WO2005031623A1

WO2005031623A1 - Method of intermediating knowledge/information transaction

Info

Publication number: WO2005031623A1
Application number: PCT/KR2004/002308
Authority: WO
Inventors: Yangje Cho
Original assignee: Yangje Cho
Priority date: 2003-09-09
Filing date: 2004-09-09
Publication date: 2005-04-07
Also published as: KR20050026813A

Abstract

A method for facilitating the knowledge/information transaction by encouraging the seller of the knowledge/information to put his best efforts on providing high quality of knowledge/information while inducing the seller to faithfully adopt and appraise the answers which meets the inquiry. The transaction intermediating system allows the purchaser such as the inquirer and the referrer to punish the seller for providing unsatisfactory knowledge/information by granting the purchaser the power to choose recipients for some portion of the transaction price, that is, by allowing the purchaser to select a third-party other than the seller as the recipient from a category provided by the system when the knowledge/information is unsatisfactory. Also, by granting the inquirer chances for recovering the expenditure when the combination of the inquiry and adopted answers gains good credits from other users, the intermediating system stimulates the inquirer to adopt the optimum answer sincerely and faithfully rather than from neglecting the adoption or unfaithfully adopting a worthless answer. By using such schemes, the present invention facilitates the transaction of knowledge/information.

Description

METHOD OF INTERMEDIATING KNO VLEDGE/INFORMATION

TRANSACTION

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a method of intermediating tansaction of int.angible assets

in an open network such as Internet and, more particularly, to a method for intermediating

transaction of knowledge and/or information while minimizing discontent of both a seller and a purchaser.

BACKGROUND ART

The most common method for acquiring information in Internet is the web surfing, in which a user submits a keyword with a search engine to receive a list of web sites or web pages

relevant to the keyword, and checks each of the web sites or web pages individually. According

to this method, however, the user usually waste so much time and efforts in acquiring information because the user has to visit or view each web page afiter t.aking a glance at the title .and a brief

explanation of the page provided by the search engine. Even worse, the user occasionally happens to end the surfing operation with finding no desired information after wasting the time and efforts. Recently, some portal sites provide 'knowledge tansaction services', which allows a information searcher to register an inquiry so that another users interested in the inquiry provide answers. According to the services, the inquirer can adopt one or more satisfactory answers, and the system grants a knowledge point to the adopted .answerer to motivate the users for active participation in answering to inquiries. While the base level of the knowledge point is set by the system operator, the inquirer may bet additional point when registering the inquiry. However, the low-priced knowledge point provided to the adopted answerer as benefit in turn cannot motivate the potential answerers sufficiently, and thus most of the registered knowledge-answers are simple and directed to gratifying the curiosities. Therefore, in order to motivate the users to participate in answering to inquiries and promote the transaction of more valuable knowledge and information, it is desirable to allow the answerer to receive the knowledge point bet by the inquirer as well as most of the cost provided by a third-party referrer who fulfilled the intellectual desire through the knowledge and information. One of the problems associated with the onerous knowledge transaction accompanied with payment of costs by use of cash or another property convertible to money is the difficulty in estimating the proper price of each knowledge/information and stable pricing of the whole knowledge/information. However, this problem may not stand out considerably when the unit price of knowledge/information is set to small amount, e.g., 1,000 won, 10,000 won, or lower amount. More serious problem expected in the onerous knowledge transaction may arise from the morality of the inquirer and the answerer regarding the payment of the cost. The intangible assets such as the knowledge/information, contents, and a music file are recognition scheme or have the form of computer-readable files, and thus have the characteristics that considerable portion of the benefit and satisfaction therefrom can be transferred to another just by recognition, i.e., watching, hearing, or manipulation of the object and the assets can be easily copied. In the conventional knowledge transaction, in case that the inquirer or the third-party referrer who obtained the benefit of the knowledge/information provided by the answerer refuses to pay the cost while devaluating the knowledge/information, the answerer gets faced with a difficult position that he or she cannot withdraw the benefit of the knowledge/information or the efforts put in providing the answer. Similar problem can be found in the conventional question-and-answer type knowledge transaction where the knowledge point is provided to the adopted answerer after the adoption of the inquirer. That is, if the inquirer having read plural answers unfaithfully adopts a worthless answer or neglects the adoption, there might be a victim in good faith who provided an excellent answer but is not compensated for the efforts. On the contrary, the inquirer or the referrer may suffer the loss as well when the purchased

knowledge/information is below a subjective or objective expectation level but the paid cost is to be provided to the answerer. As described above, because of the characteristics of the knowledge/information or contents that the benefit is transferred at the instant of reading or checking of that, the conventional knowledge transaction method is probable to result in events that bring about the dissatisfaction of the transaction parties. To solve the problems above, Korean Laid-Open Patent 2003-9990 published on 5 February, 2003, and entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR EVALUATING AND COMPENSATING KNOWLEDGE BY USING A NETWORK discloses a system which provides knowledge and charges cost evaluated by experts. However, this method has

disadvantages that it is difficult to guarantee the objectivity of the experts and refute the contention denying the objectivity, and not a little expenses are required to maintain the expert

panel. Korean Laid-Open Patent 2002-29149 published on 18 April, 2002, and entitled A SYSTEM FOR CIRCULATION AND BUILDING A KNOWLEDGE DATABASE AND A METHOD THEREOF discloses a method providing bibliographic data or abstract of each knowledge/information to a user and then providing full knowledge/information. However, the bibliographic data or abstract cannot assure the quality of the contents because the bibliographic

