E-commerce catalog construction by incorporation

Title

E-Commerce Ca talog Construction by Incorpora tion

This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 (e) for U.S. Provisional Patent Application Number

60/169,329, filed on December 6, 1999. This application is also related to co-pending U.S. Patent Application No. 09/652,568 filed on August 31, 2000. Both of the aforementioned applications are herein incorporated by reference, but are not admitted to be prior art.

Technical Field

This invention relates generally to e-commerce and more specifically to a method for constructing an e-commerce catalog by incorporation of existing data.

Background Art

In order to participate in e-commerce, an electronic catalog of products for sale is typically provided for purchasing entities to identify and order demanded products. In one e-commerce solution, each enterprise creates two electronic catalogs: one for products for sale and one for demanded products. Construction of an electronic catalog, however, can be an onerous task for small and mid-sized business enterprises. Typically, enterprises initiating an e-commerce presence must manually construct an electronic catalog in its entirety. This requires considerable labor expenditure to manually enter each product into the catalog, particularly when each product requires multiple fields of data. Extensive effort has been directed to optimizing catalog searches, catalog structures and catalog interoperability with customer purchasing systems. For example, one approach to catalog interoperability is to create a multi-vendor catalog either inside the purchasing entity's firewall or on a host server on the Internet. This approach is disclosed in "Product Information Management, Publishing and Exchange Enable Preferred Relationships with Customers and Channel Partners" SAQQARA SYSTEMS, INC. White Paper (MAY, 1999) . Catalog searches can be optimized by avoiding redundant entries. U.S. Patent No. 5,231,566, issued to Bl u tinger et al . , teaches a method for constructing an electronic catalog in which each manual entry is checked against the existing catalog for a match with a previous entry to prevent duplicate entries. Catalog structure can be optimized by using object-oriented code to create the catalog structure. U.S. Patent No. 6,052,670, issued to Johnson, teaches the use of an object-oriented framework to construct an electronic catalog. The resulting catalog is extensible and the ^'content can be controlled by the enterprise. However, these solutions require individual catalog entries to be manually entered into the catalog. Manually entry of data requires substantial labor expenditure, which may be cost prohibitive for small and mid-size enterprises. Many existing solutions also require a large capital investment in custom software or loss of control over the content of a catalog on an Internet host.

A need still exists for a method for constructing an electronic catalog, which is not cost prohibitive for small and mid-size businesses and allows a user to control content .

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for constructing an electronic catalog by incorporation of existing data. Disclosure of the Invention

To achieve these and other objectives, and in view of its purposes, the present invention provides a method for constructing an e-commerce catalog by incorporation of existing data. Incorporation provides significant labor savings, avoiding rhe time required to manually enter product data into an electronic catalog. In addition, incorporation allows an enterprise to maintain control over the content of the catalog.

In one embodiment of the present invention, a method is provided for constructing an electronic catalog by incorporation of existing data sets corresponding to products to be listed in the electronic catalog. Existing databases are downloaded to an extranet-based e-commerce platform user's enterprise site. The existing databases may be catalogs from other extranet-based e-commerce platform users, a general catalog provided by the extranet-based e- com erce platform provider, or third party XML files. Data sets corresponding to products to be added to the catalog are imported to the electronic catalog, adding that product to the electronic catalog. Optionally, the data sets may be imported to a client-side electronic catalog, and the changes to the client-side electronic catalog can be exported to a server-side electronic catalog accessible through the extranet-based e-commerce platform.

It should be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, but are not restrictive, of the invention.

Brief Description of Drawings The features and advantages of a method for constructing an electronic catalog by incorporation will be more clearly understood from the following description when read in connection with the accompanying drawing. Included in the drawing are the following figures:

Fig. 1 is a block diagram of an extranet-based e- commerce platform, which can be used to construct an electronic catalog by incorporation according to one embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 2 illustrates the architecture for an extranet- based e-commerce platform used to construct an electronic catalog by incorporation according to one embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 3 illustrates a graphical user interface for a purchasing transaction area of an enterprise site of an extranet-based e-commerce platform used to construct and maintain a demand catalog according to the present invention;

Fig. 4 illustrates a graphical user interface for a sales transaction area of an enterprise site of an extranet- based e-commerce platform used to construct and maintain a sales catalog according to the present invention; and

Fig. 5 is a flow diagram of a method for constructing an electronic catalog by incorporation according to one embodiment of the present invention.

Best Mode for Carrying Out the Invention

The present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawing in which like reference numerals designate similar or corresponding elements, regions, and portions. The present invention provides a method for constructing an electronic catalog by incorporation .

Referring now to Fig. !•^', a first extranet-based e- commerce platform (EBEP) user has an enterprise site (601) as disclosed in U.S. Patent Application No. (Attorney Docket WEB 2000-4), which is incorporated herein. The EBEP user constructs a client side user catalog (USER CATAOG/C) (1840) using its enterprise site (601) . USER CATALOG/C (1840) is a database, comprises data sets (1802, 1808, 1810), which describe products for sale or demanded by the first EBEP user, depending upon whether USER CATALOG/C (1840) is a sales transaction catalog (sales catalog) or a purchasing transaction catalog (demand catalog) .

The data sets (1802, 1808, 1810) in USER CATALOG/C (1840) can be input using any combination of three methods. First, data sets can be uploaded from a legacy database (1850) using a translation program (1860) . The translation program (1860) can translate a legacy database (1850) into an extensible markup language (XML) file, then the XML file is uploaded into USER CATALOG/C (1840) by incorporation.

