WO2000010066A2

WO2000010066A2 - Reverse auction search engine

Info

Publication number: WO2000010066A2
Application number: PCT/US1999/016712
Authority: WO
Inventors: Prithu Nath
Original assignee: Interactive Yellow Pages, Inc.
Priority date: 1998-08-13
Filing date: 1999-08-12
Publication date: 2000-02-24
Also published as: WO2000010066A3; AU5543999A

Abstract

Buyer registers (100) receives a secret code for E-mail verification, and responds with their secret code to activate their account. The buyer chooses a geographic area of search (101). The buyer searches for products and services on the present invention Super store. If no prices then log-in-page. Buyer logs-in (106) with the login name and password. Buyer fills out Inquiry and submit (107). Sellers receive their responses in their Intelli-boxes (108). Responses are sorted (112) depending on type of Inguiry from chose. The buyer acepts may of responses (113).

Description

Reverse Auction Search Engine

Technical Field

The present invention relates to commerce. More particularly to comparison shopping & international commerce. Still more particularly to comparison shopping, reverse auction & international commerce between buyers and sellers provided over the Internet. It also is a new generation portal web site where a user gets the feeling of surfing in a geographical location of the world and is able to conveniently get information for that area of the world as also in the true spirit of Internet unite the whole world and actually make the information available on the finger tips of the user, not only for getting information for that area but also for buying of products and services and for selling of products and services. It can be used both for consumer to business and business to business applications. This invention also relates to bringing the whole world under a global yellow page which is e-commerce enabled in such a manner that will change the way commerce is transacted today, doing away with geographical boundaries & replacing the existing business models.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application serial number 60/096,388, filed August 13, 1998 and entitled "Interactive Yellow Pages cum Easydo Search Engine".

BACKGROUND ART

The growth of the Internet is spurring on-line commerce . Internet users have been able to purchase goods and services over the Internet. This ability to search and purchase over the internet may replace yellow pages and other conventional means for locating retailers. The ability to buy goods and services has improved substantially. First attempts at electronic commerce (e-commerce) consisted of browsing a product list over the internet then either filling in an order form that was printed out or calling the company to place a credit card order.

As technology progressed, on-line forms were available to send purchase requests to on-line retailers.

Internet users could then browse products, and search for products within a website, add products to purchase to their virtual shopping cart and then checkout. Credit cards are proccessable while online and other forms of payment are available such as electronic money.

Auctions are another popular form of on-line commerce in which individuals and companies may buy and sell products on-line from other individuals, or companies, through a third party website. Auctions allow the product to remain on sale for a specific amount of time as users bid up the price of the item until the auction ends.

When individuals decide to purchase a product they typically research on-line retailers who sell the products. Prices may be found on some websites, on other websites the user must inquire by sending an E-mail to the retailer. The researching of product prices by various retailers and the sending of E-mail inquiries is time consuming and laborious. Sending E-mail to twenty or one-hundred retailers may take a substantial amount of time.

There are limits as to which retailers an individual may inquire about the price of an item. Retailers may be located in multiple countries throughout the world. A Japanese speaking individual who does not understand German may be precluded from conducting business with a German company that does not have any employees who can speak Japanese. Language, currency, and shipping are barriers to conducting e-commerce between individuals of different countries.

These problems and others have been solved by the present invention.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention allows individuals and companies throughout the world to conduct e-commerce while solving the problems of researching multiple retailers, contacting everyone, not understanding the language, having currency exchange problems, and shipping questions. Other problems are solved as well and will be apparent from the disclosure.

The present invention provides each user with an intelligent mailbox. The intelligent mailbox receives and sends mail between users of the system. Searching for products or services can be performed by searching for products or services throughout any geographic region.

Users may also search by categories and communities. A category may be a type of product, a brand name, or any other sub-set of the products and services. A community may be as broad as all products and services, or it may be specialized and provide products and services of interest to a particular person, such as a lawyer, or a child.