data and abstract typically contains the feature or approaching methodology rather than the conclusion or solution sought by the purchaser, and thus there are much knowledge/information of which the bibliographic data or abstract is excellent but the conclusion has nothing particular. Therefore, the evaluation of knowledge/information is practically feasible only when the full contents rather than some portion or abstract are reviewed, and the purchaser of may feel unsatisfactory even when the purchaser purchased putting trust in the knowledge/information or contents after reviewing the abstract. Meanwhile, the problems in the question-and-answer type knowledge transaction can be found in the posting type transaction in which a knowledge poster posts knowledge/information without of any inquiry. That is, in case that a referrer who obtained the benefit of the knowledge/information posted by the poster refuses to pay the cost while devaluating the knowledge/information, the poster gets faced with a difficult position that he or she cannot withdraw the benefit of the knowledge/information or the efforts put in posting the answer. On the contrary, the referrer may suffer the loss as well when the purchased knowledge/information is below a subjective or objective expectation level but the paid cost is to be provided to the poster.. As described above, while it is most desirable in the viewpoint of the purchase to refund the cost when the purchaser is unsatisfied with the knowledge/information or contents purchased through a transaction over a network, it is difficult to control the moral hazard of the purchaser who fraudulently tries to not paying or refunding the cost considering the characteristics of knowledge/information or contents that the benefit is transferred to another just by recognition and the assets can be easily copied. On the other hand, in the case that the purchasing cost is allotted to the seller just after the transaction, it is difficult for the purchaser to substantially punish the seller for unsatisfactory quality of the knowledge/information. DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION Technical Object of the Invention To solve the above problems, the object of the present invention is to provide a method for facilitating the knowledge/information transaction by encouraging the seller of the knowledge/information to put his best efforts on providing high quality of knowledge/information while preventing the purchaser who obtained benefits of the knowledge/information from fraudulently trying to not paying or refunding the cost and preventing the purchaser or inquirer from neglecting or being unfaithful in rating or choosing answered knowledge.

Technical Solution of the Invention The transaction intermediating method of the present invention for achieving the above object is implemented by a server system accessible by clients through an open network such as Internet. The server system prevents the purchaser from fraudulently trying to not paying or refunding the cost after obtaining benefits of the knowledge/information by compelling the purchaser to pay the purchasing cost before accessing the knowledge/information. Also, the server enables the purchaser to take punishment on the seller for the unsatisfactory knowledge/information by allowing the purchaser to make all or some of the purchasing cost deducted by some commission be given to a third party recipient rather than the seller depending on the choice of the purchaser when the purchaser is not satisfied with the knowledge/information. According to an aspect of the present invention, when intermediating a question-and-answer type knowledge/information transaction in which a seller provides the knowledge/information according to an offering for purchase of a purchaser, (a) the server system first receives a request of offering for purchase of knowledge/information from a purchaser client through an open network, stores the details of the offering from the purchaser client in a predetermined storing unit, and performs settlement process for purchasing cost. Afterwards, (b) the server system receives sale knowledge/information corresponding to the offering for purchase from a seller client through the open network to store in the storing unit.

Subsequently, the server system provides the sale knowledge/information to the purchaser client, and, depending on the choice of the purchaser, transfers predetermined amount of the purchasing cost to an account of the seller, or transfers at least some of the purchasing cost to an account of a recipient selected by the purchaser from a predetermined recipient candidates group other than the seller. The server system may receive a plurality of sale knowledge/information corresponding to a single offering for purchase from respective seller clients and provide the plural knowledge/information to the purchaser client. In such a case, the step (c) includes the steps of: (cl) providing the plurality of sale knowledge/information to the purchaser client, so that the purchaser can adopt at least one of the plurality of sale knowledge/information; and (c2) receiving adoption information from the purchaser client. In case that the purchaser adopted at least one of the plurality of sale knowledge/information, the server system transfers predetermined amount of the purchasing cost to the account of the adopted seller or transfers at least some of the purchasing cost to an account of the selected recipient depending on the choice of the purchaser. In case that the purchaser adopted none of the plurality of sale knowledge/information, however, the server system transfers the purchasing cost deducted by predetermined commission to the account of the selected recipient. The knowledge/information may be sold to a third party referrer other than the purchaser who initially had offered the purchase of the knowledge/information. In such a case, the server system receives a referral request from a referrer client, performs settlement process for referral cost, and then provides the sale knowledge/information to the referrer client. Afterwards,

depending on the choice of the referrer, the server system transfers predetermined amount of the referral cost to an account of the seller, or transfers at least some of the referral cost to an account of a recipient selected by the referrer from the recipient candidates group. In case that the referrer chosen the transfer of the predetermined amount of the referral cost to the account of the seller, the server system transfers some amount of the referral cost determined by a predetermined criteria to the account of the purchaser, so that the purchaser recovers at least some of the purchasing cost. In such a case, it is preferable that the server system receives from the referrer client rating data of the sale knowledge/information, and suspends the transfer of the purchasing cost and the referral cost to the account of the purchaser in the case that the accumulative rating data of the sale knowledge/information is below a predetermined level. According to another aspect of the present invention, when intermediating a posting type knowledge/information transaction in which a seller voluntarily provides the knowledge/information, (a) the server system first receives sale knowledge/information from a seller client through an open network to store in the storing unit. Afterwards, (b) the server system receives a referral request from a referrer client who wishes to refer to the sale knowledge/information through the open network and performs settlement process for referral cost. Subsequently, the server system provides the sale knowledge/information to the referrer client, and, depending on the choice of the referrer, transfers predetermined amount of the referral cost to an account of the seller, or transfers at least some of the purchasing cost to an account of a recipient selected by the purchaser from a predetermined recipient candidates group

