Patent ID: 6988087
Filing Date: 2006-01-17
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A service method of a rental storage, in which rental storage users use the rental storage provided by a storage provider on a network and each of said rental storage users and said storage provider communicate with respect to rental storage service, comprising the steps of: electronically establishing a contract between said storage provider and each of the rental storage users thereby allowing using storage of said storage provider by each of the rental storage users; calculating by the storage provider an estimation of a data amount in the rental storage for future storage usage of each of said rental storage user, based on the history of storage usage of each of said rental storage user; showing by the storage provider conditions of said contract including a contracted billing method, a contracted billing period, a contracted storage data amount, a notification threshold storage data amount for triggering contracted notification to each of said rental storage users prior to reaching the storage data amount, and an indication of whether an estimation option is available in said contract for changing the conditions of said contract based upon the estimation, and the estimation to each of said rental storage users; and electronically re-configuring the conditions of said contract as changed by each of said rental storage users if the estimation option is available in said contract, wherein said users are human users having capacity to make contracts and pay bills charged to said human users.