Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Electronic shopping
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-21
2004-04-13
Jeanty, Romain (Department: 3623)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Electronic shopping
C705S001100, C705S027200, C705S035000, C705S041000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06721715
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to computer systems and more particularly to dynamically converting a first currency to a second currency on a computer system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The need to convert currencies presents an ongoing problem in international commerce and includes not only the need to translate between the currencies of a sender of a product and a receiver, but also those of handlers of the product and any taxing entities in between the sender and receiver. Further, translation between currencies involves translating representations of the currencies as well as translating currency values.
While currency conversion is at face value a simple mathematical event, many obstacles prevent effective and direct implementation. These obstacles include the date and time sensitivity of currency values, and the complexity of rate data, that is, the time value of money. Currency rate data comprises historical rates, prior market close rates, delayed market rates, immediate market rates, future rates (forecasts and with interest-bearing components), options (bets as to future price for sales or acquisition of a currency), stripped bonds, and any other financial instruments. Currency rates vary depending on factors such as direction of currency translation (i.e. from USD to DEM or DEM to USD), bids, asks, transaction size-dependencies, and whether specific dates/times/currency pairs are missing or unavailable.
The constantly changing relative values of currencies further complicates the operation of currency translation. Currencies undergo sudden and rapid devaluation, and reissues. In addition, new currencies are introduced from time to time, as when countries join together as in the European Union, which plans on introducing a new currency, the Euro, in 1999.
Finally, a currency is not an exact entity. For example, a “dollar” could define a United States Dollar, a Sierra Leone Dollar, or many others. Each dollar has a different value in reference to each other, a value which fluctuates by usage, the size of the translation, and over time. The dollar may also have a different value based on where a trade (or posted bid/ask) takes place. Further, the currency of a specific country is not always a single entity, and could be represented by multiple currencies of common acceptance. The Franc and the Peso are both openly used in Andorra, for example.
A reliable currency translation system must be able to handle the following situations: missing rate information, translation from an original currency basis to an objective currency target through one or more intermediate currencies, and transaction costs and spreads where bid and ask or future contracts can substantially devalue the results.
In the case where a potential customer wants to compare costs of goods or services available from sources in a plurality of countries, such as a trans-oceanic telephone circuit at the countries terminating that line, the task quickly becomes time-consuming and onerous. There is a need for a system to perform this task efficiently and accurately.
In accounting functions including financial statements and projections, etc., it is desirable to have a uniform asset base in order to track currency data with respect to time. There is a need for a system which translates currency to base values which can be compared over time.
A new aspect of international commerce has emerged in the form of the Internet. A problem in Web-based commerce is that online catalogs display pricing information in the local currency of the business hosting the online catalog regardless of scope, customer reach, or target market of the offered products. Global commerce, however, is not specific to language or currency, and there is a need for a method for translating currencies from a base currency of a hosting business to a currency useful for potential customers using a Web site. An accurate and reliable means for translating between currencies would also be useful to potential customers reading printed publications, or otherwise involved in international trade.
Conversion of the value alone from one currency to another is insufficient for complete solution to the problems of currency conversion. Currencies are not displayed the same way in every country and customers expect that a currency format is localized with the prevailing accepted syntactical standard. It would be very useful, for example, for a Web user accessing a page originating in another country to see prices in the Web user's own currency, displayed in the locally accepted format. The display of currency formats in the expected format in a remote location is complex and not handled by existing systems and methods at the current time. Standard techniques for numerical formatting are insufficient because the currency value is not merely formatted, but also might contain prefixes, suffixes, unusual symbols, and sub- and superscripting.
The problem for multilingual and multiple currency web sites is that not every language or culture formats currencies (and numbers) in the same way. For example 1,000,000.00 in the U.S. becomes 1.000.000,00 in Germany. In addition, various currencies have locally accepted display formats. For example, some locales will display 1′000′000 and
00/100
(superscript/subscript) instead of 1.000.000,00. Furthermore, currency symbols and formatting are based on prefixes, suffixes, and the handling of negative values in different ways. The differences in currency representation create functional problems for banks unfamiliar with specific currencies and cultural idioms. A successful currency conversion requires both translation of currency value and conversion of the representative symbols as well as display in the appropriate format.
Finally, lack of a functional result is a serious problem for all data processing operations, which typically halt when encountering an error or lack of information. Rate data may not be immediately available at the time it is needed to fulfill a translation request. For business, and data processing, to continue, a way of handling missing data is needed in a reliable translation system.
It remains desirable to have a method and apparatus which provides easy currency translation in a manner structured to provide conversions within the natural workflow of business.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for performing currency translation which accommodates dynamic currency data.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for displaying product prices in local currencies on Internet or web-based product catalogs.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for converting and displaying currency values in local currencies for conversion of text for printed price lists.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus to translate the value of assets in foreign denominations to a base currency or any other foreign currency, or currency equivalent such as gold, platinum, palladium, silver, or rhodium.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus to maintain a uniform asset base valuation for accounting functions such as financial statements.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus to provide arbitrage opportunities for currency speculation by using fast, accurate and reliable currency translation.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus to evaluate multiple sources for acquiring products and services based on localized costs, such as comparing the cost of a trans-oceanic telephone circuit at the countries terminating that line.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus to support local currency valuations in terms of the Euro (EUR currency unit mandated for introduction in 1999).
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus to support accounti
Cohen Jerry
Jeanty Romain
Lopez Orlando
Perkins Smith & Cohen LLP
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