other than the seller. Advantageous Effects According to the present invention, the transaction intermediating system allows the purchaser such as the inquirer and the referrer to punish the seller for providing unsatisfactory knowledge/information by granting the purchaser the power to choose recipients for some portion of the transaction price, that is, by allowing the purchaser to select a third-party other than the seller as the recipient from a category provided by the system when the knowledge/information is unsatisfactory. Also, by granting the inquirer chances for recovering the expenditure when the combination of the inquiry and adopted answers gains good credits from other users, the intermediating system stimulates the inquirer to adopt the optimum answer sincerely and faithfully rather than from neglecting the adoption or unfaithfully adopting a worthless answer. By using such schemes, the present invention facilitates the transaction of knowledge/information. For example, the inquirer is not satisfied with the answers provided effectively during a given period in the question-and-answer transaction, the inquirer can prevent the answerers from acquiring the inquiry deposit by excluding the answerers from the recipients. Also, in the case that the inquirer adopted an optimum answer, the inquirer gains a chance of recovering the inquiry deposit from the referral deposit in the future. Meanwhile, it is possible to prevent the moral hazard that the inquirer adopts an unsatisfied answer with the intention of recovering the inquiry deposit, because the inquirer can lose the chance of recovering the inquiry deposit depending on the appraisal of third-party referrers.. When the inquirer chose to allot the inquiry deposit to a third party other than the answers and the inquirer him or herself, each answerer is not offended emotionally because the answer can accept the situation as if the inquirer chose another answerer. It is because such a choice resulting in the definite consumption of the inquiry deposit cannot be regarded as moral hazard, and each answerer knows that the inquirer abandoned the chance of recovering the

purchasing cost by the choice. On the other hand, since the inquirer and referrers appraise or verify each answer strictly, each referrer is likely to acquire knowledge/information of high quality without dissatisfaction and can purchase knowledge/information inexpensively. Also, the present invention reduces the maint ning cost of the transaction intermediating system by enabling the users make profit and deal with dissatisfaction directly while minimizing the intervention or influences or separate mediator or expert panel. Thus, solving the problems of the conventional transaction, the present invention can facilitate the transaction of knowledge/information and, in particular, can promote the selling of knowledge of small amount. Also, the present invention contributes to public good by allotting some portion of the transaction price to third parties chosen in terms of public good.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The above objectives and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent by describing in detailed preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the attached drawings in which: FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary network environment of a system for implementing a method of intermediating transaction of knowledge/information of the present invention; FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of the knowledge/information transaction intermediating system shown in FIG. 1; FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a question-and-answer type knowledge/information

transaction process; FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the inquiry registration step shown in FIG. 3 in detail; FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the answer registration step shown in FIG. 3 in detail; FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the steps of adopting an answer and allotting inquiry- deposit in detail; FIGS. 7 A through 7C illustrate examples of allotting the inquiry deposit according to the decision of the inquirer;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing, in detail, the steps of providing registered knowledge/information to a third-party referrer; FIGS. 9 A through 9C illustrate an example of allotting the reference deposit; and FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a posting type knowledge/information transaction

process:

EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows an example of a network environment of a system for implementing a method for intermediating transaction of knowledge/information of the present invention. In FIG. 1, each of multiple user clients 10-16n can access, through Internet, the knowledge/information transaction intermediating system 20 (hereinbelow, referred to as "intermediating system"), which intermediates the transaction of knowledge and information among the user clients 10-16n, Here, the knowledge and information of which transaction is intermediated by the intermediating system 20 includes, but not limited to, (1) knowledge and information provided as an answer to an inquiry, (2) text information or a downloadable file voluntarily posted by a user without any inquiry, (3) multimedia contents such as music, still

pictures, and moving pictures. In the description below, preferred embodiments are described in terms of the transaction of the knowledge and information of types (1) and (2) above. However, it should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the transaction of such knowledge or information, but is applicable to the transaction of all the other kinds of knowledge, information, and multimedia contents as well.

