associated with one of the insurance policies. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006141 | Method of Reducing Insurance Costs - A computerized method and apparatus are provided for reducing insurance costs for a drug to an insurer. The method includes the steps of determining a price of the drug from a plurality of pharmacies, the consumer purchasing the drug from a selected pharmacy with a lower relative price of the plurality of pharmacies and the consumer paying a co-pay based upon a pre-determined percentage of the price of the drug. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006142 | System and Method for Tracking Spending Based on Reservations and Payments - One embodiment provides a method, that may be implemented on a system for obtaining a schedule of bookings made by a user through an electronic service portal; obtaining a schedule of payment transactions to pay for bookings, the payment transactions comprising one or more of a credit card payment, a cash payment, or a payment via a cash card or debit card; and using the schedule of bookings made via the electronic service portal to identify payment transactions reimbursable to the user from a separate entity and generating an expense report of the reimbursable payment transactions. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006143 | System and Method for Interactive Natural Language Rebooking or Rescheduling of Calendar Activities - One embodiment provides a method, that may be implemented on a system, for receiving from a user a request to reschedule a scheduled itinerary of events, the request received in a natural language format; passing the request through a natural language analyzer; processing results of the natural language analyzer against at least one of a current status of progress into the scheduled itinerary and profile data of the user, the profile comprising previous changes of itineraries and preferences of the user; generating one or more options in response to the user request to modify the scheduled itinerary of events, based on available options and based on the processing of the results of the natural language analyzer against at least one of current scheduled itinerary and profile data of the user; and presenting the one or more options to the user in the natural language format in which the user submitted the request. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006144 | Ticket Use System and Ticket Use Method - A ticket use system having a high safety and a high operability and suited to be put into practical use. In the ticket use system, a strap tag storing first identification information is given to the user. When reservation of a reserved seat is made through a cellular phone, the reservation content is displayed, and a card tag storing second identification information is given to the user. The strap tag and the card tag are used as tickets. When the user registers seat type information through the cellular phone at the reservation and when the seat type information represents a nonreserved seat, the first identification information is stored as ticket authentication information in a ticket DB. When the seat type information represents a reserved seat, the second identification information is stored as ticket authentication information in the ticket DB. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006145 | Booking Advertising Campaigns - Various aspects can be implemented for automated booking of advertising campaigns based on reach and frequency goals In general, one aspect can be a method that includes receiving campaign criteria including target reach and frequency for an advertising campaign. The method also includes allocating advertising spots based on the campaign criteria, and generating projected campaign reach and frequency based, at least in part, on the allocated advertising spots. The method further includes determining whether projected campaign reach and frequency sufficiently match target reach and frequency, and dynamically adjusting the allocation of advertising spots when the projected campaign reach and frequency do not sufficiently match the target reach and frequency. Other implementations of this aspect include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer program products. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006146 | System and Method for Modeling Slow Changing Dimension and Auto Management Using Model Driven Business Performance Management - A system for generating a model for tracking a changing dimension feature of data in a business model includes a memory for storing the business model and a computer readable code for modeling the changes in the changing dimension feature and a processor for executing the computer readable code to perform method steps including capturing the changing dimension feature of the business model, transforming the changing dimension feature into a data warehouse model corresponding the business model, identifying changing dimensions and attributes in the changing dimension feature according to the data warehouse model, and generating a run-time deployable component for tracking the changing dimension feature based on the identified changing dimensions and attributes. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006147 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DEFINING AND MANAGING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS BASED ON CONCEPTUAL MODELS - A method and system for defining and managing an information technology project based on a conceptual model. Business requirements of an information technology (IT) solution that indicate a need for an update of a pre-defined conceptual model are defined. Sub-projects of an IT project are defined, which includes aligning the sub-projects with the pre-defined conceptual model's conceptual components that require design or implementation modifications and/or with subcomponents of the conceptual components. The pre-defined conceptual model is updated, a sub-project-based execution phase of the IT project is performed and the IT project is managed. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006148 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MATERIALIZING RELATED BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DATA ENTITIES - A computer readable storage medium includes executable instructions to retrieve a set of result values associated with a query to a data source. The set of result values are processed into an intermediate data entity, where the executable instructions to retrieve and process materialize the intermediate data entity. Metadata is included in the intermediate data entity to facilitate the use of the intermediate data entity in a future materialization, where the metadata is exposed through an interface to a materialization engine. The intermediate data entity is stored in a secondary data source. The secondary data source is made available to one or more consumers so that the intermediate data entity is used to define another intermediate data entity. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006149 | METHODS, SYSTEMS, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCTS FOR IMPLEMENTING DATA ASSET MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES - Methods, systems, and computer program products for implementing data asset management activities are provided. A method includes defining authorization and authentication permissions for accessing network entities of an organization, defining rules for conducting audits and audit response activities with respect to the network entities, and executing an audit of the network entities by applying the rules to events occurring at the network entities during the audit. The method also includes generating a summary of results of the audit. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006150 | COHERENT MULTI-DIMENSIONAL BUSINESS PROCESS MODEL - This disclosure relates to methods, systems, and software for processing a coherent multi-dimensional business process model. The software includes computer-readable instructions embodied on media and operable, when executed, to identify a first model and a second model for a business process. The computer-readable instructions are further operable, when executed, to transform at least a portion of the first model and at least a portion of the second model into a coherent multi-dimensional business process model. The computer-readable instructions are further operable, when executed, to present at least a subset of the coherent multi-dimensional business process model to a client. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006151 | COLLECTION OF RECEIPT DATA FROM POINT-OF-SALE DEVICES - A customer receipt data collection robotic (RBOT) device is connected to a point-of-sale (POS) device, such as a cash register, through an available connection link, such as an available auxiliary printer port or in-line connection. The RBOT device operates autonomously to collect receipt data for transmission to a Data Center for storing and processing the collected receipt data and making the results thereof accessible online to vendors and customers. The customer receipt data are tagged with the customer's ID number by scanning a customer barcode ID or a magstripe customer ID store card. At the Data Center, useful data mining functions are performed on the collected receipt data, and the results are made available online to vendors for inventory control and/or product sales purposes, and to customers for accessing their purchase histories and/or for customer loyalty, discount and/or reward programs. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006152 | System and method for estimating a new content level in service agreements - A method for estimating a new content level in service agreements comprises defining a plurality of service requirement options associated with supply chain management processes and establishing a weight factor for each service requirement option. The service requirement options are provided to an interactive interface that allows a user to select one or more service requirement options to include in a desired supply chain management process. A plurality of user-selected service requirement options associated with the desired supply chain management process is received from the interactive interface. A new content level associated with the desired supply chain management process is determined and provided to one or more service requirement subscribers. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006153 | Evaluation tool for adjusting resale of machine components - A computer system for a prognostic evaluation system is provided. The computer system has a platform, at least one input device, and a central processing unit in communication with the platform and the at least one input device. The central processing unit is configured to receive use history information for a piece of equipment. The central processing unit is also configured to perform prognostic analysis based on the received use history information and to determine an estimated remaining life for the piece of equipment based on the prognostic analysis. The central processing unit is further configured to generate a report for the piece of equipment based on the prognostic analysis and to provide the generated report to a user. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006154 | Declarative workflow designer - A workflow designer enables a user to author a workflow by arranging building blocks in a particular order using a combination of a graphical designer and a rules based editor. The building blocks are encapsulated and displayed graphically to the user. The building blocks may correspond to events, conditions or actions that may include complex logic, sub steps, looping and parallel branching. Each building block is associated with source code that defines an action to be taken when the building block is processed. The workflow designer may be used to implement logic to provide flexibility and customization for the workflow schedule. Validation may also be performed to determine that all the required parameters have been properly set for the building blocks as well as to determine whether the building blocks are properly arranged. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006155 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR GENERATING INFORMATION ASSOCIATION MATRIX - A method for generating an information association matrix for assisting service design includes the steps of extracting a DFD number corresponding to an indication number displayed on the matrix from a DFD set master and storing the DFD number in a sub-task master; extracting an action number corresponding to the indication number from an action set master and storing the action number in a setting table; extracting a sub-task name corresponding to the indication number from a DFD set master and storing the sub-task name to a position on a diagonal of the matrix; and reading an action number stored in the setting table, acquiring an information transmitting service DFD number, an information transmitted service DFD number and an information name each corresponding to the action number from an action master and storing the information name to the matrix. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006156 | ASSOCIATING A GRANTING MATRIX WITH AN ANALYTIC PLATFORM - Systems and methods presented may involve specifying an availability condition associated with a component of an analytic platform. It may involve storing the availability condition in a matrix. It may involve using the matrix to determine access to the component of the analytic platform. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006157 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DETERMINING THE LEVEL OF BEHAVIORAL CONCERN WITHIN A CORPORATE DISCLOSURE AND DISPLAYING THE DETERMINATION IN A BEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT MATRIX - A system and method for determining the level of behavioral concern and displaying the determination in a behavioral assessment matrix is disclosed. Determining the level of behavioral concern is based on the presence or absence of predetermined deceptive behaviors. The deceptive behaviors are identified within a transcript segment, categorized and indicators, representing the level of behavioral concern, are displayed in a behavioral assessment matrix. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006158 | VISUALIZATION SYSTEM FOR ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION - To provide a visualization method for analyzing the condition of an organization, the condition of a sub-organization, and the condition of an individual, with the face-to-face contact communication between members belonging to an organization being used as a cross section. A sensor-net system comprises a plurality of terminals and a processing unit that processes data sent from the plurality of terminals, wherein the each terminal comprises: a sensor for detecting a physical quantity; and a data sender unit that sends data indicative of the physical quantity detected by the sensor, and wherein based on the data sent from a first terminal, the processing unit plots this data on a coordinate plane consisting of two axes, in which an intensity of a relation, which a first person equipped with the first terminal has with other person, is assigned to one axis and a diversity of the relation is assigned to the other axis. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006159 | Systems and methods for managing communications with internet sales leads - Exemplary methods for tracking a lead are presented. Such methods include receiving a first contact information, associating the first contact information with a second contact information, sending the second contact information, receiving a first communication, the first communication addressed to the second contact information, in response to receiving the first communication, mapping the second contact information to the first contact information, sending a second communication addressed to the first contact information, receiving a third contact information, associating the third contact information with a fourth contact information, receiving a third communication, the third communication addressed to fourth contact information, and, in response to receiving the third communication comprising the fourth contact information, mapping the fourth contact information to the third contact information, and sending a fourth communication addressed to the third contact information. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006160 | System for Assigning Personnel to Tasks in Which the Personnel Have Different Priorities Among Themselves - A method and system for airline crewmembers to interactively query, bid, and receive a work schedule via a network is provided. Each crewmember is able to request which trips to fly and which days off are desired. Trips are awarded to individuals based on their seniority, preferences, availability and the legality to fly the trip while satisfying company constraints. Such constraints include minimum and maximum hours flown, priorities for more senior crewmembers, and airline restrictions. The resulting schedule is tentatively assigned to the crewmember, and as each crewmembers enters preferences, the schedules of other crewmembers are changed appropriately. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006161 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MANAGING EVENTS OF EVENT SCHEDULING APPLICATIONS - Systems, methods, and computer program products for managing events in time management or event scheduling applications, such as calendar applications, are disclosed. Embodiments comprise analyzing event parameters, such as selections from input solicited from prospective meeting attendees that are associated with events of the meeting, determining an arrangement of the events based on the analysis of the event parameters, and proposing the arrangement. System embodiments generally comprise a list of events for the meeting, such as event items in a database, a constraint solver to analyze parameters of events of the list, and an arrangement module to select an arrangement of the events based on analysis by the constraint solver. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006162 | Workflows Leveraging Process Stages and Cross-Entity Records - A system and method supporting an enhanced customer relationship management uses all system entities across all stages of a workflow to reduce or eliminate redundant data entry and allow creation of front-to-back workflows, e.g. lead-to-cash. Access to all levels of data allows customer service representatives to have access to previously inaccessible data, thus allowing better decision making at the point of contact. Use of an advanced query language used in report generation is re-used for setting the scope of workflow activities, so that complex criteria can be easily specified to have an activity run only when the specified criteria are met. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006163 | Method and System for Allocating Member Compensation - Compensation to be paid to one or more members of an organization is determined. The organization has members organized in a hierarchical structure comprising first-level members, second-level members, and third-level members. A pool of money to be paid to the members in the organization as compensation is identified. A first portion of the pool is assigned to a first-level member. Then the first-level member determines a second portion of the pool from the first portion to be distributed to members below the first-level member and/or an amount from the first portion to be paid to one or more members below the first-level member. The second portion is assigned to the second-level member. Then the second-level member determines a third portion of the pool to be distributed to members below the second-level member and/or an amount from the second portion to be paid to members below the second-level member. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006164 | System and method for optimizing workforce engagement - A method is provided for optimizing workplace engagement for a plurality of employees performing a plurality of tasks. The method may include receiving productivity data for each of the plurality of employees relative to each of the plurality of tasks and receiving forecasted demands for each of the plurality of tasks. The method may also include assigning one or more of the plurality of employees to one or more of the plurality of tasks. The employee task assignments may be based upon productivity data, availability data, and the forecasted demands. The method may further include determining that the forecasted demand for one of the plurality of tasks for the period of time falls below a predetermined threshold, and assigning an inexperienced employee to that one of the plurality of tasks. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006165 | Demotion-based arbitration - In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for arbitrating requests from multiple agents based on an arbitration list to select an agent to receive an arbitration grant, determining whether the selected agent is associated with a grant counter that is at a value of zero, and if so dynamically reordering the arbitration list so that the selected agent is demoted to the lowest portion of the arbitration list. Other embodiments are described and claimed. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006166 | Method for solving model-based planning with goal utility dependencies - The presently described embodiments provide a systematic approach for handling cost and utility dependencies together in PSP. In particular, the following are provided: an approach for representing utility dependencies between planning goals using the Generalized Additive Independence (GAI), combining utility theory and deterministic planning and, a novel heuristic framework combining cost propagation and IP encoding to capture mutual dependencies of goal achievement cost and goal utility. This leads to informative heuristic estimates guiding a variation of forward state space search planer that solves PSP problems described above. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006167 | System and Method for Integrating a Business Process Management System with an Enterprise Service Bus - A system and method are described for integrating a business process management (BPM) system with an enterprise service bus. The BPM system is used to model business processes which contain a set of activities linked by transitions. The BPM system is used to define, publish, deploy and execute the processes in a distributed computing environment. The service bus is used to manage web services and perform routing and transformation of messages between the web services. A transport is used to describe each process defined by the BPM system as a web service on the service bus and provide the ability to connect the BPM component to the enterprise service bus. This allows each of the processes to be exposed as a web service by injecting data retrieved from the process definition into the enterprise service bus. Furthermore, the processes defined in BPM can consume web services from the service bus. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006168 | INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM, INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD AND COMPUTER READABLE MEDIUM - An information processing system includes: a room specifying unit that specifies a room; an equipment coordinate storing unit that stores a correspondence between the room and a placing location of an information processing equipment equipped in the room; a document specifying unit that specifies a paper document on the basis of an information image recited on the paper document; a coordinate information extracting unit that extracts coordinate information from the paper document; a document information extracting unit that extracts document information regarding the stored paper document; an equipment specifying unit that specifies the stored information processing equipment on the basis of room information specified by the room specifying unit and the coordinate information extracted by the coordinate information extracting unit; and an outputting unit that outputs the document information specified by the coordinate information extracting unit to the information processing equipment specified by the equipment specifying unit. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006169 | IDENTIFICATION, CATEGORIZATION, AND INTEGRATION OF UNPLANNED MAINTENANCE, REPAIR AND OVERHAUL WORK ON MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT - An automated interactive method dynamically identifies an unplanned maintenance task during execution of a planned maintenance task on equipment. A user device displays a maintenance menu system for data entry and access and provides an input relating to unplanned maintenance task discovered on the equipment. The unplanned maintenance task is associated with the planned maintenance task at least with respect to a location. The automated interactive method sequentially processes unplanned maintenance task information based on the input from the user device. The automated interactive method establishes and stores an unplanned maintenance task data record including a selected geographical location, a selected item, a selected work category, a selected task type, a selected task description, and selected component data of the unplanned maintenance task. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006170 | PRODUCTION CENTER SYSTEM - Systems and methods of centralized product production, comprising a job initiation component that receives a job request from a user; a resource management component that delegates tasks to one or more modules to produce a product to meet the job request. The modules can comprise an automated computing system or a practice group, and can report back to the resource management component. An assembly component can receive information, documents, and objects from the resource management component and assemble the items to form a product. An interface component allows a user to view progress of the product, and to receive status updates. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006171 | SYSTEM, METHOD AND PROGRAM FOR TRACKING LABOR COSTS - System, method and program for tracking labor expended concurrently by a person for a plurality of different projects or accounts. First program instructions generate a display of a list of the plurality of projects or accounts and a respective plurality of fields for the plurality of projects or accounts indicating whether labor expended by the person will be allocated to the respective plurality of projects or accounts. Second program instructions are responsive at least in part to the plurality of fields with indications that labor expended by the person will be allocated to the respective plurality of projects or accounts, by allocating a portion of elapsed time to each of the plurality of projects or accounts. The time can be allocated equally or unequally to the different projects or accounts as indicated by the person. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006172 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING WORKFLOW MONITORING - An approach is disclosed for providing a workflow monitoring system. Monitoring is performed for a non-occurrence of a successful movement by an object through a workflow that includes a plurality of activities. A task corresponding to the object is generated to specify non-movement through the workflow. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006173 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IDENTIFYING AND USING HISTORICAL WORK PATTERNS TO BUILD/USE HIGH-PERFORMANCE PROJECT TEAMS SUBJECT TO CONSTRAINTS - A method for identifying and using historical work patterns to build high-performance project teams, in one aspect, may comprise identifying historical data associated with one or more past projects, determining from said historical data, one or more patterns in team member attributes that are correlated with at least one of an individual determined to be successful and a project determined to be successful, and generating one or more staffing plans based on said determined patterns. A system and program storage device for performing finctionalities of the method are also provided. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006174 | Method and system to connect consumers to information - This invention provides for a method of (or apparatus for) facilitating the delivery of advice to consumers using a server unit which can store and display the names and characteristics of experts and then rapidly assist in connecting the expert and consumer for real-time communication. The server can also have the ability to receive keywords from the consumer, match those keywords to one or more experts, and tell the consumer how to contact an expert. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006175 | BUSINESS METHODS FOR PROVIDING EMERGENCY PROPERTY REPAIRS AND OTHER PROPERTY-RELATED BENEFITS - Disclosed herein business methods for providing property-related repairs, which, among other things, provide property owners with emergency property-related repairs and other benefits and advantages associated with managing and improving their property. In one exemplary embodiment, the business method involves offering membership in an organization that provides emergency repair services for homes, investment properties or businesses of members, receiving requests for membership from prospective members wanting to become members in the organization, granting membership to those prospective members that requested membership and satisfy certain membership criteria, receiving requests from members for the emergency repair services and providing them with the requested repair services. In alternative embodiments, the business method provides property owners with numerous other incentives, benefits and advantages that are needed by property owners to successfully manage and improve their properties. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006176 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS OF ORGANIZING VENDORS OF PRODUCTION PRINT SERVICES BY RATINGS - Methods and systems of evaluating customer satisfaction with a plurality of print-related items are disclosed. A plurality of evaluator ratings, each including an ordinal scale value, may be received for each print-related item in a set. A rating distribution may be determined for each print-related item based on the received evaluator ratings. A similarity value between the rating distribution for the print-related item and each other print-related item may also be determined. The set of print-related items may be divided into one or more clusters based on the corresponding similarity values. A comparison of the one or more clusters may be displayed. The comparison may include a comparison of the similarity values and/or a rating variability between rating distributions associated with the print-related items in one or more clusters and/or a comparison of average rating distributions associated with one or more clusters. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006177 | PROVIDING ADS TO UNCONNECTED CLIENT DEVICES - Techniques are disclosed, among other things, that provide ads to requesting applications while the client device is not connected to a communication network. An offline advertisement engine is provided for storing business rules for each of a plurality of corresponding stored advertisements, wherein the business rules and advertisements are stored locally on the client device. An offline advertisement media manager is also provided for storing creatives related to the stored advertisements, wherein the creatives are also stored locally on the client device. Moreover, an advertisement center client is disclosed for providing advertisements and creatives associated with the advertisement to an application in response to a request for the advertisements. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006178 | Behavioral Profiles in Sourcing and Recruiting as Part of a Hiring Process - A method of selecting potential hires for progression through a hiring process is provided. The method comprises selecting at least one performance indicator for a position, obtaining the at least one performance indicator for a plurality of incumbents in the position, and placing each incumbent in the plurality of incumbents along a performance continuum according to their performance indicator. The method also comprises surveying incumbents from at least both halves of the performance continuum, generating an ideal profile for the position based upon the incumbent survey and the at least one performance indicator of the incumbents, using a survey to generate a candidate profile of a potential hire, comparing the candidate profile of the potential hire with the ideal profile for the position to determine a result for the potential hire, and determining whether to progress the potential hire to a next stage in the hiring process based upon the result. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006179 | Economic optimization for product search relevancy - In one embodiment, a method is illustrated as including defining a set of perspective objects capable of being placed onto a modified web page, monitoring parameters of a web page, the parameters including a number of times a current object is executed on the web page, using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm to determine a perspective object with a preferred Return On Investment (ROI), and selecting the perspective object to be placed onto the modified web page. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006180 | Multiple application advertising - Two or more user applications running on a single mobile device are capable of showing advertising materials. Usage information is collected from the user applications. The usage information tracks exposure to the advertising materials associated with each of the user application. A polling message from a server is received at the mobile device at a predetermined interval via a tracking application of the mobile device. A per-application summary of the usage information is sent from the device in response to the polling message. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006181 | Capturing and utilizing consumer purchase intent information - System and method for capturing and utilizing consumer purchase intent information comprise obtaining item information, from a user, in a plurality of formats from a plurality of sources, extracting keywords from the item information, organizing item information and keywords in a shopping list, and enabling a display of the shopping list to the user. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006182 | Forecasting Volume for a Promotion - Forecasting the volume of a product as part of a promotion provides for better resource allocation by the retailer and manufacturer to support the promotion. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006183 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR CUSTOMIZED COUPON GENERATION - The invention provides various systems and methods for determining if a coupon should be offered and/or for determining the terms of such coupons based on information provided by a party to a transaction. In one exemplary embodiment, a method is provided for electronically generating coupons when performing money transfer transactions. According to the method, money transfer transaction information used to perform a money transfer transaction is provided. The money transfer transaction information is processed through a rules engine to determine a coupon offer based on the money transfer transaction information. The coupon offer is electronically generated so that it may be provided to a party to the transaction. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006184 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR DEMAND AGGREGATION FOR PROPOSED FUTURE ITEMS - Embodiments predict, measure, and/or guarantee demand for a contingent or hypothetical future item and, based upon that demand, determining whether or not to actually produce or select the future item. In particular, embodiments measure such demand via forward rights, votes, contingent event certificates, and associated marketplaces. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006185 | SYSTEM, METHOD, AND APPARATUS FOR PROPERTY APPRAISALS - An appraisal system, method, and apparatus for property appraisals including a collector system, an appraisal database, an accounting system, and a scoring system. The collector system gathers data associated with a property and provides the data to the appraisal database. The collector system also reviews, edits, corrects, validates, and formats the data. The scoring system uses the collector system and appraisal database to access and analyze the data to calculate a score associated with the property. The score is calculated using one or more of a zone and market group associated with the property. The scoring system maps the score to one or more comparable sales of one or more other properties based on one or more of the zone and market group in order to generate an appraisal report for the property. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006186 | System for Prediction of Materialization of a Reserved Purchase - The present invention provides a system for predicting the likelihood of materialization of pending reservations for the purchase of perishable commodities. Details pertaining to perishable commodities for which reservations for purchase have been made in the past, are gathered and analyzed as are details pertaining to perishable commodities for which reservations for purchase are currently pending. Based upon the analysis, the likelihood that a particular pending reservation will actually be purchased or “materialize” is determined and this information is utilized for yield management. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006187 | Profile based advertising method for out-of-line advertising delivery - A system and method of delivering and accessing information including advertisements targeted to a user that assures the privacy protection of the user, and allows the user to access the advertisements without interrupting the flow of desired information content. The system includes at least one computerized user device and at least one ad matching entity communicably coupled to at least one network. The ad matching entity includes a master computer system and at least one computer sub-system, in which each sub-system is associated with a respective user device. The user device creates a user profile based upon data obtained from observing various user actions, including the consumption/abandonment of content programs or advertisements, the visiting of web pages, the use of web search terms, etc. The user profile data is provided by the user device to the sub-system of the ad matching entity, which is a trusted third party. The ad matching sub-system locally matches information contained in the user profile against information contained in a target profile, and sends the results to the master system. Based on these results, the master system transmits at least one advertisement targeted to the user to the user device. The ad matching entity then permanently deletes all records and copies of the user profile from its data storage. At a later time chosen by the user, the user can consume the advertisement in an out-of-line fashion independently of the consumption of any desired information content. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006188 | ASSOCIATING AN ACTIVITY WITH AN ONLINE ADVERTISEMENT - The disclosed subject matter pertains to systems and/or methods that facilitate associating user activity, such as offline user activity, with an online advertisement. An ad link component can receive information associated with online activity and offline activity of a user, online advertisements, and other information, and can analyze such information. The online activity can include viewing, clicking on, pledging interest in, or obtaining a token related to, an online advertisement. The ad link component can employ ad link criteria to determine whether offline user activity, such as a purchase or other desired activity, can be associated with the online advertisement. If the ad link component determines the offline user activity is associated with the online advertisement, an incentive, which can be based on incentive criteria, can be awarded to the user. A distribution component can distribute the incentive to the account of the user. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006189 | DISPLAYING OF ADVERTISEMENT-INFUSED THUMBNAILS OF IMAGES - An image advertisement system of a computing device displays as part of a display page an advertisement-infused thumbnail of an image prior to displaying the image. The image advertisement system initially receives a display page with an indication of an image to be displayed as part of the display page. The image advertisement system generates an advertisement-infused thumbnail of the image by combining advertisement content with a thumbnail of the image. The image advertisement system then displays the display page with the advertisement-infused thumbnail of the image in place of the image. The image advertisement system then replaces the displayed advertisement-infused thumbnail with the image. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006190 | DETERMINING LOCATION-BASED COMMERCIAL INFORMATION - Techniques for determining location-based commercial information are described The techniques include receiving a request for an advertisement to be presented together with content provided over a delivery network to a recipient, performing a process to identify advertisement information to be presented based on the content, and if advertisement information is not identified by the process, identifying commercial information to be presented based an geographic location of the recipient and communicating over the delivery network, the identified commercial information to the recipient. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006191 | TARGETING IN-VIDEO ADVERTISING - Techniques for presenting a content item with a media item are described. The techniques include receiving user input indicating a placement preference for a content item to be presented with a media item. The placement preference indicates a presentation preference of the content item relative to presentation of the media item. The placement preference is used to influence selection of a media item with which the content item is to be presented. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006192 | Point of Presence Sponsorship Mechanism for Digital Content Objects - Particular embodiments of the present invention are related to a point-of-presence distribution and sponsorship mechanism facilitating sponsored distribution and use of digital content, ad content and revenue generation opportunities. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006193 | Digital Voice Communication Advertising - Techniques for providing third party incentivized communications sessions are described. In some embodiments, a Voice over IP (VoIP) conversation is sampled for audio information such as a word, phrase, utterance, or phoneme that may be associated with an advertisement in a database. The database may be searched for the audio information, or in some embodiments a text equivalent of the audio information, and the associated advertisement may be served to a participant in the VoIP communication session. In some implementations, data from or about the conversation may be compiled for analysis. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006194 | Location, destination and other contextual information-based mobile advertisements - Described is a technology by which an advertisement is selected for output on a mobile (e.g., vehicle navigation) system based on contextual data, including current state data from a location-sensing (e.g., GPS) device. The advertisement may be an image displayed at a location on a map corresponding to a physical location of the advertiser. The contextual data may include location, direction and destination data, user preference data and user-provided data such as calendar, task and/or contacts data. Examples of other contextual data include age data, gender data, number of vehicle occupants data, vehicle make data, vehicle model data, and/or vehicle style data. In one aspect, the user may interact with the advertisement, e.g., to communicate an order for a product or service corresponding to the advertisement. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006195 | System for targeting communications based on media interaction habits - A method of sending a targeted communication on behalf of an interested party to individuals that access media content through a media service provider includes receiving information regarding particular media content accessed by each of the individuals from the associated media service providers, storing that information in a secure manner, establishing one or more criteria for identifying desired recipients of the communication, identifying selected individuals to receive the communication based on the one or more criteria and the particular media content information, and causing the communication to be sent to the selected individuals by one of one or more communication methods. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006196 | Handheld communications device in system for and method of enhancing product selection and purchase in retail environments - A system for, and method of, enhancing product selection and purchase in a retail environment, utilizes a handheld device that includes a cellular telephone operative for long-range, mobile, wireless communication over a wide cellular network, a solid-state imager having an array of image sensors for capturing return light from a target, and a communications interface operative for short-range, mobile, wireless communication over a local network associated with the retail environment. A controller is operatively connected to the telephone, the imager and the interface, and is operative for automatically pairing the handheld device with the local network by operating the imager to capture the return light from a command target code associated with the retail environment. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006197 | Profile based advertising method for out-of-line advertising delivery - A system and method of delivering and accessing information including advertisements targeted to a user that assures the privacy protection of the user, allows the user to access the advertisements without interrupting the flow of desired information content, monitors the user's interaction with the advertisements to provide advertisers with performance-based feedback relating to their advertising services, and enables the user to control the degree to which payment for the delivered information is user or advertiser-supported. The system includes at least one computerized user device and at least one ad matching entity communicably coupled to at least one network. The computerized user device creates a user profile based upon data obtained by the device from observing various user actions, including the consumption/abandonment of content programs or advertisements, the visiting of web pages, the use of web search terms, etc. At a time or under conditions chosen by the user, the user profile data is securely transmitted from the computerized user device to the ad matching entity, which is a trusted third party. The ad matching entity temporarily stores the user profile data, matches at least one advertisement with the stored data, and transmits the advertisement targeted to the user to the computerized user device. The ad matching entity then permanently deletes all records and copies of the user profile from its data storage. At a later time chosen by the user, the user can consume the advertisement in an out-of-line fashion independently of the consumption of any desired information content. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006198 | Product displays for retail stores - Displays displaying encased demonstrative products provide shoppers in a retail store an opportunity to inspect a product before purchasing the product. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006199 | Advertisement application server in IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) network - In an advertisement system for an IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) network, multimedia advertisements are transmitted to end-user terminals according to three available advertising service functions: when a user terminal calls a designated phone number; when the system calls a user terminal, typically during a user-designated time window; and when a first user terminal calls a second user terminal, in the time period before the call is answered. The system includes an advertisement application server, which coordinates and manages operation of the system, and an advertisement media server, which stores and transmits the advertisement data to end-user terminals. In operation, upon determining to transmit advertisements to a user terminal, a link is established with the terminal. Multimedia advertising data (including picture/video content and audio content) is then transmitted from the media server to the user terminal over the IMS network. Users may be awarded service credits for viewing advertisements. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006200 | SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR MANAGING THE UTILIZATION OF A COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE - A system and method for the real-time management of a device, and more particularly to the allocation of electronic wallets that are associated with one or more devices and various controls that enable at least two entities to manage how the device is utilized for various activities and to pay for goods and services. Each device is associated with at least two electronic wallets, a user wallet and an administrator wallet. The administrator can establish rules that designate how and when the device can be used and which wallet will be used to pay for goods and services desired by the user, but in the event the user wallet is depleted or low on funds, the administrator wallet can serve as a backup funding source for specified types of goods and/or services. Additional wallets can also be associated with the device to authorize and pay for goods and services, under the control of the administrator wallet, such as a promotional wallet that could be designated for use with the device before a primary or administrative wallet was used, or a dynamic wallet that could be associated for use with multiple different devices as well as other wallets, but acts in conjunction with the user and administrator wallets. Additional rules can be established to perform many other functions, such as manage the movement of value between wallets and from other sources to the wallets. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006201 | Method and apparatus for storing and accessing URL links - Information access is organized in a tree structure of items where each item has an XML data structure with a plurality of containers. The containers identify local or remote information which is accessed and displayed in a single display with multiple pains. The containers may include additional content, related advertising material, or other information such as search terms. A user may preview the name, URL, and descriptive material before accessing the URL link. Sponsor advertising or other graphics may be displayed in proximity to the tree structure display. URL links are to local files, applications, and remote files such as web pages and fttp file locations. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006202 | System and method for providing identity-based services - Users of Internet communication services (e.g., SKYPE messaging service, GOOGLETALK messaging service, AOL INSTANT MESSENGER messaging service, and MICROSOFT MESSENGER messaging service, IP PBX systems, etc.) that are initially identified using separate identifiers (e.g., username@serviceprovider) can manage these network identities using a single, personal, unified set of account information managed by a registry service. The registry authenticates the user's request(s) to bind a service provider identity to his or her personal registry identity by presenting a random challenge to the user that the registry must then receive back from the service provider corresponding to the identity being added. Later, the registry may authenticate itself to service providers using information received from a service provider application as the service provider application authenticates itself to the service provider. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006203 | PAYMENT ACCOUNT PROCESSING WHICH CONVEYS FINANCIAL TRANSACTION DATA AND NON FINANCIAL TRANSACTION DATA - A payment processing system enables a consumer to purchase items at a merchant using an account provided by an issuer. Financial data related to payment for the purchase are sent by the merchant through an acquirer and a transaction expeditor to the issuer. The issuer responds by determining whether to authorize the purchase and if authorized, sends a notification back to the merchant. The acquirer also issues non-financial data that is conveyed by the transaction expeditor to a recipient connected to the payment processing system. The financial and non-financial data for the same transaction may be sent in separate messages and a technique is provided for matching those messages at the recipient. Different types of non-financial data can be conveyed, such as identification of the items being purchased which the recipient uses to determine whether the consumer should receive a reward under a product purchase incentive program. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006204 | EXPEDITED CUSTOMER ACQUISITION METHOD FOR DEBIT PAYMENT LOYALTY PROGRAM - An expanded customer loyalty program includes an expedited method for acquisition of customers who use the debit method of payment for rewards. New customer acquisition may be accomplished by expeditiously associating the merchant's loyalty card and a customer identification number with the customer's current checking account. The customer acquisition system for a debit payment loyalty program comprises some hardware at the merchant's location, namely: 1. a two-sided check imager with franking functionality; and/or 2. a two-dimensional bar code reader (compatible with drivers' licenses in more than 20 States); and/or 3. a magnetic stripe reader for loyalty cards (also compatible with drivers' licenses in about 26 States); and 4. a printer; and 5. a pin-pad; and 6. an Internet-enabled communication and information processing device. The preferred customer acquisition system comprises some method steps to be performed at the merchant's location, namely: a. a customer provides the retail clerk with the customer's check, id card, and the merchant's loyalty card; and b. the retail clerk provides the customer with complete disclosure of the terms and conditions of the debit payment/customer loyalty rewards program; and c. the clerk then franks the check and authorizes the merchant's debit payment customer loyalty program; d. the customer then signs the check, confirming the authorization; e. the clerk then scans the customer's id (driver's license), runs the check through the imager, and swipes the loyalty card; and f. the customer then uses the pin-pad to create a 4 digit customer id number; and g. all information extracted from the customer's franked and signed check, id card, merchant's loyalty card, and pin-pad 4 digit id number is transmitted to the merchant's (or its loyalty program administrator's) servers and promptly approved or declined. If approved, from that time on, the customer will be able to use the merchant's loyalty card as a debit instrument at participating location of the merchant(s). | 2009-01-01 |
