Facilitating the Negotiation of Standards for Inter-Enterprise Collaboration Between Trading Partners

Collaboration software associated with an enterprise, the collaboration software being embodied in computer-readable media and when executed operable to:

• receive a negotiated meta-model from a meta-model negotiation service, the negotiated meta-model incorporating a plurality of negotiated meta-model elements selected from a stored set of meta-model elements each capable of being negotiated by two or more enterprises, each meta-model element in the set describing a portion of a potential standard for collaboration between enterprises, the negotiated meta-model describing an agreement as to collaborations between the associated enterprise and one or more other enterprises, the negotiated meta-model having been negotiated by the associated enterprise and the one or more other enterprises using the meta-model negotiation service;
• understand semantics of the negotiated meta-model substantially independent of modification of the collaboration software subsequent to negotiation of the meta-model;
• and
• substantially automatically collaborate with the one or more other enterprises according to the standard for collaborations reflected in the negotiated meta-model received at the collaboration software.

A method performed using collaboration software associated with an enterprise, comprising:

• receiving a negotiated meta-model from a meta-model negotiation service, the negotiated meta-model incorporating a plurality of negotiated meta-model elements selected from a stored set of meta-model elements each capable of being negotiated by two or more enterprises, each meta-model element in the set describing a portion of a potential standard for collaboration between enterprises, the negotiated meta-model describing an agreement as to collaborations between the associated enterprise and one or more other enterprises, the negotiated meta-model having been negotiated by the associated enterprise and the one or more other enterprises using the meta-model negotiation service;
• understanding semantics of the negotiated meta-model substantially independent of modification of the collaboration software subsequent to negotiation of the meta-model;
• and
• substantially automatically collaborating with the one or more other enterprises according to the standard for collaborations reflected in the negotiated meta-model received at the collaboration software.

A negotiated meta-model enabling collaboration between two or more enterprises, the negotiated meta-model:

• incorporating a plurality of negotiated meta-model elements selected from a stored set of meta-model elements each capable of being negotiated by two or more enterprises, each meta-model element in the set describing a portion of a potential standard for collaboration between enterprises;
• describing an agreement as to collaborations between two or more enterprises;
• having been negotiated by the two or more enterprises using a meta-model negotiation service associated with a network service provider;
• and
• comprising semantics capable of being understood by collaboration software associated with each of the two or more enterprises substantially independent of any modification of the collaboration software subsequent to negotiation of the meta-model, such that the collaboration software of the two or more enterprises is operable to substantially automatically collaborate according to the standard for collaborations reflected in the negotiated meta-model.