To be more specific, there are two types of transactions intermediated by the intermediating system 20. The first one is a question-and-answer type transaction, which is initiated when an inquirer registers an inquiry to solicit answers from the other users. According to this type of the transaction, the intermediating system 20 receives and registers an inquiry from an inquirer client 10, and receives and registers answers from at least one answerer client

12a- 12m so as to enable the inquirer to find the answers and adopt an optimum answer. Afterwards, the intermediating system 20 provides the registered knowledge including the question and the adopted answer to a third-party referrer client 16a-16n in response to a request of the referrer client. The intermediating system 20 makes the inquirer place inquiry deposit when registering the inquiry, and makes all or some of the inquiry deposit belong to the adopted answerer depending on the satisfaction of the inquirer. When the inquirer determines that there is no answer to be adopted or the adopted answer is unsatisfactory, the intermediating system 20 may provide a list of recipient candidates for the inquirer's choice to make some or all of the inquiry deposit belong to the chosen recipient. Also, when the third-party referrer wishes to refer to registered knowledge, the intermediating system 20 makes the referrer place referral deposit and makes all or some of the referral deposit belong to the adopted answerer depending on the satisfaction of the referrer. When the referrer is unsatisfied with the adopted answer, the intermediating system 20 may provide the list of recipient candidates for the referrer's choice to

make some or all of the referral deposit belong to the chosen recipient. As described below, the intermediating system 20 may place some of the referral deposit to the original inquirer. Preferably, the recipient candidates whom the inquirer or the referrer can choose when being unsatisfied with the knowledge are subjects of donation or financial support previously determined in terms of public good. Examples of such subjects include common donation beneficiaries and donation executors such as family heads under age, orphanages, asylums for the aged, and refugee-care institutes. Another examples of the recipient candidates are persons or organizations serving for the public good, such as those supplying computers to hinterlands or developing countries, and other persons contributed to the public good. Other examples of the recipient candidates are persons contributed to the promotion of knowledge/information transaction such as those indefatigably having evaluated individual knowledge records of the question-and-answer type or the posting type .and those, and those having provided an excellent answer not adopted by the inquirer but recommended by other users. However, the recipient candidates are not limited to the above persons, but the system operator can include various subjects to the recipient candidates according to rational or his own criteria. The second type of the transactions intermediated by the intermediating system 20 is a posting type transaction, in which a knowledge/information holder voluntarily posts his or her knowledge or information and another user refers to the knowledge or information after paying the cost, referral deposit. In this type of the transaction, a user who wishes to post knowledge or information can register the knowledge or information freely or after the examination of the

system operator, so that another user purchase the knowledge or information. In other words, the intermediating system 20 receives contents to be posted from a poster client 14 to register the contents, and provides the registered knowledge to a third-party referrer client 16a-16n in

response to a request of the referrer client. Similarly to the question-and-answer type transaction, the intermediating system 20 makes the referrer place referral deposit when receiving a referring request, and makes some or all of the referral deposit belong to the poster depending on the satisfaction of the referrer. When the referrer is unsatisfied with the knowledge, the intermediating system 20 may provide

the list of recipient candidates for the referrer's choice to make some or all of the referral deposit belong to the chosen recipient.

Thus, the present invention prevents the knowledge/information purchaser not paying the cost by forcing placement of the deposit, while enabling the purchaser to take punishment on unfaithful seller by blocking the payment of the deposit to the seller when the knowledge/information is unsatisfactory.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of the intermediating system 20 shown in FIG. 1. The intermediating system 20, which is constructed based on a web server capable of providing services through the Internet, includes a plurality of program modules 22-38 for providing the intermediating services and a database 40 for storing data. Each of the program modules 22-38 can be implemented by server script embedded in HTML documents for providing the services. Alternatively, all or some of the program modules can be implemented in a form of package software or component software. In the database 50, a subscriber table 52 stores personal information of each subscriber registered in the system. In particular, according to the present invention, it is desirable that the subscriber table 52 stores data of reserved money or point that can be used to settle the purchasing cost for knowledge and information. A recipient candidate table 54 stores information of recipient candidates whom the inquirer or the referrer can choose when the inquirer or the referrer unsatisfied with the purchased knowledge/information wishes to donate

the deposit to a third party. A processing knowledge table 56 stores inquiries of which answering deadline is not

reached and those for which the inquirer has not adopted optimum answers after the registration

of the inquiries, along with answers for the inquiries. A processing knowledge index table 58 stores information for indexing an inquiry and answer stored in the processing knowledge table

56. A completed knowledge table 60 stores inquiries for which respective inquirers adopted optimum answers, along with the answers for the inquiries. A completed knowledge index table 62 stores information for indexing an inquiry and answer stored in the completed knowledge table 60. An unsolved knowledge table 64 stores inquiries of which answering deadline was reached but there had been no answer satisfactory to respective inquirers. An unsolved knowledge index table 66 stores information for indexing an inquiry and answer stored in the unsolved knowledge table 64. A posted knowledge table 68 stores knowledge/information posted by voluntary users. A posted knowledge index table 70 stores information for indexing the knowledge/information stored in the posted knowledge table 68. A deposit table 72 stores deposit account data for the users and third-party recipients. That is, the deposit table 72 stores the information of deposit changes of each user including the deposit which the user possessed previously, and the inquiry deposit and the referral deposit which the user paid for the inquiry or the referral service. A deposit allotment table 74 stores the details of the allotment of the inquiry deposit or the referral deposit. Meanwhile, among the program modules 22-38, a subscriber registration unit 22 receives a subscription request from a user who wishes to transact knowledge/information through the intermediating system 20 and registers the user information in the subscriber table 52. An inquiry registration unit 24 receives an inquiry from the inquirer client 10 to register in the processing knowledge table 56. During the registration of the inquiry, the inquiry registration

unit 24 requests the inquirer to pay the purchasing cost, i.e., the inquiry deposit, and carries out the settlement process for the inquiry deposit. The inquiry deposit may be settled by common settlement means such as on-line transfer and credit cards as well as by points or mileage the

