Method and system for facilitating service transactions

Abstract

A computer-implemented method and system for facilitating service transactions, both on-line and off-line, for transacting services driven by purchasers or by service providers. In particular, the invention makes services freely tradable as goods via standardizing material terms describing such service transactions. The method includes steps defining a set of service classification and material terms, registering a plurality of participants of the service marketplace, searching and compiling at least one offer and one request for offers provided by the participants for selling or buying services while the offer and the request for offer is described in the set of service classification and material terms, evaluating and matching the offer and the request for offer based upon the degree of identicalness of the set of service classification and material terms recited in the offer and the request for offer, and communicating to matched participants of the result generated by the evaluating and matching step.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a Continuation application Ser. No. 09 / 903,985 filed Jul. 13, 2001, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The invention generally relates to a method and system for facilitating service transactions between service providers and purchasers for services, and more particularly to a computer-implemented method / system that provides a service marketplace, both on-line and off-line, for transacting services driven by purchasers or by the service providers. In particular, the invention makes services freely tradable as goods via a set of standardizing material terms describing such service transactions. [0004] 2. Description of Related Arts [0005] A variety of service transaction promoting systems have been developed for promoting the transactions of services either on-line or off-line. The following sites are examples of attempts to transact ser...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010] It is a purpose of this invention to foster global service transactions by automatically collecting and compiling viable offers for a purchaser regardless of geographical location so buyers can thereby compare competing offers on-line in real time based upon a set of material terms.

[0011] It is a purpose of this invention to allow a participant of the service marketplace to leverage the market forces of supply and demand and to dynamically reduce costs of operation

[0012] It is a purpose of this invention to provide “total cost functionality” which enables a participant to make business decisions based not only on price, but also on multiple criteria such as quality, delivery time and referral based.

Problems solved by technology

While many companies have attempted to transact services on the Internet, none of them provides a solution to freely trade services as goods, stocks or commodities.

It is limited to home maintenance services, and its pre-screening procedure only ensures the providers are licensed by the state, have not filed bankruptcy within the past seven years, and have no liens or judgments against them within the past three years.

None of these searches results in any forms of binding transactions of services.

Firstly, the e-lanced services are limited to the traditional freelancing services, such as writing, designing and translation, and conventional professional services, such as legal and accounting services.

Although Elance.com is implemented on-line, its automation is limited to recording and posting offers.

As such, the number and length of the proposals is significantly limited by the capability of the human brain for processing multiple variables of multiple proposals.

Thirdly, Elance.com does not provide actual bidding or auctions since whatever being proposed is not final and binding on the buyers.

Fourthly, in its default procedure, Elance.com certifies the buyers' ability to pay via credit cards or debit cards but does not certify any service providers' credentials or ability to carry out the services.

Fifthly, Elance.com collects the feedback from participants to establish cumulative ratings of other chosen participants, but it does not verify the comments.

According to CNET News, a handful of software companies are seeking to automate management of legal contracts and agreements for tracking contract terms and conditions, which is still an abstract idea, and the idea is limited to internal contract management.

Currently, there is no neutral platform facilitating service transactions between purchasers and service providers via automatically and simultaneously comparing multiple service proposals with multiple variables.

Images