FR2808910A1 - Distribution of digital data concerning commercial exchanges, uses server with database connected to suppliers and purchasers, with authenticated supplier access to update their data - Google Patents

Abstract

The system has a server with a database and links to multiple client stations, which are used by suppliers to show offers and by purchasers to access offers. The system uses prior authentication of suppliers, using certification data on the database. Data sent to the supplier includes a supplier-defined frame, together with access rights and notification when altering a supplier's data.

Description

 SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DISTRIBUTING DIGITAL DATA RELATING TO COMMERCIAL EXCHANGES. The present invention relates to the field of information processing, and more particularly the field of electronic commerce.

The purpose of the invention is to provide a secure content distribution platform and in no case a direct online sales site and to disseminate this content and to formalize its reuse.

The actors or customers have the providers for the content, a computer server for the management of the dissemination of this content, the resellers or users for the use content, explorers for the consultation. The Suppliers will be in the following document identified in <I> Supplier </ I> and the resellers <I> intermediate </ I>.

This online catalog is the solution to reconcile convenience and online sales as it respects the complementary interests of the manufacturer, the distribution network and its installers. This online catalog ensures, through its Suppliers, the validity of the product sheets (of its content), the uniqueness of its representation (of its form) and the reuse rights.

It is known in the state of the art US Pat. No. 5,038,668, which relates to a networked system, pairing, information correlation, extraction, search in catalogs. This system allows providers to publish information in electronic catalogs, to structure this information in a distributed object-oriented representation over a computer network, such as the Internet. It also enables customers to search and retrieve information about products and vendors that meet dynamically specified conditions by the customer. By retrieving adaptive HTML pages, a search engine sends the extracted pages to an object-oriented database, which sorts the information received by the internal organization structure of the information. By searching for the information stored in the knowledge base, the user can quickly retrieve the stored information in a form highly adapted to the search strategy of the user. In addition, additional ones act on the stored information so that, among other things, there are exchanges of designs between the selected elements where additional design and selection options are provided to each user. The system also takes charge of creating products made up of several components. These products can be used as parts that can form higher level products. The invention aims to provide a versatile and secure system for the constitution of an improved exchange platform.

According to its most general meaning, the invention relates to a system for the distribution of digital data relating to commercial exchanges, composed of a computer server comprising a database and means of communication with a plurality of client stations, the client stations being exploited a first type of user constituted by suppliers, for the capture and transmission of data relating to commercial offers, and by a second type of reader, for the consultation of the data recorded in the database, relating to commercial offers accessible, characterized in that the system comprises means of prior authentication provider, consisting in registering in a given database of the server an identifier of each authorized supplier and certification means at the time of data exchange between the provider and the server, the server with a computer program for the exchange of digital information with each identified provider said information being transmitted by the suppliers in the form of sheets having a frame defined by the supplier, and an indicator of the access rights audit information, and for the acknowledgment notification for the changes or deletion information from a provider.

The invention also relates to a method for the distribution of digital data relating to commercial exchanges, the data coming from a first type of user constituted by suppliers and intended for a second type of user, for consulting the recorded data. in the database, relating to accessible commercial offers, characterized in that the method comprises a first supplier registration step of transmitting to the supplier information sheet to provide, to establish a communication with a database to verify the validity of the in the case of a positive verification, proceed to the registration of the said supplier and the allocation of a secure means of access, and to create a dedicated memory space for the said supplier, a second stage of implementation line of a catalog consisting of providing the registered supplier a description of a default catalog, a description of a product sheet by default, said default digital data being modifiable by the provider, and creating a specific catalog format of said provider a third stage of data recording in said specific catalog, a fourth step of assigning the rights by the provider to determine the conditions of access by third parties to the information recorded in said specific catalog a fifth step of a user's declaration comprising a means of accreditation and a step additional duplication of digital information from a record of a catalog of a provider for registration in a private catalog of a user.

The invention will be described in more detail with reference to a nonlimiting embodiment.

For the purposes of this catalog patent, it will be understood that a hierarchical set of product sheets or other content, particularly technical-commercial, related to the press, etc.

  product sheet, a hierarchical set of computer documents (images, sound, video, texts, diagrams ..) separate and descriptive of the content.