inquirer obtained previously. In particular, it is preferable that the intermediating system 20 and the system operator allow the points to be converted fully into money, so as to enable substantial transfer of purchasing power to the third-party recipient who does not use the intermediating system 20. An answer registration unit 26 receives an answer from the answerer client 12a-12m of the users who wish to answer to the registered inquiry, and registers the answer in the processing knowledge table 56. An answer appraisal unit 28 allows the inquirer of each inquiry to adopt one or more answers which meet the inquirer's intent among plural registered answers. When the inquirer adopts at least one answer, the answer appraisal unit 28 transfers the inquiry and the answers from the processing knowledge table 56 to the completed knowledge table 60. On the other hand, when the inquirer refuses to adopt an optimum answer because there is no answer which meets the inquirer's intent, the answer appraisal unit 28 transfers the inquiry and the answers from the processing knowledge table 56 to the unsolved knowledge table 60. Meanwhile, the answer appraisal unit 28 distributes the inquiry deposit to the adopted answerer and/or a third-party recipient depending on the appraisal of the inquirer, so that deposit points are transferred between the accounts in the deposit table 72. Afterwards, the answer appraisal unit 28 stores the transfer details in the deposit allotment table 74. On the other hands, the posting registration unit 30 receives knowledge to be posted from the user who wishes to post knowledge/information, and registers the knowledge in the posted knowledge table 68. A knowledge referral unit 32 searches and provides knowledge/information stored in the

completed knowledge table 60, the unsolved knowledge table 64, and the posted knowledge table 68 in response to a request of a third-party referrer other than the inquirer or the answerer of each of inquiry. During the referral of the registered knowledge/information, the knowledge referral unit 32 requests the referrer to pay the purchasing cost, i.e., the referral deposit, and carries out the settlement process for the referral deposit. The referral deposit may be settled similarly to the inquiry deposit. A knowledge appraisal unit 34 distributes the referral deposit to the answerer and/or the inquirer of the question-and-answer type knowledge/information or the poster of the posting type knowledge/information and/or a third-party recipient, stores allotment schedule data in the deposit table 70. A deposit allotment unit 36 actually distributes the inquiry deposit and the referral deposit, periodically or irregularly, to the answerer, the inquirer, or the third-party recipient based on the allotment schedule data stored in the deposit table 68. Such a distribution process can be performed by transferring the deposit value to the accounts of appropriate recipients. Besides, the intermediating system 20 may further include a parsing unit 38 which enables a user to search duplicate knowledge/information when the user wishes to register a new inquiry. Also, the parsing unit 38 facilitates the search of the completed knowledge, the unsolved knowledge, and the posted knowledge. Also, the intermediating system 20 may include a settlement unit 40 for performing the settlement of the inquiry deposit and the referral deposit. FIG. 3 shows the question-and-answer type knowledge/information transaction process. When a user applies to register an inquiry, the intermediating system 20 registers the inquiry from the user client and charges the inquiry deposit (step 100). Referring to FIG. 4, the inquiry registration step will be described in more detail. First, the user who wishes to register an inquiry accesses the intermediating system server 20 by using the user's client and applies the inquiry registration by selecting an inquiry registration menu. After receiving the inquiry registration application from the inquirer client 10 (step 120), the intermediating system 20

provides a guide message and demands the user to select a category or a keyword for classifying

the inquiry (steps 122 and 124). When the inquirer clicks a "NEXT" button on the screen after selecting the category or the keyword or omitting the selection, the intermediating system 20 provides an inquiry input screen to the inquirer client 10 (steps 126 and 128). If the inquirer inputs inquiry contents and requests the registration of the inquiry by clicking a "REGISTRATION" button on the screen in step 130, the intermediating system 20 demands the settlement of the inquiry deposit and performs the payment process according to the settling means chosen by the inquirer (step 132). As mentioned above, the inquiry deposit can be settled by common settlement means such as on-line transfer and credit cards as well as by points or mileage the inquirer obtained previously. Upon completion of the settlement, the intermediating system 20 registers the inquiry contents in the processing knowledge table 56 (step 134). Though the system operator typically determines the amount of the inquiry deposit in advance, the inquirer can adjust it arbitrarily to an increased level. In the latter case, the intermediating system 20 may provide a guideline for the amount of the inquiry deposit as well.

On the other hand, each inquiry may be assigned an answering deadline by the system, and the inquirer can set or adjust the answering deadline for his/her inquiry when registering the inquiry. Referring back to FIG. 3, in a state that the inquiry is registered in the system, other users using the intermediating system 20 can make answer to the inquiry and register it in the system (step 102). FIG. 5 shows the answer registration step in more detail. A user who wishes to read and answer to a registered inquiry requests the intermediating system 20 to provide a inquiry. When the intermediating system 20 receives the request of the inquiry list from an answerer client 12a- 12m (step 140), the intermediating system 20 searches the processing knowledge table 56 with reference to the processing knowledge index table 58, and provides the search result, i.e., the inquiry list, to the answerer client 12a- 12m (step 142). If the user selects one of the inquiries listed in the received list to request the system 20 to provide the detailed inquiry contents (step 144), the intermediating system 20 fetches the inquiry contents from the processing knowledge table 56 to provide to the user (step 146). When the intermediating system 20 receives an answer registration application from the client 12a- 12m of the user who read the inquiry contents (step 148), the system 20 provides an answer input screen to the client 12a- 12m (step 150). If the answerer inputs answer contents and then requests the registration of the answer by clicking a "REGISTRATION" button on the screen in step 152, the intermediating system 20 registers the answer contents in the processing knowledge table 56 (step 154).

