Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Reservation – check-in – or booking display for reserved space
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-02
2001-08-14
Cosimano, Edward R. (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Reservation, check-in, or booking display for reserved space
C705S400000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06275808
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
This invention relates to computerized travel planning systems.
Travel planning systems are used to produce itineraries and prices by selecting suitable travel units from databases containing geographic, scheduling and pricing information. In the airline industry, fundamental travel units include “flights” (sequences of regularly scheduled takeoffs and landings assigned a common identifier) and “fares” (prices published by airlines for travel between two points). The term “itinerary” is often used to refer to a sequence of flights on particular dates, and the term “pricing solution” is often used to refer to a combination of fares and itineraries that satisfies a travel request.
The databases usually contain schedule information provided by airlines, typically in the so-called Standard Schedules Information Manual (SSIM) format, and usually fares published by airlines and resellers, typically provided through the intermediary Airline Tariff Publishing Company® (ATPCO). The database may also contain “availability” information that determines whether space is available on flights, or this may be obtained through communication links to external sources such as airlines.
Presently, so-called computer reservation system (CRSS) operate to produce fare and schedule information. There are four generally known computer reservation systems that operate in the United States, Sabre®, Galileo®, Amadeus® and WorldSpan®. The typical CRS contains a periodically updated central database that is accessed by subscribers such as travel agents through computer terminals. The subscribers use the computer reservation system to determine what airline flights are operating in a given market, what fares are offered and whether seats are available on flights to make bookings and issue tickets to clients.
The computer reservation systems typically conduct searches using the information contained in the database to produce itineraries that satisfy a received request. The search results are sorted and returned to the requester s computer for display. Typically, the number of possible itineraries and pricing solutions that are returned by a CRS is a small portion of the total set that may satisfy a passengers request.
SUMMARY
According to one aspect of the invention, a computer storage medium storing a data structure that represents pricing solutions in a travel reservation system includes a first plurality of choice nodes that represent exclusive pricing solutions, a second plurality of combining nodes that represent collective pricing solutions and a third plurality of terminal nodes that represent pricing objects.
According to a further aspect of the invention, a method of producing a pricing graph data structure from a plurality of data structures used to represent information and operations involved in forming pricing solutions, includes assigning a type to each of the plurality of data structures, said type requiring a corresponding data structure to be combinable with others of the plurality of data structures or exclusive to others of the plurality of data structures and listing fields in the corresponding data structure that contribute to a node in the pricing graph data structure. The method also includes converting fields of the data structure into the assigned type; and placing converted fields from the data structure in a node in the pricing graph data structure.
According to a further aspect of the invention, a method of manipulating a pricing graph data structure having a plurality of nodes includes applying a value function to the pricing graph data structure to extract from the pricing graph, a pricing solution component that satisfies user specified input to the value function.
The data structure has the third plurality of terminal nodes that can comprise pricing objects that include one or more of itineraries, routes, fares, prices, booking codes, surcharges, taxes or rules/regulations. The third plurality of terminal nodes can comprise a field having a value to indicate whether the node is valid or invalid. The data structure has the combining nodes that contain values of subsequent nodes that are combined to produce a pricing solution. The data structure can have a first portion of the first plurality of exclusive nodes refer to subsequent combining nodes and a second portion of the first plurality of exclusive nodes refer to terminal nodes. The data structure can have the first plurality of exclusive nodes comprise a field having a value to indicate whether the node is valid or invalid. The data structure can have a first portion of said second plurality of combining nodes refer to subsequent combining nodes. The data structure can have a second portion of said second plurality of combining nodes refer to terminal nodes. The data structure can have the second plurality of combining nodes comprise a field having a value to indicate whether the node is valid or invalid.
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Cosimano Edward R.
Fish & Richardson P.C.
ITA Software, Inc.
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