Patent ID: 7688757

Claim:
A computer readable medium storing a software program, that, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform a method for assessing an available version of a sourced element, comprising: (a) obtaining a description of the available version of the sourced element; (b) identifying a plurality of evaluation items for the available version of the sourced element by evaluating the description using at least one evaluation category comprising a plurality of evaluation parameters; and (c) determining an overall assessment of the available version of the sourced element using the identified evaluation items, wherein the overall assessment is indicative of a value of the available version of the sourced element wherein the step of identifying the plurality of evaluation items for the sourced element further comprises: selecting the at least one evaluation category; identifying the evaluation parameters for each selected evaluation category; and processing the description using the associated evaluation parameters to identify the evaluation items for each selected evaluation category.