Method and system for facilitating service transactions

Abstract

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

1 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace between multiple buyers and sellers of services, comprising: 
 defining a set of service classification and material terms;    registering a plurality of participants of the service marketplace;    compiling offers to sell services and requests to buy services provided by said participants, wherein the offers and the requests are described in said set of service classification and material terms;    automatically evaluating and matching the offers and the requests, without human intervention, based upon the degree of identicalness of said set of service classification and material terms recited in the offers and the requests;    communicating to matched participants of the result generated by the evaluating and matching step; and    the offers being unknown to service buyers and requests being unknown to service sellers prior to the communicating step.    
     
     
         2 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of making the offer and the request accessible for consideration by the participants.  
     
     
         3 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of settling a transaction based upon said set of service classification and material terms recited in the matched offer and the matched request.  
     
     
         4 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of arbitrating a dispute regarding said set of service classification and material terms recited in the matched offer and the matched request.  
     
     
         5 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 3 , further comprising a step of assisting the matched participants to fulfill the transaction based upon said set of service classification and material terms recited in the matched offer and the matched request.  
     
     
         6 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , wherein the searching and compiling step includes organizing at least one of retaining session, off-retaining session, accumulating session, and double session.  
     
     
         7 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of data-mining the offers and the requests to discover at least one transactional attribute of one, a portion, or all of the participants.  
     
     
         8 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 7 , further comprising a step of simulating the marketplace based upon the results of the data-mining step and operational constrains of one of said participants, wherein the operational constrains includes asset, cash, capital, inventory, labor, staff, debt, liability, intellectual property, customer preference, competitors' actions and plans, suppliers' actions and plans so as to determine an optimized business action or plan from an integrated and long term perspective.  
     
     
         9 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of recognizing at least one of speech, language, emotion, social intelligent, character and characteristics of at least one of the participants by analyzing acoustic or imagery signals collates with the at least one of the participants.  
     
     
         10 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 7 , further comprising a step of recognizing at least one of speech, language, emotion, social intelligent, character and characteristics of at least one of the participants by analyzing acoustic or imagery signals collates with the at least one of the participants in conjunction with the at least one transactional attribute of one, a portion, or all of the participants.  
     
     
         11 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of referring business among the participants based upon the results of the registration step or the offers and requests.  
     
     
         12 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , wherein the registering step further including registering at least one charity and one donor, wherein the offers and requests include at least one offer to donate services and one request for donating services.  
     
     
         13 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , wherein some of the participants are in locations without sufficient internet infrastructure.  
     
     
         14 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising providing a retaining agent to execute all steps in the method, wherein the retaining agent is equipped with artificial intelligence.  
     
     
         15 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of taking or sharing risk with at least one of the participants.  
     
     
         16 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of collecting fees or commission at least one of the participants for executing any one of the other steps in the method.  
     
     
         17 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of promoting at least one of the offer and the request of at least one of the participants.  
     
     
         18 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 3 , wherein the settling step including forwarding payment via a mode selected from the group consisting of credit card information, debit card information, electronic cash information, billing, invoicing, bartering or other non-monetary consideration, and combinations thereof.  
     
     
         19 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 1 , further comprising a step of gap-filling any unspecific material terms in the offers and requests with a set of default terms or gap-fillers.  
     
     
         20 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating a services marketplace according to  claim 7 , further comprising a step of predicting behavior of the participants or market based on the result generated by the data-mining step, a set of predetermined operational constrains of one participant, and casual relationships and sensitivities among the factors.