  Explorer a Member having fulfilled membership conditions Community of interest, a user group with identical needs in terms of consultation of use of the information.

All users belonging to the groups below named are clearly and specifically identified. Each user has access rights for each element of the content of the server and rights of use of the services associated with the server (services invoiced or not). These rights and services are open to customers upon joining.

Suppliers, Intermediaries and explorers can be grouped together within community of interest, or within business sectors, as an example: retail, building companies, electrical equipment dealers, press officers, etc ..

<U> Suppliers </ U>: this group of actors represents all the applicants of product sheets, product catalogs or more generally of content. Suppliers have two distinct roles Define and make available (individually or through a catalog) their product sheets. The content is clearly specified.

Manage access rights to the content individually, by product group or by user group. Users of the site may be, in terms of rights profile, associated with communities of interest, business sectors, etc.

 Each Supplier adheres by signing a membership contract. This membership leads a billing for the use of its services.

Each member appoints an account administrator. This account administrator is the privileged interlocutor in the relations between the server and the Supplier.

<U> Intermediaries: </ U> represent all commercial users.

Intermediaries subscribe a subscription via a membership contract. This membership gives them rights of access to the content of the site and delegates its rights of publication.

By accessing a content Intermediaries benefit from a right of (re-) publication, this in particular for the purpose of marketing the product The Intermediary has space reserved for it. This space is used to manage his own catalog products, catalog composed of cards that he has selected from the sheets that are accessible to him.

<U> Explorers: </ U> all people having the opportunity to view information on the site. As for the Intermediaries, the Explorer) subscribe a subscription. This subscription is materialized by a membership contract. This membership is billable. Explorers have access to product information without the right to republish.

The server's role is to manage the exploitation of the existing in terms of content, having rights, and the integration of new participants (Supplier, Intermediary ...). the server defines the rules and conditions of membership to its platform as well as the responsibilities of its members.

the server does not control the contents of catalogs if they are in compliance with the legislation.

the server proposes through its platform a set of services. These services may result in billing.

The server supports all notifications to platform stakeholders. These notifications are directed to the Suppliers for all use of their respective catalogs, or to Intermediaries for changes to the products used. These notifications can either be issued automatically by the system or on demand by the server.

the server ensures exhaustive traceability of actions performed on the site, access code (logins), consultation of pages, updating of content ... the server offers customer or supplier customization services. These services will be detailed below in the document.

the server negotiates and places the content hosting at professional hosting providers that it approved and to whom it enforces its hosting specifications. The server's billing system includes tracking volumes (disk space, traffic and backup), traceability and audit trail, possible and partial re-invoicing of the Supplier to other members.

The Supplier is in charge of the following actions <U> Transmit content for publication to the </ U> <U> server </ U> Draw one or more iche frames (design of product sheets, delivery of an identity guide visual, ...).

Draw the architecture and the sequence of the cards Provide the contents of each sheet describing the product families, possible groupings, categories.

Specify for each record or family of record levels access rights at the finest level (document).

Specify for each card or family of cards the associated services (statistics of consultation, invoicing of consultation, distribution circuits, geographical zones, ...).

One document that can be replaced by another for a given period (and other rights) The Supplier authorizes or not 'automatic reversal of documents by means of an interface with an external application.

<U> Bringing the contents of its catalog </ U> It must maintain the information it has published on site.

In deleting or modifying a document or product the manufactory must have the possibility to specify a replacement information accessible by search engine via the old referencing.

<U> Manage access to documents </ U> Distinguish reuse rights (Intermediate) and access rights (Explorer) Limit the right to download each file.

Initialize access to the records at the fine level (document). These rights must apply to all users (notion of default right).

Each master record can be divided into three dimensions, for example Distribution par - geographic area Period Process all new requests for access to his cards (arrival of a new Intermediary, extension of the rights of a community of interest. .). Define for each modification of a card or each insertion of a new card the modifications right to bring.

