Token-Based Transport Rules Broker for Carrier Interoperability
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The integration of diverse computing systems involved in electronic commerce transactions is challenging, particularly in making carrier capabilities accessible to users and propagating user preferences across multiple systems, leading to inefficiencies and the need for manual updates.
Innovation Solution
A Transport Rules Broker (TRB) system that generates tokens associated with user-selected transport rules, allowing these rules to control carrier operations, such as delivery services and authentication, thereby improving interoperability and automating preference updates.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple distinct computing systems are integrated to complete electronic commerce transactions, then the functionality and capabilities of the system increase, but the complexity of integration and communication between systems increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a shipping system as an intermediary layer between merchant computing systems and carrier computing systems. This shipping system provides standardized interfaces and translation capabilities, allowing diverse carrier capabilities to be accessed through a common protocol without requiring direct integration between each merchant system and each carrier system, thus reducing integration complexity while maintaining versatility
Solution Approach 2:
The shipping system implements universal interfaces and data structures that work across multiple carriers and merchant systems. By creating a standardized communication framework that can handle various carrier capabilities (bulk shipments, custom delivery times, appointment-based delivery), the system achieves multi-functionality without requiring separate integration solutions for each carrier
2Adaptability or versatility
If user preferences are stored across many different systems, then the system can accommodate diverse user needs, but the difficulty of propagating preference updates increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent consolidates user preference data into a centralized location within the shipping system, rather than distributing it across multiple independent systems. This centralization allows preference updates to be made in one place and automatically propagated to all relevant merchant and carrier systems, significantly improving ease of operation while maintaining the ability to accommodate diverse user preferences
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements automated feedback mechanisms that monitor and propagate user preference changes across the distributed system. When preferences are updated, the system automatically communicates these changes to relevant systems and confirms propagation, ensuring consistency without requiring manual intervention while maintaining adaptability to diverse user needs
3Adaptability or versatility
If each carrier provides different capabilities, then the service offerings increase, but the difficulty of making capabilities available to end users increases
Solution Approach 1:
The shipping system acts as an intermediary that translates diverse carrier capabilities into standardized interfaces accessible by end users. It maintains a catalog of available capabilities from different carriers and presents them through unified access points, making it easy for users to access diverse carrier services without needing to understand or integrate with each carrier's unique interface
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates standardized representations or copies of carrier capabilities that can be uniformly accessed and managed. By replicating the essential functionality and interface patterns across different carrier integrations, the system makes diverse capabilities available through consistent access methods, reducing the difficulty of capability access while preserving service diversity
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for token-based control of item transport operations are described. In some examples, a Transport Rules Broker (“TRB”) receives a selection of transport rules associated with a user. The transport rules control operations that are performed by a carrier when the carrier transports an item from, for, or to the user. The TRB generates a token that is associated with the transport rules and/or the user. In a typical scenario, the user provides the token to a merchant computing system when ordering an item. Having received the token, the merchant computing system provides it (directly or indirectly) to the carrier computing system. The token controls operations that are performed by the carrier when the carrier transports the item to the user or other destination. In particular, the token causes the carrier to transport the item in accordance with the selected rules that are associated with the token.