Categories and communities may be searched together. A twelve year old child may want to search in their community, which may have products of interest to a child, and only search within a state of the United States, such as Georgia. The only results returned would be products of interest to twelve year old children found listed as being in the state of Georgia.

Once products or services have been found, if the user does not wish to purchase the product or service and prefers to make an inquiry, the user fills out a pre-defined form to be sent.

Multiple pre-defined forms are provided, the user chooses the form which best fits their need.

The user may choose to send the inquiry to all the sellers listed in the category or a sub-set of sellers, including one individual seller.

The pre-defined form allows the buyer to enter their inquiry once, yet send it to as many sellers as they would like. Sellers all receive the inquiry in the same format, in their intelligent mail box, and thE-mail box sorts all inquiries according to thE-mail box owner' s request and pre-defined criteria .

Responses for sellers consist of responding via a pre-defined form, so all the responses in the buyers intelligent mailbox are sorted as well. The user is able to analyze the inquiries without wasting time sorting through each and every E-mail as would be required by a conventional E-mail program. The pre-defined forms are dependent on the product or service the user is inquiring or the inquiry the user is responding to. A mortgage would list a percentage rate, while a camera would list a price. Due to the uniquE-mailboxes the data may be downloaded and further processed with utilities such as spreadsheets.

Instead of looking through a directory and finding multiple sellers of a product or service a user may be interested in, then contact each one individually, the present invention allows the user to contact each seller quickly and effortlessly and obtain a market price.

For example, an importer of goods may generate an inquiry and send it to a hundred thousand entities listed in a particular listing, all by filling up one pre-defined form and by pressing one button. The entities receiving the inquiry will have the inquiries sorted, so they do not have to search through thousands of inquiries to determine which inquiries the entity would like to send a response to.

Inquiries may be sorted in many ways, for example, a seller may not want to receive inquires from anyone in the U.S. because they may not want to ship to the U.S.

Another searching capability based on geographic and community searching is the provision of information at a glance. For instance, interest rates may be found for the interest rates of banks in a particular city or a particular country.

All inquiries may also be sent to an E-mail address, facsi ilie machine, pager, or phone, outside of the present invention that has been requested by the user. Notices that inquiries which have been received, or responses which have been received may also be sent to an E-mail address, facsimilie machine, pager, or phone, outside of the present invention that has been requested by the user . Users may also personalize the categories and communities they view by creating a personalized profile. When using the present invention only the communities or categories the user would like to see are shown.

A user may also choose to be notified when a representative of a particular company, or another user, is using the present invention. This feature allows the user to then contact the representative through the present invention to inquire directly, through on-line chat, voice, and video communications .

Each user may also choose the language they wish to view the text in. This allows users of any country to buy and sell products and services to others that they would not be able to understand otherwise. Currency conversion may also be provided to expedite the sale of goods and products.

BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS OF DRAWINGS Figures 1 through 7 are block diagrams illustrating the process of the present invention.

Figure 1 is a block diagram of the present invention process. Figure 2 is a block diagram continuation of the present invention process in Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a block diagram continuation of the present invention process in Figure 2.

Figure 4 is a block diagram continuation of the present invention process in Figure 3.

Figure 5 is a block diagram of the present invention super store process.

Figure 6 is a block diagram of the transaction processing of the present invention. Figure 7 is a block diagram of the geographic location portal surfing.

Figures 8 through 49 are screen shots of the present invention.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

Referring now to the figures, figure 1 is a block diagram of the present invention process. In block 100, buyer registers, receives a secret code for E-mail verification, and responds with their secret code to activate their account, screen shot shown in Figure 8.

In block 101, the buyer chooses a geographic area of search, which could be the whole world, continent, country, city, or state. The buyer may also make a geographic location a default location, the present invention uses a cookie so that every time the buyer logs on the buyer is brought automatically to that location, screen shot shown in Figure 9.