<U> Trigger notifications </ U> is the source of product notifications. notifications are issued when a product is added catalog, modified (price, availability ...) deleted.

I1 manages the dates of validity of the product sheets.

The triggering of notifications is done either piecemeal or automatically. Upon the Supplier's membership, the Supplier defines the points on which it requests automatic notification.

 <U> Research Elements </ U> To enable product-oriented research, the Supplier must provide as well as product families, the characteristics of its products that can be used as a search parameter.

In case of change or unavailability of a product the search engine will have to offer replacement products. These are filled in by the Supplier.

The Intermediary browses the Cat2B site for information, retrieves information from the site for use or consultation, issues requests for access to catalogs, or certain index cards in a catalog. cards by reading parameters specific to his business, I1 integrates all the notifications (for information or for action), I1 is referenced on the site, if necessary, as distributor of a product, He can create his own workspace (space where are stored his preferences in terms of product).

The Explorer navigates on the Cat2B site in search of information, I1 accesses, if it has the authorization and if this information exists, to the public contents of the product sheets (pre-sale description of the product, infos SAV .. .), I1 has the possibility to consult the list of the resellers of the products, uses the functions of advanced search (geographical search of a reseller for example).

Any member who has met the membership requirements can provide a list of prospective members to integrate. list of these prospects must allow pre-registration to be confirmed on-line by each one of them. See entry below (M1, GOB1, BS1). Sponsors (co-operators have access to a statement of accounts of their contributions (list of referrals and rebates capitalized).

<U> Registration of a Supplier </ U> Prerequisites The Supplier obtained, via the institutional portal or by any other means (mail, e-mail, fax ...) the list of information to be provided for its membership.

-The server checks in particular by interfacing with databases, the validity of the application for membership. may if necessary ask the new member for additional information, or even refuse the application for membership.

-The server registers the requester as the provider.

-It creates a welcome space on its memory space -I1 provides the new Provider an administrator account (the rights related to this account are described in the section).

-I1 notify the new Supplier that the latter has the possibility of inserting its product catalog (s) <U> uploading of a product catalog </ U> The Supplier has an administrator account.

--The server provides the Supplier with the following specifications.

the description of a default catalog the description of a card produced by default in terms of information the description of a card produced by default in terms of presentation - The Supplier specifies the differences between the models that have been delivered to it and the way that wants to present and arrange its products. --The server readjusts, if necessary, this model and sends it to the Supplier --I1 specifies the pivotal formats of data exchange (formats based on databases, Excel files, paper, ...) - -The Supplier delivers its product data. --The server may request readjustment or additional information on the data if it is not directly exploitable.

--It supports the integration of data Cat2B site.

--It reserves the right to modify or supplement the Supplier's catalog. This adjustment does not concern the data but relates to their sequence and their access paths (technical access). <U> Editing Catalog Data: </ U> aj <U> of a Product </ U> - -The Supplier has an administrator account and has the ability to act on the catalog content.

- The Supplier must, to add a product in its catalog have the possibility to use a space dedicated to the creation of products on the site for its catalog. This space dynamically reproduces the characteristics of its products (categorization, attributes, ...). This space can be materialized either by an input web page or by computer module of input help. to deliver, as it did for the creation of its catalog, a file or a document respecting pivotal formats previously defined for publication.

--It reserves the right to modify or supplement the Supplier's product. This adjustment does not concern any case the data specific to the product but concerns positioning in the catalog and more generally on the site.

Through automation functions or manually the server performs the notification actors affected by this product addition.

<U> Modification of the </ U> catalog deletion <U> of a product </ U> The Supplier has an administrator account and can act on the contents of its catalog. The Supplier must, to delete a product in its catalog have the possibility to use a space dedicated to the removal of product on the site for its catalog. This space dynamically reproduces the characteristics of its products (categorization, attributes, values ...). This space can be materialized either by an input web page or a computer module for input help.

to deliver, as it did for the creation of its catalog a file or a document respecting pivot formats previously defined for taking into account the deletion.