Referring back to FIG. 3, a user who registered an answer can access the intermediating system 20 at any time to check the answers provided for the inquiry, and adopt one or more answers before or after the answering deadline. Also, the inquirer can allot the inquiry deposit he deposited when registering the inquiry to the adopted answerer or third-party recipient depending on the satisfaction of the inquirer to the answers, particularly to the adopted answer (step 104). FIG. 6 shows the steps of adopting the answer and allotting the inquiry deposit in detail. The inquirer who registered an inquiry can access the intermediating server 20 to select his/her inquiry and request the server to provide the inquiry contents and all the answers to the inquiry. When receiving the request of providing answers from the inquirer client 10 in step 160, the intermediating system 20 searches the inquiry and all the answers registered in the processing

knowledge table, and provide the search results to the inquirer client 10 (step 162). According to an embodiment of the present invention, the web page provided to the client 10 in the step 162 includes a check box for each answer, a selection button, and an inquiry posting termination

button. Accordingly, the inquirer can adopt one or more answers as optimum answers by selecting the answers and clicking the selecting button. If there is no satisfactory answer,

however, the inquirer can click the termination button without selecting any answer and

terminate the posting of the inquiry. When the intermediating system 20 receives an adoption message from the inquirer client 10 as the inquirer clicks the selection button (step 164), the intermediating system 20 demands the inquirer to input the amount or ratio of the inquiry deposit to be offered to the adopted answerer (step 166). In the case that plural answers are adopted, the inquirer can specify the dividend of each adopted answerer individually. On the other hand, if the inquirer is not fully satisfied with each of the adopted answers, the inquirer can make some portion of the inquiry deposit be allotted to the third-party recipient. When the inquirer wishes to donate some portion of the inquiry deposit to the third-party recipient in step 168, the intermediating system 20 provides a list of recipient candidates which the inquirer can choose, and demands the inquirer to choose at least one object in the list and designate donating amount for each of the chosen object (step 170). Here, the list of recipient candidates can be provided through the web page transmitted in the step 166, so that the inquirer can choose the recipient using radio buttons, check boxes or a combo box in the screen. When the inquirer completes to choose the donation object and input the donation amount (step 172), the intermediating system 20 transfers the inquiry and the answers from the processing knowledge table 56 to the completed knowledge table 60 and performs the transfer process between the accounts in the deposit table 72 according to the donation information input by the inquirer (step 174). Meanwhile, when the inquirer clicks the termination button without selecting any answer because there is no answer suitable for adoption (step 176), the intermediating system 20 provides the list of recipient candidates, and demands the inquirer to choose at least one object in the list and designate donating amount for each of the chosen object (step 170). When the inquirer completes to choose the donation object and input the donation amount (step 180), the intermediating system 20 transfers the inquiry and the answers from the processing knowledge

table 56 to the unsolved knowledge table 64 and performs the transfer process between the accounts in the deposit table 72 according to the donation information input by the inquirer (step 182).

FIGS. 7 A through 7C illustrate examples of allotting the inquiry deposit according to the decision of the inquirer. When the inquirer is satisfied with the adopted answer, the inquirer

allows most of the inquiry deposit placed by the inquirer to the adopted answerer. Here, the system operator collects a portion of the inquiry deposit as the commission or the service fee. In particular, it is preferable to allot most of the inquiry deposit to the answerer and collect only a small portion of the deposit as the commission, rather than collecting most of the inquiry deposit and distributing just a small portion of the deposit to the answerer, in order to substantially encourage the knowledge transaction in a viewpoint that the copyright of the knowledge/information resulting from the inquiry and answers belong to the inquirer or the answerer. On the other hand, if the inquirer is not fully satisfied with the adopted answer, the inquirer can make only some portion of the inquiry deposit be allotted to the adopted answerer and remaining deposit deducted by the commission to the third-party recipient, as shown in FIG. 7B. In case that there is no adopted answer or the adopted answer is too poor to obtain any benefit, the inquirer can make all the inquiry deposit except the commission be allotted to the third-party recipient, as shown in FIG. 7C. In the state that the knowledge/information resulting from the inquiry and answers is registered in the completed knowledge table 60 or the unsolved knowledge table 64, the intermediating system 20 can sell the registered knowledge/information to the third-party

referrer (step 106 in FIG. 3). FIG. 8 shows the steps of providing registered knowledge/information to a third-party

