Collaborative Product Taxonomy Instantiation
AssigneeSap SE
InventorJohn Zmolek
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method forms a collaborative product taxonomy instantiation by starting, with or defining a base taxonomy instantiation and collaborating between trading parties to negotiate a collaborative product taxonomy instantiation. The taxonomy instantiation comprises a set of characteristics and values of a desired product. The method assigns a set of characters to the collaborative product taxonomy instantiation. The method uses the set of alphanumeric characters in an electronic trade exchange between a buyer software application and a seller software application. The seller software application may determine whether it has a product that is equivalent to the collaborative product taxonomy instantiation.
Claims34
-30. (canceled)
A method comprising:
- forming a collaborative component taxonomy instantiation, the taxonomy instantiation comprising a union of various quantifiable values of product attributes obtained from a plurality of entities;
- and
- distributing an identifier associated with the collaborative component taxonomy instantiation to a plurality of computing systems through a communications network to identify similar products in different computing systems having different product attributes within the union.
-60. (canceled)
A system comprising a communications network linked to a memory storing an electronic catalog comprising a plurality of collaborative taxonomy instantiations, each collaborative taxonomy instantiation comprising a union of a plurality of product characteristics and associated quantifiable values obtained from a plurality of sources through the communications network, each collaborative taxonomy instantiation being linked to an exchange part number.
-65. (canceled)
-75. (canceled)
An article of manufacture including machine-readable instructions that, when executed at a processing device, cause the processing device to:
- form a collaborative component taxonomy instantiation, the taxonomy instantiation comprising a union of various quantifiable values of product attributes obtained from a plurality of entities;
- and
- distribute an identifier associated with the collaborative component taxonomy instantiation to a plurality of computing systems through a communications network to identify similar products in different computing systems having different product attributes within the union.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.