In block 102, the buyer searches for products and services by business category, company name, brand name, products on the present invention Super store, as entered by the sellers in their respective stores or user created categories, or letters that represent the first letter of a category name. The present invention Super store allows sellers to enter their products for sale. Each seller has their own Super store.

Also a search engine is provided for key word searches to be made by keywords entered by sellers.

Searches may be made for products, categories of products, and services, screen shot shown in Figure

10.

In block 103 the buyer is brought to either the final listings page, screen shot shown in Figure 11, or to a category choice page, screen shot shown in Figure 12, from where the buyer chooses a category for going to a final listings page or can also send an inquiry to all sellers from the categories page itself .

If the buyer wishes to see listings or choose to send an inquiry only to a select few sellers or choose to go to the final listings page then buyer clicks on the chosen category to go to the final listings page.

The buyer clicks on either "Inquire from selected" or "Inquire from all" from final listings page or clicks on "Inquire from Categories" page.

In block 104, if the sellers have pre-entered products and prices in their Individual stores, then the buyer is brought to the Super Store, screen shot shown in Figure 13, which is a combination of all seller' s individual stores for that product and service and the buyer gets an instant response and comparison. The buyer may make a purchase here, or if not satisfied, the buyer proceeds further to the login page to make an inquiry.

In block 105, if price and products have not been entered by the sellers then the buyer is taken straight to the login, screen shot shown in Figure 14. The present invention is also capable of retrieving data from other web sites and bringing out the prices from sites selling the products and having online stores created and in operation for those products and services.

In block 106, the buyer logs in with the login name and password that was chosen by them while registering.

In block 107, the buyer chooses one of four pre-defined forms to inquire depending on the sort and reply criteria wanted and type of inquiry, screen shot shown in Figure 15. When inquiring the buyer fills out a pre-made form to keep all inquiries consistent. The buyer's personal details are already pre entered in this form for ease of use. Also the buyer may choose the currency in which offers are required screen shot shown in Figure 16.

The mailbox of the sellers receives the inquiry sent to everyone screen shot shown in Figure 17, Figure 18, and Figure 19, and the pre-made form allows each inquiry to be consistent which allows manipulation of the inquiries by sorting and other means. The process of a buyer sending an inquiry to multiple sellers is known as a reverse auction. The form also requests a date by which the offer or request is to be replied. The buyer may also send the offer or request to an individual seller, or select a sub-set of sellers from the list within the current category, or select to send to all sellers. The pre-made form allows the buyer to enter their information once, yet the inquiry is sent to all selected sellers, this method is extremely efficient in savings of time for both buyers and sellers, especially in a targeted geographical location. The buyer may also specify how long the inquiry is good for.

The Buyer may also send an email alert or request to sellers of similar products through regular email by entering their email address at a pre defined place on the inquiry form to participate in this inquiry by registering on the present invention and offering their prices.

In block 108, sellers receive their responses in their intelligent mailbox screen shot shown in Figure 17, and Figure 18, and Figure 19. All sellers in the targeted area to whom the inquiry is sent may receive an alert either through pager, cell phone, E-mail, fax or palm pilot for quickly enabling them to respond to the inquiry.

In block 109, the sellers may then log in to their intelligent mail, a box provided on the present invention and view the inquiry received, screen shot shown in Figure 14, Figure 17, Figure 18, and Figure 19.

In block 110, the sellers may choose to respond or not to respond, to the inquiry received from the offer form provided in continuation just below the Inquiry that they have received.

In block 111, the buyer receives all responses sent by sellers in their intelligent mailbox, screen shot shown in Figure 20, and Figure 21, and are optionally alerted of the offers coming in either through a pager, cell phone, email, fax or palm pilot .

In block 112, the responses are sorted, depending on type of Inquiry form chosen while inquiring, screen shot shown m Figure 22, and Figure 23. Responses may be sorted on any criteria the buyer chooses . The intelligent mailbox provided by the present invention allows for efficient buyer and seller interaction. By using pre-made forms, the intelligent mailboxes of the present invention are able to sort inquiries and responses by any of the information requested in the pre-made form. Typical sorting is to sort each offer by price. The buyer then views all of the responses in their intelligent mailbox starting with the lowest price.

