US 2002/0165802 A1Published application

Method, apparatus and system for providing product advisory information for a web-based sales application

AssigneeSchlumberger Technology Corporation

InventorsAllen Ray Harrison, Bruce Alan Oney, Murli Challappa, James Hartland White

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Abstract

An apparatus, system, and method are provided for receiving requirements information from a user via a web browser. The request and the requirements information are received by a web server and forwarded to a correlation engine. The correlation engine is operatively connected to, among other things, a catalog database listing various products that are available to the user, a pricing database that contains price information for a plurality of the products, an advisor database that contains feature information about the products, and a client relationship manager that retains information about the user. The correlation engine correlates the data from the various database through appropriate function modules in order to determine which product best suits the user's requirements based on price, availability, and feature set. The user is presented with a coherent set of choices and is thus enabled to select one or more items from those choices to consummate a sale for the products.

Claims14

Dependent claims

An apparatus that provides quantitative and qualitative recommendations as the result of an request by a user, said apparatus comprising:

a server engine, said server engine constructed and arranged to accept requests from a user and send results thereto;
a pricing database, said pricing database constructed and arranged to store pricing information and to retrieve pricing information;
an advisor database, said advisor database constructed and arranged to store advisor information and to retrieve advisor information;
a catalog database, said catalog database constructed and arranged to store product information and to retrieve product information;
a content relationship manager, said content relationship manager constructed and arranged to store and to retrieve client relationship data;
a correlation engine;
a pricing function module operatively connected to said pricing database and said correlation engine;
an advisor function module operatively connected to said advisor database and said correlation engine;
a catalog module operatively connected to said catalog database and said correlation engine;
and
a correlation engine database operatively connected to said correlation engine, said correlation engine database constructed and arranged to store a result of said correlation engine and requests from said user;
wherein when said user submits a request to said server engine, said server engine forwards said request to said correlation engine, said correlation engine therein retrieves pricing information from said pricing database through said pricing function module, advisory information from said advisor database through said advisor function module, catalog information from said catalog database through said catalog module and correlates all of said information to form said response to said user.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 10/099,825Filed 15 Mar 2002
Priority: 12 Apr 2001
Published: 7 Nov 2002
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

G06Q 30/06
Commerce: buying, selling or leasing transactions
G06Q 30/0601
Buying, selling or leasing transactions: electronic shopping [e-shopping]
G06Q 30/0623
Electronic shopping [e-shopping]: by investigating goods or services
G06Q 30/0631
Electronic shopping [e-shopping]: recommending goods or services