Through automation functions manually, the server proceeds to the notification of the actors impacted by this deletion. <U> Modification of </ U> data <change> of a product </ U> The Supplier has an administrator account and can act on the contents of its catalog. The Supplier must, to modify product in catalog have the possibility to use a space dedicated to this modification operation on the site, for its catalog. space dynamically picks up the product characteristics (categorization, attributes, values ...). This space can be materialized either by an input webpage or by a computer module for input assistance.

to deliver, as it did for the creation of its catalog a file or a document respecting the pivotal formats previously defined to take into account the modification.

The server reserves the right to modify or supplement the Supplier's product. This adjustment does not concern in any case the data specific to the product but concerns its positioning in the catalog and more generally on the site.

Through automation functions or manually, the server proceeds to the notification of the impacted actors of this modification.

<U> Uploading a Product Catalog </ U> <U> Assigning Rights </ U> The Supplier has an administrator account and has published its catalog.

For example, no default rights have been assigned. The Supplier has the opportunity to act on the contents of its catalog.

The server provided to the Supplier the following documents or specifications the characteristics of the access rights (who, what when, ...) a model of access right.

The Supplier specifies the differences between the models which have been delivered to him and his vision the security of his data The server readjusts, if necessary, this model and sends to the Supplier It specifies the pivotal formats of data exchange (formats based on databases of Excel files, paper, ...) for the management of access rights.

The Supplier delivers its data access rights.

It may require readjustment or additional information on the data if it is not directly exploitable.

It supports the integration of access rights in the Supplier's catalog.

I1 reserves the right to modify or supplement the access rights to the Supplier's products. This adjustment makes it possible, for example, to maintain consistency between the Supplier and the Vendor's access rights. The Supplier has an administrator account and can act on the access rights for the products and documents in its catalog.

The Supplier must, to modify rights of access for a product, family of products or a document of its catalog to have the possibility to use a space dedicated to the modifications of access on the site, for its catalog. This space dynamically reproduces the characteristics of its products (breakdown of accesses within a product file, documents, categories of access ...) This space can be materialized either by an input web page or by a computer module help with data entry.

to deliver, as it did for the creation of its catalog a file a document respecting the pivot formats previously defined with HUB2B for the application of these new access rights.

<U> Declaration by a member of a </ U> <U> members-prospect file </ U> The registrant issues a request to register a list of prospects. This request can be formalized on the public site in electronic form.

The server checked the validity of the registration request. It may also ask the registrant for further information even to refuse the request.

It may be necessary to notify new prospects of the request made by the declarant. A temporary account for online registration is open for each prospect. This temporary account does not give any right of access on the commercial content of the site but an additional registration online.

The prospect accepts or does not accept this opt-in and, if necessary, carries out additional registration procedures.

The server notifies the registrant of the new member's registration.

It gives the registrant at regular intervals the list of prospects who have not followed up on this decision.

<U> Intermediate Registration </ U> Intermediate has obtained, through the institutional portal of the server or by any other means (mail, fax ....) the list of the information to be provided for its adhesion as Intermediary.

The server checks, inter alia, by interfacing with databases the validity of the membership request. He may, if necessary, ask the new member for additional information, or even refuse membership application.

It registers the applicant as an Intermediary and provides the new Intermediary with a user account. A placeholder, specific to the new Intermediary created. This space is intended to become the private catalog of the Intermediary.

<U> creation of a private catalog </ U> The Intermediary accesses the site and the product sheets for which access has been granted. The Intermediary has the possibility, at each visit of product sheet to include it, for the part that is accessible to him in terms of documents, in his private catalog. For this a function of the style to add in my catalog must be available.

Intermediate will, after each addition of a product in its private catalog, notify changes made by the Supplier on this product.

The Supplier may be notified of the products thus selected by the Intermediaries.

<U> search for items on the site </ U> Cat2B The Intermediary accesses the site and the product sheets for which access has been given to him The Intermediary has the possibility to carry out operations of search or comparison of products. This search / comparison is done through product characteristics (the search is not limited to matchcodes).

<U> Registration of an Explorer </ U> The Explorer obtained, via the institutional portal or by any other means mail, fax ....) list of the information to provide for its adhesion title of Explorer.