An enormous amount of time is saved when a buyer receives 400 or more offers but wants to purchase the cheapest one. With a conventional mailbox, the buyer would have to individually sort through 400 E-mails to find the cheapest price. Also the offers may be sorted by price and certain parameters as requested by the buyers, while making the inquiry. So the sorting could be with the lowest price but with maximum parameters that a seller matches . In block 113, the buyer may accept any of the responses. An acceptance is then received by the seller in the sellers intelligent mailbox or by any other means, such as E-mail, telephone, fax or pager or the buyer may choose to place the order with the present invention. The present invention processes the order and places the order with the seller who dispatches the goods and after receiving the delivery receipt from the courier company and transaction fees are taken, and remits the balance payment to the seller for the cycle to be complete. The buyers process then ends.

Figure 2 is a block diagram continuation of the present invention process in Figure 1. In block 200, the seller registers, receives a secret code, and responds with their secret code to activate their account, screen shot shown in Figure 24. The seller registers in categories which are descriptive of the product or service offered by the seller. When registering as a seller, the seller enjoys all the benefits and features of also being a buyer. Upon registration the seller also gets an online store, a special offer section, a buyers mailbox, and a sellers mailbox.

In block 201, sellers may put in their prices and products online in their store, screen shot shown in Figure 25, or any special offers that they may be having, in their special offer section, screen shot shown in Figure 26.

In block 202, the seller receives inquires in their intelligent mailbox from buyers, screen shot shown in Figure 27.

In block 204, inquiries may be sorted however the seller prefers. A seller may sell multiple products or services, which may be sorted accordingly. The sellers intelligent mailbox works the same as the buyers intelligent mailbox.

In block 206, it is determined whether the seller responds. If the seller does not respond, then the process passes to block 212 and ends, otherwise the process passes to block 208. In block 208, if the seller responds the seller will know how their response ranks, by receiving a ranking number, in relation to other responses sent to the buyer, without knowing who the other sellers are, or the other sellers responses, screen shot shown in Figure 28.

In block 210, the buyer may respond with an acceptance, and place the order directly with the seller or with the present invention for further processing. In block 212, the seller process then ends .

Figure 3 is a block diagram continuation of the present invention process in Figure 2. The intelligent mailbox process is shown, screen shot shown in Figures 29 through 36.

In block 300, the intelligent mailbox receives inquiries and responses in a pre-defined format.

In block 302, the inquiries and responses are sorted. In block 304, inquiries and responses are sorted by user criteria, such as price, quantity, etc. or also by specific criteria or general criteria .

In block 306, inquiries and responses are sorted by automatic criteria, such as a response or inquiry being received after the date of acceptance. In block 308, the intelligent mailbox inquiry ends.

Figure 4 is a block diagram continuation of the present invention process in Figure 3. Screen shots are shown in Figures 37 through 42.

In block 400, the user chooses to search in a geographic location such as the entire world, a country, a state, or a city. The user searches by company name, brand name, business category, products on the Super store, key word search which is user defined on the search engine, or other.

In block 402, all categories having products or services in the chosen geographic category are shown or are able to be searched by the user. In block 404, searches may be performed within the chosen geographic location. If searches are made within the chosen geographic location, then the process passes to block 406, otherwise the process passes to block 408 and ends.

In block 406, only the results found within the chosen geographic category are returned as advertisements, listings or the user is taken directly to the Super store if a match is found against a search on the Super store. In block 408, the searching of data process ends .

Figure 5 is a block diagram of the present invention super store process, the seller is able to place items in their on-line superstore.

In block 500, the seller logs in to the present invention, screen shot shown in Figures 43 through 46.

