System and methods of providing a fungible consumer services marketplace
OwnerStuart Schaefer, Eric Voskuil +3inventors
InventorsStuart Schaefer, Eric Voskuil, Phillip Mienk, Leonard Charest, Bryan Garrestson
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Abstract
The invention generally pertains to computer software and methods, and more generally pertains a system for, and methods of providing, a fungible services marketplace. The system and methods are useful in providing markets for consumer services.
Claims13
A computer system, comprising:
- A computer server, further comprising:
- a computer processor,
- a first networking interface,
- and at least one data store,
- the computer system further comprising:
- a first data store in which representations of fungible service offerings are stored,
- a computer processor executable program, providing software programs that implement a first user agent, able to receive and convert user service offerings into fungible representations for stored in the first data store
- a second data store in which representations of fungible service requests are stored,
- a computer processor executable program, providing software programs that implement a second user agent, able to receive convert user service requests into fungible representations for stored in the second data store,
- a third data store in which matched services and offerings representing a contract are stored,
- a computer processor executable program providing a market maker service,
- logically connected to the first and second data store,
- comprising software instructions that implement a demand market for fungible services,
- effective to match fungible service offerings to fungible service requests,
- and producing contract representations comprising matched service offering/requests.
A method of providing a fungible services market, the method comprising the steps of:
- a. receiving service offerings from at least one user using a user agent,
- b. converting the service offerings to fungible market service offering representations, and storing these fungible service offering representations into a first data store,
- c. receiving service requests from at least one user via a user agent,
- d. converting the service requests to fungible market service request representations, and storing these fungible service request representations into a second data store,
- e. providing a market maker service, which performs the steps of:
- i. reading service request and service offering representations from the data store(s),
- ii. performing a market matching algorithm,
- iii. matching two or more service request and offerings to produce a contract
- iv. storing the contract in a third data store
A method of providing liquidity to a fungible services market, the method comprising the steps of:
- a. Identifying potential services offerers, by selecting among a plurality of methods to attract further requests and offering, either of which may scan a list of previous services requests and offerings and selecting previous participants who do not have a current fungible service offering in the system or automatically extending participation from outside of the system,
- b. sending a solicitation for potential services offerers or requesters to submit service offerings and requests to the system
- c. receiving one or more service requests or offerings from a potential participant,
- d. Converting the service requests or offerings to fungible service request or offering representations,
- e. Storing the fungible service request or offering representations in a data store.
A method of providing a market matching algorithm wherein each order and offer request are evaluated separately and against all others using a plurality of matching terms specific to each request, the method comprising the steps of:
- a. Determining threshold criteria against which counter proposals cannot match,
- b. Calculating the pricing, reputation, scheduling and other parameters of the requests,
- c. Constructing a decision problem,
- d. Solving the decision problem,
- e. Evaluating the utility of potential matches based on the solved decision problem
- f. Selecting zero or more matches based on the results of the evaluation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.