Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1998-11-23
2002-12-31
Feild, Joseph H. (Department: 2176)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C705S080000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06502113
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of negotiations, and in particular, to a document management system for tracking and recording on-going negotiations at a micro-level and a macrolevel.
2. Description of Related Art
Negotiations are very unstructured affairs in almost every respect. Negotiations are adversarial by nature, even when the parties have a genuine desire to reach an agreement. The adversarial character is reflected by almost every aspect of the process. Firstly, each party desires to control the paperwork. Computers have alleviated this issue to some extent. Many word processing programs have a revision tool by means of which revisions can be made on a tentative or provisional basis, and be coded by color or underlining, in a manner that some or all of the revisions can be accepted at a later time and automatically implemented. If the parties have the same software the document can be transferred back and forth, but there is no easy way to track the changes or determine the status of uncoded clauses.
There is a long-felt need for obviating the counter-productive desire to control the paperwork. In the event the paperwork is shared by transmission between parties, there remains a long-felt need to obviate having to have the same, if not completely compatible word processing systems.
Negotiators keep independent notes which may never be seen by others, including the negotiator's manager, except when a dispute arises as to the meaning or consequence of a previous change or position, or as to the reason certain clause language was accepted by one party, perhaps subject to another point being yielded by the other party. In this instance, the notes usually reflect the differing position of each party, so that the previously decided issue must be renegotiated. When negotiations take place over a period of time, or in a series of negotiating sessions, the parties often forget where the discussions were interrupted, forgetting either genuinely or by design. Parties are also prone to forget undocumented agreements to be implemented later, or in some cases, the parties clearly remember these issues differently.
Managers have a particularly difficult task in monitoring and evaluating the negotiating efficiency of the negotiators as there is little recorded information regarding how and why certain clauses were agreed to in a manner more favorable to one party than the other. Once again, those personal notes can represent, or can be made to represent, a very selective record.
There is a long-felt need for a system for managing and tracking negotiations, which facilitates generation of a complete, on-going and accurate historical written record of the entire negotiation, and which enables each party to determine the status of every clause in an agreement at any time. Such a negotiation management system can benefit both the negotiators and the managers during the course of discussions, and can ultimately benefit the principals by improving the quality of the negotiations themselves.
It is frequently desired to incorporate predrafted clauses from form books and the like to speed implementation of proposed revisions and revisions which have been agreed to in terms, assuming appropriate language is adopted. Such clauses are available on CD ROMs, for example, but there is no integrated system available by which all parties can easily import such clauses into a document being negotiated.
There is a long-felt need for an integrated system by which predrafted clauses can be easily imported into a document being negotiated by any party and at any time.
Finally, it is often helpful to conduct negotiations on neutral ground. Negotiations conducted in-person can be conducted in a rented facility, but this is often an unacceptable expense and inconvenience, and in any event, often takes place in a host city or location associated with one of the parties. In the event negotiations take place at a distance, for example by transmission of a document in some form back and forth between the parties, only one party has access to the document at a time. This can be inconvenient, if not a source of considerable frustration.
There is a long-felt need to establish a neutral ground which provides each long-distance negotiator with equal and essentially unrestricted access to the document being negotiated and an associated record of the negotiations.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Each of the long-felt needs of the prior art is satisfied by the negotiation management system taught herein, which can be embodied as a method for managing negotiations, a method for facilitating negotiations and a computer apparatus programmed for enabling the methods to be practiced.
The negotiation manager, or management system, taught herein is a universal document management system which allows two or more parties to divide a proposed contract, or a draft letter of agreement, into specific issues that can then be edited during a series of iterations until both parties feel an optimum “win/win” agreement has been reached. A core feature of the system is a so-called “bracketing” facility which allows a clause to be physically and visually isolated from within a base or starting document. The bracketed clause is then copied to respective positions associated with each party, but visible to both parties, at which each party can take turns making respective revisions. As each party makes changes in the wording of the bracketed, or targeted clause, the system records all changes until mutually acceptable language is finally proposed and the bracketed issue can be identified as having been agreed to.
The system also enables the negotiators to make an instant assessment of any and all issues so as to balance tradeoffs and track the conflict. For example, the system can allow the parties to track struggles to define a suitable up-front payment in relation to a final agreement on annual minimums. As the up-front payment request increases, the parties would be expected to lower the annual minimums.
Each recorded change to a bracketed clause becomes a revision to the base document, which is continually updated. In effect, the parties are creating a series of draft agreements during the negotiation process. The system also allows the parties to create new issues and treat them as bracketed items in their own right. When each new issue is created, the draft agreement is updated to include the new issue and the system brackets the issue in the system itself. The new language, in effect, becomes another draft clause that can be reciprocally edited until it is suitable for the final agreement.
Two management features help the negotiators keep track of the negotiation process even when negotiations take place over a matter of weeks, or longer, and involve dozens of disputed issues. The first feature is visual coding, one example of which is color coding. Each clause in the base document can be color coded to distinguish between clauses which have been agreed to and clauses which have not been negotiated. The bracketed clauses can be color coded to identify the party originating that version of a modified clause as the modified clause automatically appears in the updated document. The document can then be color coded to further distinguish clauses which are being negotiated and to identify which party has made the most recent proposal. This has the subtle but very significant effect of unambiguously tracking the turn taking obligations of the parties. This technique virtually abolishes the kind of crunch strategies which are bound up with aggressive win/lose negotiations. In other words, this program helps negotiators avoid the so-called “Japanese” type of turn taking evasion, in which bottom line judgments are avoided by saying “Your proposal might be difficult.” Such a strategy can sometimes pressure an opposing negotiator into making a change in his or her most recent proposal, thus leading the negotiator into the trap of negotiating with him or herself. The system virtually forces
Crawford John E.
Kudla Ronald M.
Bashore William L.
Feild Joseph H.
Senterfitt Akerman
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