In block 502, the seller enters their on-line store. In block 504, the seller may enter products, and each product may be placed under a different category under which the seller originally registered. For example, a seller may be registered as a "New Watch Retailer" and a "Used Watch Wholesaler" . The seller may put a new watch for sale under the "New Watch Retailer" category and a used watch for sale under the "Used Watch Wholesaler" category.

In block 506, the seller may also choose to make either the new watch or the used watch a "special offer" .

In block 508, the seller may choose which geographic locations are able to see the special offer. If the seller only wants the state of Illinois in the U.S. to see the offer the seller can choose that geographic location. When a user searches for special offers in the entire world, the used watch of the seller will not show up, it will only show up in the search if the buyer is specifically searching in the Illinois geographic location. Each seller has their own store which is part of the Super Store. If a user enters a product or category' s super store in a geographical location the user will be able to see all the sellers stores which form part of this super store. Here they will see every product the different sellers have to offer for "Instant comparison shopping", screen shot shown in Figure 47.

If a user enters the special offer section for all sellers in a specific geographic location then the user will view all special offers placed by sellers in the same super store as long as the special offers placed by sellers were chosen to be in that geographic location. The user can also enter the individual stores of the sellers to view their products individually.

Figure 6 is a block diagram of the transaction processing of the present invention. In block 600, orders from the buyer are accepted on behalf of the seller by the present invention. In block 602, payment is accepted from the buyer on behalf of the seller. In block 604, an order is placed with the seller on behalf of the buyer.

In block 606, when the seller delivers the goods and a receipt is received, payment is then give to the seller and a transaction fee is taken.

Figure 7 is a block diagram of the geographic location portal surfing where users may surf the Internet and get the feeling of surfing in a geographical location and receiving information specific to the chosen geographical location, screen shot shown in Figures 48 through 50.

In block 700, the user chooses to search in a geographic location such as the entire world, a country, a state, or a city.

In block 702, all categories having information in the chosen geographic location are shown and are able to be searched by the user. Also these are language dependent and will be visible only in the language that the user has chosen to surf in.

In block 704, the user chooses the information category for searching within the chosen information category.

In block 706, only results found within the chosen geographic location are returned such as news, weather, stock information, city information, and other. Then results for super sets of the location, for instance if the user is surfing in a city the super sets for a city will be a state, country, continent, or the whole world will also be available for viewing and surfing. These will all change depending on the location the user is surfing in. In block 708, the searching of information process ends.

While the preferred embodiment and various alternative embodiments of the invention have been disclosed and described in detail herein, it may be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope thereof.

Claims

CLAIMSWhat is claimed is:

1. A method for searching and returning data, comprising the steps of: associating a geographic location to data; searching a database of the data with a geographic location as a parameter, and returning a subset of the database data having a geographic location associated with the data which matches the geographic location used as a parameter.

2. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 1, further comprising the steps of: associating a language to the data; searching the subset of the database which was returned with a language as a parameter, and returning a second subset of the subset of the database data having a language associated with the data which matches the language used as a parameter.

3. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 1, further comprising the steps of: searching the subset of the database which was returned with a word as a parameter, and returning a third subset of the subset of the database data having a word associated with the data which matches the word used as a parameter.

4. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 2, further comprising the steps of: searching the second subset of the database which was returned with a word as a parameter, and returning a fourth subset of the second subset of the database data having a word associated with the data which matches the word used as a parameter.

5. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 1, further comprising the step of: displaying the subset of the database which was returned.

6. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 2, further comprising the step of: displaying the second subset of the database which was returned.

7. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 3, further comprising the step of: displaying the third subset of the database which was returned.

8. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 4, further comprising the step of: displaying the fourth subset of the database which was returned.

9. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 1, wherein the data further comprises: categories, products, sellers, or information.

10. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 1, further comprising the steps of: associating a category to the data; searching the subset of the database which was returned with a letter corresponding to the first letter of a category of the data, and returning a fifth subset of the subset of the database data having a letter corresponding to the first letter of a category of the data.

