Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – For cost/price
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-15
2001-04-17
Cosimano, Edward (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
For cost/price
C705S026640, C705S029000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06219653
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates in general to electronic commerce, and more particularly to a freight calculation system and method of operation.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The exchange of products among sellers and buyers is consistently growing in size and complexity, thereby generating a need for buyers and sellers to achieve new levels of efficiency in market research, transaction settlement, freight calculation and delivery, and invoice payment procedures. Often, buyers and sellers have no central resource for market data and are consequently forced to research many disparate resources to execute a market transaction. Furthermore, market transactions that are currently executed between buyers and sellers often do not maximize available market data, resulting in inefficient transaction settlements. Moreover, the transaction costs of executing a market transaction and subsequently collecting payment for the transaction also add inefficiencies to the ultimate transaction settlement. These problems persist in a variety of industries, including the commodity forest products industry.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, a freight calculation system is provided which substantially eliminates or reduces prior disadvantages and problems.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a freight calculation system includes a seller client, a buyer client, and a platform coupled to the seller client and the buyer client using a communication network. The seller client generates freight data and communicates the freight data using the communication network. The buyer client communicates a delivery request for a load using the communication network. The delivery request specifies one of a number of delivery containers, an origination location, and a destination location. The platform receives and stores the freight data and determines a delivery cost for the load using the freight data, the specified delivery container, the origination location, and the destination location.
Another embodiment of the present invention is a freight calculation method that includes receiving freight data from a seller client and storing the freight data. The method continues by receiving a delivery request for a load from a buyer client. The delivery request specifies one of a plurality of delivery containers, an origination location, and a destination location. The method continues by determining a delivery cost for the load using the freight data, the specified delivery container, the origination location, and the destination location. The method concludes by communicating the delivery cost for the load to the buyer client.
Technical advantages of the present invention include a trading exchange system that facilitates online trading of products between trading clients, such as buyer clients and seller clients, using a communication network. In one embodiment, the present invention links together the producers and buyers of commodity forest products in a real-time, dynamic, trading exchange system. For example, the trading exchange system facilitates processing market orders between trading clients, as well as processing public and private bids generated by buyer clients and communicated to particular seller clients.
The computer-based trading exchange system provides a significant productivity gain for market discovery and transaction settlement along with electronic processing and payment. The present invention enables efficient market transactions between producers and buyers by providing up to the minute market data, interactive transaction settlements, direct payment and clearing, one-to-one marketing, user preference views of the market, on-line freight calculation, and other unique features and functions. In one embodiment, the trading exchange system encrypts transmissions between trading clients and the trading platform to prohibit the viewing of confidential data by network monitors and other snooping devices.
Further technical advantages of the trading exchange system include a trading platform that maintains and updates current inventory data for seller clients that are members of the trading exchange system. In particular, the seller clients may communicate to the trading platform price and availability levels for inventory, maximum and minimum load limits for particular load configurations, and other inventory information. In one embodiment, a seller client may establish price and availability limits on a week-by-week basis. For example, a seller client may project different price and availability levels for a particular product offered during different weeks. By establishing price and availability levels for a product on a week-by-week basis, a seller client may forecast and account for potential manufacturing and market forces that may affect the price and availability of a product during the interim between the current date and a subsequent week of offering.
The trading platform also maintains profile data established by seller clients for particular buyer clients. In one embodiment, the trading exchange system only supports trading between buyer clients and seller clients that establish bidirectional trading relationships by selecting each other as trading partners. The profile data established by a seller client may identify trading relationships with particular buyer clients. The profile data may also identify credit terms that control the buying capacity of particular trading partners. The profile data may further specify trading preferences established by a seller client for a group of trading clients. For example, a buyer client having a high priority trading relationship with a seller client may be offered special discounts, exclusive exposure to a larger selection of inventory, flexible delivery options, and any other suitable trading preferences. Buyer clients having a low priority trading relationship with a seller client may be subjected to price markups, limited exposure to inventory, and market order restrictions. Therefore, the trading platform provides a central point of access to established inventory data and profile data for buyer clients that are members of the trading exchange system.
Further technical advantages of the present invention include a graphical user interface that provides an easy to use interactive interface to implement the trading exchange application. The graphical user interface supports both buyer and seller activities from a single workstation. The graphical user interface includes a hierarchical arrangement of member groups and subgroups that are used to navigate through the various features and functions of the trading exchange application.
The graphical user interface allows users of the buyer clients to place market orders by querying the inventory data of its established trading partners using, in one embodiment, a graphical market order builder, and by initiating buy requests that specify particular offered products in a load based on the results of the query. The graphical market order builder includes a load balance indicator that graphically illustrates the capacity of a generated load in comparison with the capacity of a selected delivery container. As the user of a buyer client selects additional units of a product to generate a load, the market order builder graphically represents the load in comparison to a maximum load parameter of the delivery container. The user may increase or decrease the number of units in the load to optimize the load capacity of the selected delivery container.
For example, if a delivery container has a specified maximum weight capacity, then the market order builder graphically represents the weight of the chosen load in comparison to the weight capacity of the selected delivery container. Therefore, the graphical market order builder provides visual feedback (e.g., colors, bars, graphs, etc.) regarding the load parameters of a market order in relation to the storage capacity of a particular delivery container. This allows the buyer client
Ainsworth Johnny V.
Jenkins Paul D.
O'Neill John C.
Baker & Botts L.L.P.
Cosimano Edward
Forest Products International Exchange, Inc.
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