Appeal No. 2003-0989
Application No. 09/481,740
without the drawbacks of subjective reputation feedback systems.
The present invention generates objective feedback for
transaction participants by monitoring their actual behavior at a
variety of well-defined points in the transaction, such as
payment and shipping. Timely payments, for example, may upgrade
a buyer's reputation. Delayed shipment of goods, for example,
may downgrade a seller's rating, while prompt shipment may
upgrade a seller's rating. See page 4 of Appellant's
specification. Referring to Figure 1, reputation
characterization system 24 may be coupled to transaction service
intermediary 22 to generate an object reputation of buyer 10 and
seller 12. Reputation characterization system comprises at least
data capture component 26, analysis component 28, reporting
component 30, and reputation profiles database 32. Data capture
component 26 receives notifications from the transaction services
intermediary whenever a notable deadline for some performance
relating to the transaction has been set. For example, once a
transaction has commenced, the seller may be expected to drop off
the merchandise to a shipper within 48 hours. Once the data
capture component receives the subsequent notification from the
transaction services intermediary that the merchandise has in
fact been dropped off by the seller and is now in the hands of
22
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