Continued

US008078513B1 (12) United States Patent Sobh et a1. (54) NORMALIZED DISTRIBUTED EXCHANGE SYSTEM (75) Inventors: Tarek M. Sobh; Shelton; CT (US); 2002/0120554 A1 2002/0120555 2002/0147640 2002/0165792 2002/0165817 2002/0188527 Tarek Khaled Alameldin; Fresno; CA Dec. 13, 2011 8/2002 Vega A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 8/2002 Lerner 10/2002 Daniele et al. 11/2002 Morrell, Jr. 11/2002 Rackson et al. 12/2002 Dillard et al. (US); Naglaa K. Alameldin; legal (Continued) representative; Fresno; CA (US); Raul Constantin Mihali; Milford; CT (US); Andrei Rosca; Stamford; CT (US) FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS 2001319102 JP 11/2001 (Continued) (73) Assignee: Automated Exchange Systems, Inc.; Shelton; CT (US) Notice: US 8,078,513 B1 (10) Patent N0.: (45) Date of Patent: OTHER PUBLICATIONS Subject to any disclaimer; the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 “Barter System Starts to Flourish in Kuwait”, Kuwait Times, date Dec. 9, 2003.* U.S.C. 154(b) by 597 days. (Continued) (21) Appl. N0.: 11/778,606 Primary Examiner * Ella Colbert Assistant Examiner * Hai Tran (22) Filed: (51) Int. Cl. (52) vs. c1. .............. .. 705/35; 705/37; 705/39; 705/41; (58) Field of Classi?cation Search ............. .. 705/35i45 Jul. 16, 2007 (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm * The Eclipse Group LLP (57) (2006.01) G06Q 40/00 ABSTRACT A real-time normalized; distributed exchange and barter sys tem that allows multiple members to exchange multiple 705/44 goods and services with other members of the system over a distributed network such as the Internet. The system may See application ?le for complete search history. develop a plurality of permutations of trading cycles that (56) 6,035,287 6,058,379 6,449,601 6,629,083 6,847,938 2002/0004759 2002/0010636 2002/0059132 2002/0059134 2002/0065787 2002/0072978 2002/0073015 2002/0107783 References Cited allow for indirect exchanges between its members; with the option of using cash as an exchange element. The system may U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS also develop permutations of trading cycles for sub-classes and sub-categories of the goods; services and exchange ele A A Bl Bl Bl A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 3/2000 5/2000 9/2002 9/2003 1/2005 1/2002 1/2002 5/2002 5/2002 5/2002 6/2002 6/2002 8/2002 Stallaert et a1. Odom et a1. Friedland et a1. Morton Moore ments within the system; and choose an optimized set of trading cycles among the many trading-cycle permutations .......................... .. that cover the exchange system; based on criteria de?ned by 705/26 the system’s sponsor. The system may determine all possible cyclic permutations of exchanges between its members and select the cyclic permutation that best meets the de?ned cri Bradford et a1. Immel Quay et a1. Ebbs et a1. Evers et a1. teria; also the system would be able to make suggestions or ................... .. 705/80 impersonate a user in order to close any open chains. Odom et a1. Chan et a1. La Mura et a1. 36 Claims, 23 Drawing Sheets 210 ‘ 200 ,SLJJA ltemAiiiixnww '/ 214 ‘i . "All Item B2 e ,‘ p ’ , \y \\ Trader A TraderB TraderD ‘ y M 1 / /// Item 31 Item TraderC @ \ 212 US 8,078,513 B1 Page 2 US. PATENT DOCUMENTS 2003/0014351 A1 2003/0023498 A1 1/2003 Neff et a1. 