The server checks, inter alia, by interfacing with databases the validity of the application for membership. It may, if necessary, ask new members for additional information, or even refuse the application for membership. I1 registers the requester as Explorer and provides the new Explorer with a user account.

A placeholder specific to the new Explorer is created. This space is intended to become a private catalog of the Explorer. <U> creation of a private area </ U> The Explorer accesses the site and the product sheets for which access has been granted The Explorer has the possibility, at each visit of a product sheet to include it , for the part that is accessible to him in terms of documents, in his private catalog. For this a function of the style to add in my catalog must be available.

The Explorer will, after each addition of a product in his private catalog, notify changes made by the Supplier on this product.

The Supplier may be notified of the products thus selected by the Explorers.

<U> search for items on the site </ U> Cat2B The Explorer accesses the site and the product sheets for which access has been given.

Explorer has the ability to perform search operations or product comparisons. This search / comparison is carried out through product characteristics (the search is not limited to matching code [matchcodes]).

The Explorer can also perform a search of the criteria of the Geographical type Business sector Period Security & management of the authorizations Authentications of the users Cat2B The access and the use of the ite are conditioned by a strong authentication of the users. Indeed, with the exception of access to institutional content. an access control mechanism or authentication must be implemented. This mechanism must dynamically, that is to say for each operation on the site (consultation, search ...) calculate and apply the rights associated with the user. These rights apply to all pages of the site as well as to all user functions and so-called administration modules of the site.

<U> The specific access rights of </ U> <U> Suppliers </ U> The Supplier's access profiles must be separated according to the actions he has to perform. In fact, the Supplier must accumulate the following accesses <U> Administer the content </ U> For all that concerns the setting up of its catalog the Supplier is represented by an account administrator. The server assigns an access account for this account administrator when registering a new Provider. This account only gives rights to the elements of the Supplier's catalog, access to other catalogs is forbidden.

This access must allow the account administrator to submit new product sheets, delete product sheets, or modify them. These maintenance actions must be feasible either directly on the online catalog or via an intermediate module having the required functionalities.

<U> Browse the site, its catalog </ U> The Supplier, once its membership is completed, must have the opportunity to view its catalog on the site. To do so, an access, simple drive must be given to him. This access can obviously be associated with the access described above.

<U> Obtain Statistical Information </ U> When the Supplier adheres to the statistic data types and the data update frequency. These data are made available to the Supplier, either via a space reserved for the latter on the site, or sent to him (by electronic mail, paper ..).

<U> The access rights of all </ U> members During the pre-registration phase of the member, server creates a "temporary" account to allow the member to become a member; this account does not give any right of access to the commercial content of the site. Once the membership is complete, this account is destroyed and a user account is created.

At the time of registration, each member must register - two communities of interests - in a business line The member inherits via his communities of interest and business line rights of access to the content corresponding to his activity; it is identified catalog by catalog. Its accesses are moreover calculated according to a time division.

 The authentiaction of the member, and all actions (reading of a product sheet, search of loading elements of a product sheet ...) on the site are traced by system.

In addition, these access rights also allow Intermediaire either to make a link between its sales site and a product card to download a product sheet. Access procedure The site has two spaces corresponding to two distinct types of access, the institutional site and the product catalogs.

The authentication of the users is done inside the institutional site, after having asked the entry in the space said reserved or client.

These authentication manipulations can be automated via the sending by the system of a Cookies to the user.

Once the user logged in the system time access restrictions are applied. It can be disconnected from a form at any time.

Data security Data integrity (concept of effective date The integrity of the data consists in ensuring the users of the site the version of the documents made available to them, because the server must take into account, at the moment established, the Scheduled changes to the content of the product listing catalogs and their documents.

To do this, it is necessary, if necessary, to inform the product sheet of its dates of publication date of beginning and date of end of publication).

The stakeholders concerned must be informed of the changes made to the site. Complete traceability of access and audit trail All operations performed on the site are traced. Each event is clearly identified, timestamped and saved.

