	US 7,469,216 B2
	Method and system for manipulation of cost information in a distributed virtual enterprise
David B. Kumhyr, Austin, Tex. (US); Margaret G. MacPhail, Corpus Christi, Tex. (US); and Sebastian D. Hassinger, Yorktown Heights, N.Y. (US)
Assigned to International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y. (US)
Filed on Mar. 28, 2002, as Appl. No. 10/112,538.
Prior Publication US 2003/0187748 A1, Oct. 02, 2003
Int. Cl. G06Q 30/00 (2006.01); G06Q 10/00 (2006.01)

U.S. Cl. 705—26 [705/1; 705/8; 705/10; 707/102]

2 Claims

1. A method for processing e-commerce information within a distributed virtual enterprise (DVE) of a business entity, the method comprising:

retrieving a DVE project model that represents a project for a product or service for sale by the business entity, wherein the DVE project model comprises dependency relationships derived from e-commerce agreements such that the dependency relationships constrain modifications of the DVE project model with respect to specific parameters;

receiving user input to manipulate a cost dependency relationship within the DVE project model while constraining the user input to ensure that another type of dependency relationship is not incompatible with modifications to the cost dependency relationship, the cost dependency being represented via a DVE object;

modifying a first e-commerce agreement to change dependency information within the first e-commerce agreement from which the cost dependency relationship was previously derived, the first e-commerce agreement being represented via a DVE object, the information within the DVE object being derived from the first e-commerce agreement, the modifying being performed via a DVE enabling method; and,

automatically generating a second e-commerce agreement for a trading partner of the business entity in order to seek the modification to the first e-commerce agreement, the second e-commerce agreement being represented via a DVE object, the information within the DVE object being derived from the second e-commerce agreement, the automatically generating being performed via a DVE enabling method.