referrer in detail. A user who wants to find and use desired knowledge/information accesses the intermediating system 20 to apply to use the knowledge/information referral service. Receiving the referral application from the referrer client 16a-16n (step 190), the intermediating system 20 demands the user to select a category or a keyword for searching the knowledge/information (step 192). When the referrer clicks a "NEXT" button on the screen after selecting the category or the keyword, the intermediating system 20 searches the completed knowledge table 60 and the unsolved knowledge table 64, and provides the search result, i.e., a knowledge/information list, to the referrer client 16a-16n (step 194). If the referrer selects one of the knowledge/information listed in the received list (step 196), the intermediating system 20 demands the settlement of the referral deposit and performs the payment process according to the settling means chosen by the referrer (step 198). The method of settling the referral deposit is similar to that of the inquiry deposit, while the amount of them may be different from each other. Upon completion of the settlement, the intermediating system 20 fetches the knowledge/information requested by the referrer client 16a-16n to the referrer client (step 200). Afterwards, the intermediating system 20 requests the referrer to input the satisfaction level for the knowledge/information and the desired recipient of the referral deposit to register in the database (steps 202 and 204). The referrer can choose the "inquirer-and-answerer", one or more "third-party recipient", or both for the desired recipient of the referral deposit. If the referrer is satisfied with the knowledge/information and choose the "inquirer-and-answerer" for the desired recipient of the referral deposit, most of the referral deposit is allotted to the answerer adopted by the inquirer of the knowledge/information as shown in FIG. 9 A. In such a case, the system operator may collect some portion of the referral deposit as the commission similarly to the inquiry deposit. Meanwhile, in case that the total amount of the inquiry deposit and the referral deposit allotted to the answerer exceeds a certain threshold, the intermediating system 20 allots some portion of the referral deposit to the inquirer as shown in FIG. 9B. Thus, the inquirer can recover the inquiry deposit he paid initially when registering the inquiry. The amount the inquirer can recover from the referral deposit may increase unlimitedly depending on the number of referrals. However, a certain upper limit can be set for the recoverable amount depending on the initial amount of the inquiry deposit, as well. In case of having not satisfied with the knowledge/information, the referrer can make only some portion of the referral deposit be allotted to the inquirer and the answerers, and the remaining deposit deducted by the commission to the third-party recipient. If the knowledge/information is utterly unsatisfactory, the referrer can make all the referral deposit except the commission be allotted to the third-paity recipient. In such a case, the intermediating system 20 may allow the referrer to give a grade (e.g., a black mark) to the knowledge/information, so that the referrer can contribute to blocking another potential referrer from referring the knowledge/information. Particularly, in order to prevent the inquirer from adopting unsatisfactory answer intentionally for recovering the inquiry deposit in the future and to prevent resulting unexpected damage of the referrers, the intermediating system 20 may terminate the recovery of the inquiry deposit of the inquirer when a sincerity index falls below a certain threshold. Here, the sincerity index is calculated based on the number of times that the referrers are not satisfied with the knowledge/information and allotted their inquiry deposit to third-party recipients, along with satisfaction level data assessed by of the referrers for the knowledge/information. Further, the intermediating system 20 may limit the qualification or

competence of the inquirer for using the system in the future. FIG. 10 shows the posting type knowledge/information transaction process. A user who wishes to post knowledge/information may feely access the intermediating system 20 using the user's client and post his or her knowledge/information. When receiving a

knowledge/information posting application from a poster client 14, the intermediating system 20 demands the user to select a category or a keyword, and receives the knowledge/information contents to register in the posting knowledge table 68 (step 300). At this time, the intermediating system 20 may further receive the price of the knowledge/information to register with the contents. Meanwhile, in order to enhance the quality of the knowledge/information, the system operator may examine the posted knowledge/information and register only those satisfying certain requirements. In a state that the knowledge/information is registered and posted in the system, a user who wants to find and use a desired knowledge/information can access the intermediating system 20 using his or her client to refer to the knowledge/information. Since the process of referring posted knowledge/information is similar to that shown in FIG. 8, the detailed description thereof will be omitted. However, a single knowledge/information is provided to the user for a referral request in the posting type transaction, while a plurality of answers may be included in the knowledge/information provided in the question-and-answer type transaction. Meanwhile, deposit allotment scheme of the posting type transaction is simpler than that of the question-and-answer type transaction because there is a single poster and the inquirer does not

exist separately from the poster. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that many obvious modifications can be made to the invention without departing from its spirit or essential characteristics. For example, the transaction requiring advance payment was described above, the charge or deposit may be paid after the use of the knowledge/information. Meanwhile, though it is

preferable that the inquiry deposit or the referral deposit is not refunded to the payer, some amount of the deposit may be refunded to the payer according to circumstances. While the above description was focused on the transaction of knowledge/information

of text type, the knowledge/information handled by the intermediating system includes knowledge and know-how objectified to many and unspecified persons as well as cultural contents such as music, still images, and moving pictures. Also, the format of the knowledge/information includes binary information input to a form provided by the server and uploaded to the server, an attached file, and streaming data. We assume the transaction of music contents on a streaming basis the intermediating system, for example. Even though the service purchaser who has listened a new music by a streaming service but felt unsatisfactory to the music cannot recover the money or property previously spent over the music, the purchaser can punish the seller of the music by blocking the seller from acquiring the price and reducing the transaction value of the contents. Thus, in this description and appended claims, the expression "knowledge/information" should be construed to include digital information of a variety of physical meanings and forms. Meanwhile, the knowledge/information provided by the answerer and the poster may be uploaded and registered in a format of an attached file, as well. On the other hand, in the question-and-answer type transaction, the system may allow only a certain experts chosen previously, rather than every user, to register answer to an inquiry.

Of the common users, those having provided excellent answers might be chosen as the experts. For the referrers who repeat malicious ratings for the referred knowledge/information, the system may impose a penalty in the chance of referring knowledge/information or the amount

of the deposit in the future. Also, it should be noted, in this description, that not only the answer contents in the question-and-answer type transaction but also the combination of the inquiry and the adopted answer or the combination of the inquiry and all the relevant answers make up the knowledge/information of the present invention. The system may grant the option of disclosing the knowledge/information to the inquirer of each knowledge/information. For example, each knowledge/information can be automatically

disclosed to the public, disclosed after a certain time period, or kept secret unlimitedly, depending on the choice of the answerer.

