Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-30
2004-03-02
Robinson, Greta (Department: 2177)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06701313
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for data object generation and matching, a computer readable storage medium for storing a program for performing the method of data object generation and matching, and a business method which makes use of the method and apparatus.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for data object generation and matching wherein users of different types employ a common classification system to categorize an activity or entity to create a data object corresponding to the respective activity or entity, it then is possible to automatically match compatible activities or entities on the basis of the created data objects corresponding thereto.
BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION
In a modern free market economy goods and services are traded on a daily basis in accordance with the rules of supply and demand. However, the successful operation of such an economy ultimately relies upon either the vendor of the goods or services, whatever these may be, being able to locate a vendee whose requirements substantially match those provided by the goods and services on offer from the vendor, or vice versa. As will be apparent, this is an age old business problem inherent to any economy based upon free trade.
A particularly complicated free-market sector is that of the provision of labour services, and the efficient matching of the labour services of any particular individual to any particular job or employment position. Indeed, the specific problems posed by the most appropriate matching of the right personnel to the right job are so extensive that in recent years there has been extensive growth in the Human Resources (HR) industry, both within traditional employers expanding their HR departments, and within the third-party agency sector. The numerous disadvantages and cost for both employers and employees of using third-party agency services, however, mean that it is preferable for most positions to be filled by direct contact between the employer and the potential employee. This route, however, suffers from the general problem referred to above of how to bring together the right person and the right job.
The traditional method of finding the most appropriate person for a job usually involves the employer advertising the job in a publication such as a newspaper or trade journal. Potential employees then contact the employer to arrange an interview, at which the potential employee's suitability for the job is assessed by the employer and a decision is made as to whether or not to offer the potential employee the advertised job. In such circumstances, the employer acts as a job provider, and the potential employee as a job seeker, and these terms will be used hereafter to refer to such parties. In this traditional method, the publication such as the newspaper or trade journal acts as the medium by which the job provider and job seeker are initially brought together and contact is first made.
Advances in communications technology in recent years have led to the rise of new media by which job providers and job seekers may make a first initial contact. In particular, the growth of the Internet, and in particular the World Wide Web has led to a new communication media providing access to millions of people worldwide, and it is therefore unsurprising that this new medium has already been adapted to address the issue of recruitment. Various Internet based recruitment systems already exist.
The first generation of on-line systems specifically aimed at the recruitment problem merely mirrored the format of traditional newspaper or trade journal jobs pages, providing lists of job adverts from job providers in the form of electronic bulletin boards or web pages.
In order to find a suitable job on such a first generation system, a job seeker would have to potentially review many hundreds of adverts, and interpret each advert regarding the specific job advertised. Such systems place a large burden on the job seeker when in use to both search through and analyse each advert to find any that may match their requirements.
Following the first generation system, second generation on-line recruitment services are also known which provide rudimentary search facilities akin to those provided by Internet search engines. These facilities allow a job seeker to search through job adverts posted on a particular site on the basis of keywords entered by the job seeker to determine the existence of those keywords in any of the posted adverts. Such searching techniques are standard Internet search tools, and will be well known to both the man skilled in the art and the lay reader familiar with Internet use.
Second generation systems improve upon the first generation systems by allowing the job seeker to narrow down the number of adverts for review. However, there is still a need for an on-line system which allows for a more refined search to be performed in order to further reduce the burden on the job seeker and/or job provider.
Although the above background has been presented in relation to the problems of the recruitment and labour market, it will be appreciated that similar problems exist in general throughout every sector of a free market economy, in that a vendor of goods and services must be able to locate a suitable vendee (or vice versa) with coincidental needs which substantially match the attributes of the goods or services provided by the vendor. It will be further appreciated that similar problems to those described above exist for both the vendor and vendee.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention addresses the problem of matching coincidental needs relating to an activity or entity by the provision of a classification system specific to the particular activity or entity to be traded or exchanged which allows parties to the trade to define their requirements in a standardised format. Once the parties requirements have been placed in the standardised format, it then becomes possible to automatically match the coincidental requirements by machine, thereby bringing together the parties to the trade or exchange in a time efficient and cost effective manner.
From a first aspect, the present invention provides a method of data object generation and matching using a database having data fields for storing a plurality of predefined classification categories, each of said categories containing one or more predefined user-selectable attributes, said method comprising the steps of
pre-storing one or more data objects of a first type in the database, each of said data objects storing one or more pre-selected attributes of one or more of said plurality of classification categories;
displaying said plurality of classification categories to a user for selection of one or more attributes from at least one of said classification categories;
storing the selected attributes in a database in the form of a data object of a second type;
comparing the stored attributes of the data object of the second type with the stored pre-selected attributes of a data object of the first type; and
matching said data objects of the respective types which have at least a predetermined number of common stored attributes.
Preferably, the pre-stored data objects of the first type are created by displaying the plurality of classification categories to a user of a first type for selection of one or more attributes from at least one of the classification categories, and then storing the selected attributes in the database in the form of a data object of a first type. In such a case, the attributes selected and stored as a data object of the second type are selected by a user of the second type.
The classification categories may be divided into two or more sub-classes, and the correlation between the attributes of the sub-class compared when matching data objects. Each sub-class may be assigned a different acceptability threshold, with the data objects being matched only when the number of common attributes in each sub-class exceeds the threshold set for t
Dykema Gossett PLLC
Robinson Greta
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