20090006205 | Consolidated Payment Options - A system for making financial transfers between subscribers of a financial transfer service is disclosed. The system may include a receiving subscriber interface (RSI), a sending subscriber interface (SSI), and an agent server (AS). The RSI may be configured to accept a set of invoice information including an identifier of a destination account. The SSI may be configured to accept a set of payment information including an identifier of a source account. The AS may be configured to receive the set of invoice information and create an invoice based on the set of invoice information. The AS may also be configured to transmit the invoice and receive the set of payment information. The AS may also be configured to cause an amount of funds to be transferred from the source account on a source transfer network to the destination account on a destination transfer network via a primary transfer network. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006206 | Systems and Methods for Facilitating Advertising and Marketing Objectives - A system and method for leveraging personal information published on social networking sites leverage gleaned psychographic profile information to produce revenues for both social networking sites and content producers. Personal information on every web page of the site is analyzed automatically to categorize publishers as belonging to one or more psychographic profiles that correspond to marketed products. Advertisers can then cater advertisements to psychographic profiles to better target a market audience, and information on psychographic profiles can be improved by tracking changes to the personal information over time. Psychographic profiling can also help filter desired media content towards publishers and/or advertisers. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006207 | Using Previous User Search Query To Target Advertisements - A system and method to target advertisements to a user search query using a previously entered user search query as well as the current search query. The previously entered search query can accompanying the current search query in a query referrer, or can be determined separately from the current search query. The relevance of the previous search query is determined with respect to the current search query, and if found relevant a combination of the two query terms is used to find a set of advertising keywords from which candidate advertisements to be targeted and served to the user with search results are found. The process can be extended to additional search queries. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006208 | Display of Video with Tagged Advertising - Tags associated with a video file cause informational images to be displayed at designated times which are correlated to the contents of the video images. The video may be displayed over the internet such that during the display of a video within a portion of the user's display screen, advertiser supplied text and/or images will appear on the display screen in a detail window which are coordinated to the content of the video at a particular time. The content provider's server provides advertising content within the detail window which allows the viewer to pursue multiple levels of content, even including placing an order from the advertiser, all while remaining on the original web page. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006209 | Overprint and Reprint - A point of sale terminal including a printer and electronic circuitry governing the operation of the printer, the electronic circuitry including transaction voiding responsive functionality for providing a visual indication of transaction voiding on transaction documentation. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006210 | Advertisement Providing System and an Advertisement Providing Method - The present invention relates to an advertisement information providing system and an advertisement information providing method. According to the present invention, when a data addresser transmits data to a data addressee through a data transmitting server of a network service medium or when the data addressee receives data from the data addresser through a data receiving server of the network service medium, an advertisement matched with the field of interests of which the data addresser and the data addressee are the most interested is generated in real-time and the generated advertisement is transmitted to the data addresser or the data addressee. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006211 | Network Content And Advertisement Distribution System and Method - A system and method for providing advertising content to a user that is traveling away from a base geographic location. A current physical location of the user is determined. The current physical location of the user is used in evaluating whether the user is traveling away from the base geographic location. Based at least in part on the evaluation that the user is traveling, one or more travel-appropriate advertisements are provided to the user. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006212 | Financial Institution Account-Associated Rewards Program - A system and method of operating a rewards program through a financial institution for granting rewards to customers enrolled in the rewards program wherein the customer receives one or more reward credits in an account associated with the financial institution if the customer meets certain qualification criteria. The method may include determining if the account qualifies for an award credit; assigning a reward credit to the account; receiving purchase information regarding a purchase made at a merchant associated with the customer's account; identifying from the purchase information whether the purchase was made at a qualifying merchant; and applying the reward credit towards the purchase made by the customer at the qualifying merchant by applying a reward credit to the customer's account based upon the business rules applicable to the reward program. The method also determines if a reward credit has expired, in which event either the merchant or the financial institution may receive the benefit of any unused or expired reward credits depending on the particular embodiment of the reward program. The method also creates and provides notification to the customer of reward credit information. | 2009-01-01 |
20090006213 | Dynamic Configuration of an Advertisement - Systems and methods for dynamically sizing, structuring and operating advertisements that include a variety of content, including interaction prompts and other elements, which enable an engagement-based revenue generation model. According to one embodiment, a computer implemented method comprises storing advertising content, serving an XML file from an advertising server to an advertisement manager in order to control a player on a user computer, dynamically generating the advertisement through the player based on directions from the advertisement manager and the stored content, and tracking and reporting a user's engagement with the advertisement in order to determine compensation for the publisher. | 2009-01-01 |