The system operator can allot some portion of the commission collected for the transactions to excellent inquirers or faithful assessors to promote the participation of the users in the transaction. While the portion of the referral deposits allotted to the answerers and posters can be maintained constantly, the ratio or amount of the referral deposits allotted to the answerers and posters may be changed as time goes by alternatively. Such an alternative process is suitable

when the knowledge/information is inconsistent with public good or falls short of a standard, or the cumulative rating given by the referrers is below a certain threshold. Thus, although the present invention has been described in detail above, it should be understood that the foregoing description is illustrative and not restrictive. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that many obvious modifications can be made to the invention without departing from its spirit or essential characteristics. Thus, we claim all modifications and variation coming within the spirit and scope of the following claims.

Claims

What is claimed is

1 In a server system accessible by clients through an open network, a method of intermediating knowledge/information transaction, comprising the steps of (a) receiving a request of offering for purchase of knowledge/information from a purchaser client through the open network, storing the details of the offering from the purchaser client in a predetermined storing unit, and performing settlement process for purchasing cost, (b) receiving sale knowledge/information corresponding to the offering for purchase from a seller client through the open network to store in the storing unit, and (c) providing the sale knowledge/information to the purchaser client, and, depending on

the choice of the purchaser, transferring predetermined amount of the purchasing cost to an account of the seller or transferring at least some of the purchasing cost to an account of a recipient selected by the purchaser from a predetermined recipient candidates group other than the seller

2 The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein, in said step (b), the server system receives a plurality of sale knowledge/information from respective seller clients to store in the

storing unit, wherein said step (c) comprises the steps of (cl) providing the plurality of sale knowledge/information to the purchaser client, so that the purchaser can adopt at least one of the plurality of sale knowledge/information, (c2) receiving adoption information from the purchaser client, (c3) in case that the purchaser adopted at least one of the plurality of sale knowledge/information, transferring predetermined amount of the purchasing cost to the

account of the adopted seller or transferring at least some of the purchasing cost to an account of the selected recipient depending on the choice of the purchaser; and

(c4) in case that the purchaser adopted none of the plurality of sale knowledge/information, transferring the purchasing cost deducted by predetermined commission to the account of the selected recipient.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2, further comprising the steps of: (d) receiving a referral request from a referrer client who wishes to refer to the sale knowledge/information through the open network and performing settlement process for referral cost; and (e) providing the sale knowledge/information to the referrer client, and, depending on the choice of the referrer, transferring predetermined amount of the referral cost to an account of the seller or transferring at least some of the referral cost to an account of a recipient selected by the referrer from the recipient candidates group.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein, in said step (e), the server transfers

some amount of the referral cost determined by a predetermined criteria to an account of the purchaser in case that the referrer chosen that the predetermined amount of the referral cost is

to be transferred to the account of the seller.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said step (e) comprises the steps of: requesting the referrer client to rate the sale knowledge/information; and receiving rating data of the sale knowledge/information from the referrer client

to store accumulatively in the storing unit; wherein the server suspends the transfer of the purchasing cost and the referral cost to the account of the purchaser in the case that the accumulative rating data of the sale knowledge/information is below a predetermined level.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising the steps of: (d) receiving a referral request from a referrer client who wishes to refer to the sale knowledge/information through the open network and performing settlement process for referral cost;

(e) providing the sale knowledge/information to the referrer client, and, depending on the choice of the referrer, transferring predetermined amount of the referral cost to an account of the seller or transferring at least some of the referral cost to an account of a recipient selected by the purchaser from the recipient candidates group.

7. The method as claimed in claim 6, wherein, in said step (e), the server transfers some amount of the referral cost determined by a predetermined criteria to an account of the purchaser in case that the referrer chosen that the predetermined amount of the referral cost is

to be transferred to the account of the seller.

8. The method as claimed in claim 7, wherein said step (e) comprises the steps of: requesting the referrer client to rate the sale knowledge/information; and receiving rating data of the sale knowledge/information from the referrer client

to store accumulatively in the storing unit; wherein the server suspends the transfer of the purchasing cost and the referral cost to

the account of the purchaser in the case that the accumulative rating data of the sale

knowledge/information is below a predetermined level.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the sale knowledge/information is one selected from a group consisting of: text information, a music file, a still picture file, and a moving picture file, or a combination thereof.

10. In a server system accessible by clients through an open network, a method of intermediating knowledge/information transaction, comprising the steps of: (a) receiving sale knowledge/information from a seller client through the open network to store in a storing unit; (b) receiving a referral request from a referrer client who wishes to refer to the sale knowledge/information through the open network and performing settlement process for referral cost; and (c) providing the sale knowledge/information to the referrer client, and, depending on the choice of the referrer, transferring predetermined amount of the referral cost to an account of the seller or transferring at least some of the purchasing cost to an account of a recipient selected by the purchaser from a predetermined recipient candidates group other than the seller.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the sale knowledge/information is one selected from a group consisting of: text information, a music file, a still picture file, and a moving picture file, or a combination thereof.