1/2003 Benton 2003/0088497 A1 5/2003 Belgrano 2003/0139996 A1 7/2003 D’Antoni et a1. 2003/0154160 A1* 8/2003 Arndt ............................ .. 705/37 2004/0019556 2004/0059596 2004/0107158 2005/0125308 2005/0131797 1/2004 3/2004 6/2004 6/2005 6/2005 Morton Vaidyanathan et a1. Odom et a1. Puentes et a1. Ananthanarayanan et al. 6/2008 Johnson ........................ .. 705/10 A1 A1 A1 A1 A1 2008/0147479 A1* FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS JP JP JP JP JP JP JP JP JP W0 W0 W0 2001357233 2002133272 2002150029 2002157529 2002269385 2002297977 2002318936 2003016229 2003076881 W0 96/21192 W0 03/007109 W0 2004/027660 12/2001 5/2002 5/2002 5/2002 9/2002 10/2002 10/2002 1/2003 3/2003 7/1996 1/2003 4/2004 OTHER PUBLICATIONS EURESCOM, Svein Tore Johnsen et al., E-commerce impacts on service and network operations and management (40 pages), Dec. 2001, Heidelberg, Germany. Mech. Eng. Publications for IMechE, N. Anderson et al., A distrib uted e-commerce system for virtual product development teams (1 page), 2002, UK. IEEE Computer Society, S. Hamilton, E-commerce for the 21s’ cen tury (1 page), May 1997, Washington, DC. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, C. OZturan, Network?ow models for electronic barter exchanges (1 page), 2004, USA. IEEE Engineering Management Society, D. Keever et al., Develop ment and growth of Internet environmental exchange services (1 page), 2000, Piscataway, N.J. Dennis Publishing, C. Couldwell, Trading places (1 page), Aug. 1996, UK. IEEE Computer Society, K. Saito, Maintaining Trust in Peer-to-Peer Barter Relationships (7 pages), Feb. 2004, USA. Onecer Exchange, Online TradingiTrade Exchange Market Place (17 pages), Melbourne, Australia. www.j ewishworldreviewcom, K. Oahn Ha, Barter becoming crucial to more businesses (4 pages), Sep. 22, 2003, USA. Springer-Verlag, M. Jakobsson, Ripping coins for a fair exchange (1 page), 1995, Berlin, Germany. Springer-Verlag, C. OZturan, Computational Issues in E-commerce Trading Exchanges (1 page), 2001, London, UK. Academic Press Inc. Elsevier Science, R. W. Helsey et al., Knowledge barter in cities (1 page), Sep. 2004, San Diego, California. Academic Press Inc., M. Engineer et al., Bargains, barter, and money (1 page), Jan. 2001, San Diego, California. Home Office Computing, R. Resnick, Barterfor anyoneismall busi nesses use ofbartering (3 pages), Nov. 1992, USA. Business Wire, ExchangeAnything. com Debuts Online Barter, Exchange and Donation Technology for Business and Consumer Community, Portal Sites (3 pages), Apr. 4, 2000, New York, NY. Nation’s Business, M. Bertrand, Let ’s make a dealibarter deals (4 pages), Feb. 1995, Washington, DC. CNY Business Journal, P. Allen, Business ofBartering in CNY‘ Let ’s Make a Deal! (3 pages), Sep. 1, 2000, Syracuse, NY. Market Wire, Biglfine. com Selects Quintus eContact To Power Online Barter Site (2 pages), Mar. 2000, Los Angeles, California. Business Wire, ecommUSA Announces Free Trial Membership in Global Trading Network; Online Trading Tools, Services Give Any BusinessAccess to Worldwide Markets (3 pages), Jan. 16, 2001, New York, NY. IEEE Computer Society, P. Haddawy et al., Data-Driven Agent Based Simulation of Commercial Barter Trade (7 pages), May 1997, Washington, DC. University of