Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Electronic negotiation
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-04
2001-09-11
Stamber, Eric W. (Department: 2162)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Electronic negotiation
C705S026640, C705S037000, C709S201000, C709S202000, C709S241000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06289325
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a mobile agent technique, and in particular, to a mechanism for monitoring the interaction between mobile agents in a virtual mall using mobile agents.
2. Description of Related Art
A mobile agent includes program code for executing an operation, and data, such as the results of processing, for representing the condition of the mobile agent. In an agent execution environment provided for a computer connected to a computer network, a mobile agent interacts with another mobile agent by exchanging messages and by performing necessary processing. Further, the mobile agent can move to an execution environment in another computer by itself as needed.
Interaction between mobile agents is effected by the exchange of a message object or by a method call. The conventional interaction between the agents is not disclosed to a third agent, and a mechanism for monitoring the interaction between the other agents by a third agent has not been proposed.
While problems relative to security and privacy may arise from the disclosure of the message contents, some benefits may accrue from opening the interactive transaction process to other agents. Consider, for example, a virtual mall where a seller (shop agent) and a buyer (customer agent) exchange product information. The shop agent has product data, and returns a listing of available products upon the reception of a search request from the customer agent. Conventionally, the messages exchanged during such an interactive process are not disclosed, but if the searching contents for a product to be purchased is disclosed, various agents for interrupting to a simple product search can be implemented. For example, an advertising agent, which is an agent for providing associated information, may introduce to the customer agent products associated with a product searched for. Also, an agent that can provide similar products may transmit a message representing that products are available that are similar to a product searched for, or a statistics agent may monitor the statistics for a product search at a virtual mall and transmit them to a customer agent. The customer agent can then employ such information to acquire more product information and purchase the best product available.
Although a mobile agent is described in detail in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,603,031, issued Feb. 11, 1997, entitled “System and Method For Distributed Computation Based Upon the Movement, Execution, and Interaction of Processes in a Network”, by White et al. (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No.: Hei 7182174), a process for the disclosure of the contents of messages is not described. A mobile agent according to the above patent and a mobile agent according to the present invention differ in various ways.
OBJECTS AND ADVANTAGES OF THE INVENTION
It is an object and advantage of this invention to provide a mechanism for disclosing an interaction between mobile agents.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will become more apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuing description.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The foregoing and other problems are overcome and the objects of the invention are realized by methods and apparatus in accordance with embodiments of this invention.
To achieve the objects of the present invention, an execution environment for mobile agents is disclosed that includes a monitor mechanism for monitoring a message transmitted by an agent. The monitor mechanism may be operated by a manager agent. The monitor mechanism may be included in the execution environment.
The manager agent receives a message from a source agent of the message and transfers the message to a destination agent. The manager agent relays messages, and transmits messages from a specific agent to agents other than a destination agent.
The manager agent can also perform a registration function in response to receiving a registration message from an agent that has begun its activity in the execution environment. The registration function causes the manager agent to register a source agent of the registration message.
The registration message includes an agent type of the source agent of the registration message. The registration function of the manager agent can perform a registration process in correspondence with the agent type.
In response to receiving a monitor registration message from a registering agent, the manager agent can perform a function for registering the registering agent of the monitor registration message and a condition. The condition is included in the monitor registration message and specifies a condition of messages transmitted from another agent that are to be transmitted to the registering agent that has begun its activity in the execution environment.
This registering function can include means for determining whether the condition in the monitor registration message is already registered in the manager agent, and means for, when the condition is already registered, storing the registering agent in correspondence with the condition.
Upon the reception of a message from a specific agent, the transferring function may search for registered condition by contents of the message. When there exists a condition that matches the contents of the message, the transferring function may transmit the message to a registering source agent of the condition.
The execution environment may be a virtual mall, for example, or may be another type of execution environment. In the virtual mall, agent types are a customer agent and a shop agent.
The present invention will be explained by using a manager agent. The present invention can be designed so that an agent has a device for transmitting a registration message for requesting its registration to the manager agent.
In addition, the agent can include a data storage for storing a condition of messages to be transferred to itself by the manager agent and transmitted by another agent; and a device for transmitting the condition as a monitor registration message to the manager agent.
The agent can further include a device for receiving a message transmitted from another agent; when the received message is a message addressed to a different agent, a device for preparing an associated message that includes contents associated with the received message; and a device for transmitting the associated message to the different agent. This agent is, for example, a shop agent.
The device for preparing the associated message may include a device for checking the contents of a received message and for extracting holding information concerning the contents of the received message; and a device for converting the holding information into the form of a message.
The above described invention can be understood as a processing flow, and can be implemented as a computer program for performing the above described processing. It would be obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art that the computer program can be stored in a storage medium, such as a CD-ROM or a floppy disk.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5603031 (1997-02-01), White et al.
patent: 5678041 (1997-10-01), Baker
patent: 5887171 (1999-03-01), Tada et al.
patent: 5889863 (1999-03-01), Weber
patent: WO 9812881 A (1998-03-01), None
Tambe, M., dialog file 6 No. 1982507, Architectures for agents that track other agents in multi-agent worlds, 19, May 1996.*
Barbara Hayes-Roth, An architecture for adaptive intelligent systems, Artificial Intelligence 72(1195), pp 329-365, Jan. 1995.*
H s Nwna and D T Ndumu, An introduction to agent technology, pp 55-67, May 1996.
Mima Yoshiaki
Nakamura Yuichi
Yamamoto Gaku
Alvarez Raquel
Cameron Esq. Douglas W.
International Business Machines - Corporation
Perman & Green LLP
Stamber Eric W.
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