System and method of multiparty billing for Web access
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsJames P. Crosskey, Mark Gee-Gwo Mei, Harish Ragavan, Kun-Lung Wu, Philip Shi-lung Yu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and method for billing one or more participating parties for client access to the internet is disclosed including the steps of identifying at least one of the one or more participating parties as being responsible for the billing, allocating a share of the billing to each responsible participating party based on a predetermined function and computing a billing amount for each of the responsible participating parties based on a function of the share and a client bandwidth usage.
Claims44
A method for billing participating parties for user access to the internet, comprising the steps of:
- identifying, for each access, at least one of the participating parties as being responsible for the billing, the identifying step including the step of identifying a hyperlink source and a hyperlink target for each access;
- allocating a share of the billing to each responsible participating party based on a predetermined function;
- and
- computing a billing amount for each responsible participating party based on a function of the share and at least the hyperlink source and the hyperlink target.
A computer system for billing participating parties for client access to the internet, comprising:
- means for identifying, for each access, at least one of the participating parties as being responsible for the billing, the identifying means including a means for identifying a hyperlink source and a hyperlink target for each access;
- means for allocating a share of the billing to each responsible participating party based on a predetermined function;
- and
- means for computing a billing amount for each responsible participating party based on a function of the share and at least the hyperlink source and the hyperlink target.
A method for billing participating parties for client access to the internet, comprising the steps of:
- identifying client access events for which more than one participating party is responsible for the billing, the identifying step including the step of identifying a hyperlink source and a hyperlink target for each of the client access events;
- allocating a share of the billing to each responsible participating party based on a predetermined function;
- and
- computing a billing amount for each responsible participating party for the identified client access events based on a function of the share and at least the hyperlink source and the hyperlink target.
A computer system for billing participating parties for client access to the internet, comprising:
- means for identifying client access events for which more than one participating party is responsible for the billing the identifying means including a means for identifying a hyperlink source and a hyperlink target for each access of the client access events;
- means for allocating a share of the billing to each responsible participating party based on a predetermined function;
- and
- means for computing a billing amount for each responsible participating party for the identified client access events based on a function of the share and at least the hyperlink source and the hyperlink target.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.