System for facilitating coordination of activities by a plurality of actors

Claim 1

Apparatus for coordinating actions by a plurality of actors in connection with various constituents of an activity, comprising an actor interface means (11) for initiating use of the system by a selected actor, for providing information to the system from the actor, and for providing responses to the actor from the system, and a processing means (12), characterized in that: A) the apparatus further includes 1) an actor/role definition means (14) for storing and defining a plurality of roles that the actor may assume with respect to the constituents; 2) a database (20) for storing a plurality of objects (21), each object being associated with a constituent, each object comprising: a) identifier means (73) for identifying the object; b) state means (77) for defining a state of the object; c) information means (72) for storing information relating to the associated constituent; d) state/action definition means (74,75) for storing and defining a plurality of actions that the actors may perform in connection with the various states of each object; and e) state transition definition means (76) for storing and defining state transitions for each object in connection with each action defined by the state/action definition means; and 3) role/object access definition means (15) for storing and defining the objects which may be accessed by the actor assuming a particular role; and B) the processing means, responsive to the information provided by the actor interface means, further provides: 1) means for determining, in response to the role/object access definition means, whether the actor assuming a particular role, as defined by the actor/role definition means, may access an object; 2) means for determining, in response to the state/action definition means, whether the actor may perform an action on the object; 3) means for performing the action on the object according to the information provided by the actor interface means, in response to the determination as to whether the actor may access the object and the determination as to whether the action may be performed on the object; and 4) means for modifying the state of the object as defined by the state transition definition means in response to the action performed on the object.

Claim 2

A method, performed in a data processing system, for coordinating actions in connection with constituents of an activity by a plurality of actors, characterized in that the method comprises the steps of: defining a plurality of actors associated with an activity; defining a plurality of roles the actors may assume with respect to the constituents of the activity; defining a database (20) containing a plurality of objects, each object being associated with a constituent of the activity and each object containing information regarding the associated constituent, wherein the information comprises the results of negotiations among the actors in determining the terms under which the constituent will be performed and information regarding the state of the constituent; obtaining (100) identification information from a selected actor and information regarding a particular role desired by the actor; determining (101), using a role definition table (14) to identify the roles that the actor may assume; determining (102,103), using an object definition table to identify an object that the actor may access in consideration of the particular role the actor has assumed, as identified by the role definition table; retrieving (104) the object from the object database; determining (105), using a state transition table to record the various states of the object; using (106) an action definition table to identify which actions the actor may perform on the object in consideration of the state of the object and the terms under which the constituent will be performed; transmitting to the actor, information regarding which actions the actor may perform on the object; obtaining (107) information from the actor regarding an action to be performed on the object; performing the action on the object, in response to the information obtained from the actor, after determining that the actor may access the object by referring to the object definition table and that the actor may perform the action on the object by referring to the action definition table; updating (111) the state transition table to record changes in the various states of the object following performance of the action; and providing responses to the actor regarding the action performed on the object.