St. Gallen, H. Axelsson et al., TheBZBLandscape in the Industry of Consumer Packaged Goods (15 pages), 2001, St. Gallen, Switzerland. Elsevier Science, Inc., W. Dou et al., A structural analysis of busi ness-to-business digital markets (12 pages), Feb. 2002. * cited by examiner US. Patent Dec. 13, 2011 Sheet 1 0123 US 8,078,513 B1 82:950am wEmczo>xwm & £0362 3 <Eumt. No? NEN“ 0Bum; mBum; wow US. Patent Dec. 13, 2011 Sheet 2 0f 23 US 8,078,513 B1 m69 :. Q 08\ EE0: w Fm mmE0: DBOUwEP 0Hum; QM wdM DEm: 0E2 4SE . % US. Patent Dec. 13, 2011 Sheet 6 0f 23 US 8,078,513 B1 x28; g ME.bhm v66%“ US. Patent Dec. 13, 2011 Sheet 7 0f 23 US 8,078,513 B1 US. Patent :80 Dec. 13, 2011 m63:. Sheet 9 0f 23 US 8,078,513 B1 a.bhm % US. Patent Dec. 13, 2011 Sheet 10 0f 23 Choose Item Category A/M 1004 I Choose Item I l l Subcategory (optional) 1006 I I‘ l Su bcategory? 1008 Enter Item Information 1010 YES Is This a New Trade? 1012 Create a New Trade 1014 Select Items or Groups Select Existing Trade to Insert the New Item 1018 Insert Item into the Selected Trade and Trading Options 1016 1020 Do you want to modify trading options for this trade? 1022 FIG. 10 US 8,078,513 B1 1000 US. Patent Dec. 13, 2011 ‘4/1100 Do you want to select items to be received in No US 8,078,513 B1 Sheet 11 0f 23 Yes exchange? Do you want to receive sug Select items and define gestions selected from existing trading options m items? m Provide the user with Do you want to receive suggestions NO want to get YES suggestions selected from new items only. suggestions selected from 111Q from new items? existing items? 1% ; I Include New DO you 1"??? I — _ Yes '30 you Wish to receive suggestions selected from certain Do you want to No also want to get suggestions Yes N . receive from new items suggestions only? 112g from new items? Yes N0 categories? Do you want No to get suggestions from Yes similar items? Select the M category 1 1 14 Do you want No End 112§ FIG. 11 to get Yes suggestions from certain category? US. Patent Dec. 13, 2011 US 8,078,513 B1 Sheet 12 0f 23 1200 Start 12 2 Browse or I Search search? Browse 1 12 4 Search for items. Browse for Items.) 1206 1208 l Produce a list of items. 121;; Use YES item scratchpad? 1212 Select items Add items to from list. scratchpad. 1214 1216 Select items from scratchpad. No Select more items? 122g 1215 N0 Do you want to trade 1 item for 1 item? N0 Any Possible Supporting u Questions for block 1226. 122 B Do you want What is the maximum number of items you would trade to receive a YES to define trading i options yourself‘? single item? 1222 1225 De?ne Trading Options Yourself 1224 N0 End 122g FIG. 12 YES US. Patent Dec. 13, 2011 Sheet 13 0123 US 8,078,513 B1 /// r 1300 / Trader 15 \ 1332 1 L5 /r\\ / Trader 13 \ J T, —1313 \LL ”/Trader16\ // /1 3201 1333 *1 1316 f *7“ \ \\\\ \ \ , 1334 / 2\ ii: 1329 ,1 1335 f ‘i (1313/ ,1 / // // / Trader 4 \ /, \\ \ g / >>\\ ‘L 1342 / \41341 / Trader5 \\ 1336 /1 Trader6 \ [i1 \ // \ i l///4\ 1306 \ i/ 1 1305 1 ‘ \\ A\\ ,j j \ // Trader 10 \‘) ‘\\ 1343 / Trader 7 \ , //s 1339 Trader 9 \\ // 1 1309 ‘ r1 \w\ , \ 1 13251 \\ / 1344 1345 <1 3261/ * r / Trader 11 \\ \ \ \ 1348 FIG. 13 US. Patent Dec. 13, 2011 r26:. oEumt. Sheet 17 0123 US 8,078,513 B1 1/ H_ER; H8 390x / / A: A :9 W8 11, mm 1/ K mEvmt. 06? 1K 1 Ml l l,rq‘hI m _ M, N98;/ wmimm: W> o \