11. A method for searching and returning data, as in claim 10, further comprising the step of: displaying the fifth subset of the database which was returned.

12. A method for searching and returning data as in claim 1, further comprising the steps of: returning a sixth subset of the database data having a superset of the geographic location associated with the data which matches the geographic location used as a parameter, and displaying the sixth subset of the database data so that the user may view a larger geographic region of data than what is returned in the original subset .

13. A method for searching and returning data as in claim 12, wherein the superset of data contains the larger geographic location that the original geographic location resides in.

14. A method for searching and returning data as in claim 1, wherein the geographic location may be a: city, state, country, continent, or the entire world.

15. A method for searching and returning data as in claim 12, wherein the larger geographic location may be a: city, state, country, continent, or the entire world.

16. A method for inquiring about products or services for sale as a reverse auction, comprising the steps of: transmitting an inquiry to more than one seller; receiving an inquiry response from at least one seller into an intelligent mailbox, and sorting the inquiry response in the intelligent mailbox .

17. A method for inquiring about products or services for as in claim 16, further comprising the steps of: displaying the inquiry responses in their sorted order.

18. A method for inquiring about products or services as in claim 16 wherein transmitting an inquiry further comprises: creating a form having mandatory fields to be filled in which are specific to the product or service being inquired about.

19. A method for inquiring about products or services as in claim 16 wherein sorting the inquiry response further comprises: determining which mandatory fields the inquiry response is to be sorted on, and displaying the inquiry response in the intelligent mailbox in an order as defined by the sorting of mandatory fields .

20. A method for inquiring about products or services with an intelligent mailbox comprising the steps of: receiving an inquiry from a buyer into an intelligent mailbox; sorting the received inquiry by pre-determined parameters, and creating a form having mandatory fields to be filled in by the seller which are specific to the product or service being inquired about.

21. A method for inquiring about products or services as in claim 20, further comprising: transmitting the filled in form to the buyers intelligent mailbox.

22. A method for facilitating commerce, comprising the steps of: accepting an order for items from a buyer on behalf of a seller; accepting payment from the buyer on behalf of the seller; placing an order for items with the seller on behalf of the buyer; receiving a receipt verifying the ordered items have been sent to the buyer, and transmitting the payment to the seller.

23. A method for facilitating commerce as in claim 22, further comprising the steps of: removing a transaction fee from the payment before transmitting the payment to the seller.

24. A method for enabling an on-line product listing with data from a sellers product database, comprising the steps of: creating a subset of products from a product database which are associated with an individual seller; receiving products data from a sellers computer distinct from the computer having the product database, and displaying the subset of products from a product database and from the products data from the sellers computer, to the user.

25. A method for enabling an on-line product listing with data from a sellers product database as in claim 24, further comprising the step of: requesting products data from the sellers computer.

26. A method for enabling an on-line product listing with data from a sellers product database as in claim 24, further comprising the step of: receiving a search request form a user to search for specific products.

27. Computer executable software code stored on a computer readable medium, the code for inquiring about products or services for sale as a reverse auction, comprising: code for transmitting an inquiry to more than one seller; code for receiving an inquiry response from at least one seller into an intelligent mailbox, and code for sorting the inquiry response in the intelligent mailbox.

28. Computer executable software code stored on a computer readable medium, the code for inquiring about products or services for sale as a reverse auction, as in claim 27 further comprising: code for displaying the inquiry responses in their sorted order.

29. Computer executable software code stored on a computer readable medium, the code for inquiring about products or services for sale as a reverse auction, as in claim 27 further comprising: code creating a form having mandatory fields to be filled in which are specific to the product or service being inquired about.

30. Computer executable software code stored on a computer readable medium, the code for inquiring about products or services for sale as a reverse auction, as in claim 27 further comprising: code for determining which mandatory fields the inquiry response is to be sorted on, and code for displaying the inquiry response in the second intelligent mailbox in an order as defined by the sorting of mandatory fields.