All these data are made available to those who use them to inform Suppliers about the use of their product sheets and the published exhaustive content (Audit).

be used as billing support, in the case of a volume service billing establish its own statistics Multi-country support The site must be interfaced with a multi-country translation system. This translation system takes into account the aspects of linguistic translation of the data but also the translation of the attributes of a product. We can give for example as an attribute to translate the weight of a product, kg in France and lbs in This translator must work dynamically, ie translate the data to 1 display. This translator must also interact when the Intermediaries upload the product sheets. Indeed, when an Intermediary loads a product sheet, he must obtain all his geographical variations.

The search functions are as follows: A product-oriented search module. The server must be able to define or use, for each product line, a model on the product characteristics.

A geographic search module. Users must be able to search for resellers of a product identified by geographical criteria.

A comparison module. As with directed research, users must have the ability to compare products from a product feature model.

Three types of manipulated information were identified, data or content, access rights to content and messages transiting through the system.

site data site data or provider content are associated with the following characteristics Only the server can delegate the given access rights, Only the server can give rights to republish data, All data from the server are signed. The use of server data and their dissemination is done by keeping the signature of the server, this signature informs the reader of the origin and protection of these data.

The data accesses are managed by server, and are broken down as follows: o Provider decides when catalog delivery initial access rights to affix its content.

It updates these access rights to each content extension, where the server coordinates access rights between catalogs. o All site access and member-content links are mapped and collected (historical for the track). audit.

Messages sent for notification information The platform automatically transmits, following a programmed or manually triggered action, information or action messages to the users. These messages are either from a modification of a catalog content (adding a product, tariff modification, promotion ...) or from a modification of rights, or generated by the server, via its statistical tools for information from the Supplier. Privacy: Some server site information is confidential because related to each customer. The confidentiality between each customer and the system must be ensured. This means that there can be no consultation or interception of information concerning a customer by a third party subscriber a fortiori not subscriber.

 Traceability: The system must allow complete traceability of the operations carried out. For this, activation of the service's log files will have to be done in order to be able to feed a system analysis and statistics tool, with notarization for a trusted third party service per server.

Incident Management: When an incident occurs (eg, no system response) information describing this incident is logged in the application log. In case of standard system page error will have to be presented to the user.

Right-click function: the member of the server accessing the site via a browser has an additional right click function and directly attached to the existing function save image under this new function save official content (available in all languages) allows the Supplier to access to power the server; other members to consult / or reuse documents accessible to them the server.

Claims (1)

 CLAIMS 1 - System for the distribution of digital data relating to commercial exchanges, consisting of a computer server comprising a database and communication means with a plurality of client stations, client stations being operated a first type of user consisting of providers, for the capture and transmission of data relating to commercial offers, and by a second type of user, for the consultation of the data recorded in the database, relating to the accessible commercial offers, characterized in that the system comprises a means of prior authentication of the provider, consisting in recording in a database of the server an identifier of each authorized provider and a means of certification at the time of the data exchange between the provider and the server, the server comprising a program computer for the exchange of digital information with each identified supplier, said information being transmitted by the supplier in the form of sheets presenting a frame defined by the supplier and an indicator of the access rights audit information, and for the acknowledgment of notification for the modifications or deletion of the information from a supplier. 2 - Method for the distribution of digital data relating to exchanges of information, in particular commercial information, the data coming from a first type of user, in particular constituted by suppliers and intended for a second type of user, for the consultation data recorded in the database, relating to offers including commercial offers accessible, characterized in that the method comprises a first step of registering the supplier of transmitting to the supplier an information sheet to provide, to establish a communication with a base data to verify the validity of the information sheet data, in case of positive verification to proceed with the registration of said provider and the allocation of a secure means of access, and to create a dedicated memory space audit provider, a second step in bringing a catalog of providing the registered provider with a description of a default catalog, a description of a default product listing, said default digital data being editable by the vendor, and creating a specific vendor catalog format a third registration step in said specific catalog, fourth step of assigning the rights by the provider to determine the conditions of access by third parties to the information recorded in said specific catalog fifth step of a user declaration comprising a means of accreditation and a additional step of duplicating the digital information of a record of a supplier's catalog for registration in a private catalog of a user.