Container shipping contract exchange system
OwnerGordon Downesinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A computerized exchange for trading container shipping contracts for the future physical transportation of cargo loaded inside a shipping container is provided that comprises an offer module capable of posting thousands of contracts for sale at an offer price published on the computerized exchange. The shipping exchange provides a matching module capable of simultaneously matching thousands of contracts offered on the computerized exchange to a corresponding bid and transform in the offers to purchased contracts. A settlement made capable of notifying carriers identified by the contracts of an obligation to physically transport cargo loaded into a shipping container according to the terms of the contracts is provided.
Claims20
A computerized exchange for trading container shipping contracts for the future physical transportation of cargo loaded inside a shipping container comprising:
- an offer module, running on a special purpose computer, capable of posting thousands of contracts for sale at an offer price published on the computerized exchange;
- a matching module, running on a special purpose computer, capable of simultaneously matching thousands of contracts offered on the computerized exchange to a corresponding bid and transforming the offers to purchased contracts;
- and
- a settlement module, running on special purpose computer capable of notifying carriers identified by the contracts of an obligation to physically transport cargo loaded into a shipping container according to the terms of the contracts.
The computerized exchange of elms 8, wherein the data module is searchable in order for a shipper to locate an appropriate container by searching by a parameter including one of a carrier, departure window, container size, container type, type of shipping service, tier of shipping service, delivery date, time in transport and rating of quality of carrier.
A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored therein instructions executable by a processor to operate a computerized exchange for trading container shipping contracts, wherein the instructions include:
- first code instructions for posting thousands of the contracts for sale at an offer price posted on the computerized exchange;
- second code instructions for simultaneously matching thousands of the contracts on the computerized exchange with a corresponding bid, each offered contract being transformed to a purchased contract;
- and
- third code instructions for notifying carriers identified by the contracts of an obligation to physically transport containers according to the terms of the contracts.
A computerized method for managing future physical transportation of cargo loaded inside a shipping container comprising the steps of:
- posting, by a special purpose computer, thousands of shipping container contracts for sale at an offer price;
- simultaneously matching, by the special purpose computer, thousands of the contracts to a corresponding bid and transforming the offered contracts to purchased contracts;
- posting, by the special purpose computer, thousands of purchased contracts for resale;
- and
- notifying carriers identified by the contracts of an obligation to physically transport shipping containers according to the terms of the contracts.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.