Second, data sets (1802, 1808, 1810) can be manually entered using an input application (1870). Third, data sets (1802, 1808, 1810) can be entered into USER CATALOG/C (1840) by incorporation . When data sets (1802, 1808, 1810) are entered into USER CATALOG/C (1840) by incorporation, the data sets (102, 1808, 1810) are transmitted through the extranet-based e-commerce platform (EBEP) (300) and the EBEP user's enterprise site (601) . The data sets (1802, 1808, 1810) can be retrieved by the EBEP (300) from various locations on the Internet (100) . These locations include, but are not limited to, a general catalog (1800) constructed by the EBEP provider for the purpose of catalog construction by incorporation and enterprise sites of other EBEP users (1831) . Fig. 2 shows an implementation of the present invention using a client/server architecture. On the client side, the EBEP user's software comprises a client-side operating system (470A), a first database (480A), extranet-based e- commerce platform software (450), client-side distributed data management software (460) and the USER CATALOG/C database (1840) . In the embodiment shown in Fig. 2, the first EBEP user's software communicates through a communication layer (not shown) to a host server on the Internet (100) .

On the server side of the connection, an enterprise Java beans architecture (EJB) is used. EJB is a product of Sun Microsystems of Palo Alto, CA. A websphere application (500) from International Business Machine, Inc. (IBM) of Armonk, NY is installed on the server to monitor and manage transactions between enterprises on the EBEP. The websphere application establishes an EJB session/entity (510) associated with the entity (i.e., enterprise) who established it. EJB uses piece of application code to assemble a working application to perform EBEP functionalities.

The server side Enterprise Application Integration software (EAI/S) (410) is incorporated using DOMINO (520) by Lotus Development of Cambridge MA. DOMINO allows the EJB application to read data in a variety of languages, including hyper text markup language (HMTL) (530), extensible markup language (XML) (540), NOTES by IBM, and Lotus Development, and SERVLET (560) by Sun Microsystems.

After USER CATALOG/C has been created or updated, it is exported to the EBEP software by an authorized individual using the distributed data management software (460, 410) . The EBEP session (510) creates a server side user catalog (USER CATALOG/S) (1900), which is a duplicate of USER CATALOG/C (1840), but is available to other EBEP users through their respective EBEP extranets . USER CATALOG/S (1900) is created using the distributed data management software (410), preferably as a notes database. Optionally, for catalog updates, only the changes to USER CATALOG/C are exported to USER CATALOG/S.

It should be understood that although the foregoing description is based on a client-server architecture over the public Internet, other architectures are possible within the scope of the present invention, as well as, other types of networks.

Fig. 3 shows a graphical user interface (GUI) for the purchasing transaction area (800) of a first EBEP user's enterprise site according to one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in Fig. 3, a comprehensive menu of functions related to purchasing transactions can be accessed from within the purchasing transaction area (800) . One such EBEP function in the purchasing transactions area is "REGISTER OF DEMAND FOR PRODUCT OR SERVICE." By selecting this function, an authorized individual can create a demand catalog or add products to an existing demand catalog.

Fig. 4 shows a graphical user interface (GUI) for the sales transaction area (900) of a first EBEP user's enterprise site according to one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in Fig. 4, a comprehensive menu of functions related to sales transactions can be accessed from within the sales transaction area (900) . One such EBEP function in the sales transactions area is "INSERT PRODUCT IN CATALOG." By selecting this function, an authorized individual can create a sales catalog or add products to an existing sales catalog.

Referring to Fig. 5, after selecting "REGISTER OF DEMAND FOR PRODUCT OR SERVICE" from any area of the first EBEP user's enterprise site, the authorized individual can select "RESEARCH BY COMPANY" (step 1710) from a menu of functions. The EBEP software will provide the authorized user with a screen with one or more blank fields with which to define the company to be searched. After entering the necessary data to define the desired search criteria (step 1720), the authorized individual selects search (step 1725) to initiate the EBEP search function. The EBEP software then provides a listing of EBEP users matching the search criteria provided by the authorized user. The authorized individual selects a company name from the search results (step 1730) causing the EBEP software to open the selected company's EBEP enterprise site (step 1740).

Alternatively, the authorized individual can select "RESEARCH BY DEMANDED GOODS" (not shown) or RESEARCH BY SALES GOODS" (not shown) in place of "RESEARCH BY COMPANY" (step 1710) . The EBEP software will provide the authorized user with a screen with one or more blank fields with which to define the goods to be searched. Goods can be searched by any combination of: product name, brand name, sector, characteristics, city and state. The process proceeds like the search by company, but, with a list of matching products being provided.

Still referring to Fig. 5, while viewing the selected company's EBEP enterprise site, the authorized individual selects the catalog (i.e., the selected company's sales catalog or demand catalog) from which to incorporate products into his/her own sales or demand catalog (step 1745) . The EBEP software downloads the selected catalog to the first EBEP user's enterprise site. The authorized individual then selects "INCORPORATE PRODUCTS CATALOG" (step 1750) from a menu of available EBEP functions. The authorized individual selects products to be incorporated (step 1770) . Products can be selected, for example, by highlighting them while viewing the downloaded catalog. The Not furnished at the tine of publ ication