Patent ID: RE39717

Claim:
A service provision system, for providing services to a user by means of one or more communications network(s), wherein the service provision system comprises intelligent software agents in a computing environment, which agents co-operate to provide access to services for a system user by invoking and running executable code, or code to be interpreted, wherein at least one agent is a reconfigurable agent and comprises an input for user information, and further comprises or has access to a plurality of different software modules which provide executable said code to the agent for use in providing access to services ; , and wherein said reconfigurable agent is provided with means to select a set of software modules from said plurality of different software modules, in response to user information received at the input, and to invoke and run the executable said code provided by said selected set, each software module comprising at least one process step with one or more associated rules, the behavior of the system in use being determined at least in part by the outcome of application of said one or more associated rules in the process step, and at least one of said one or more associated rules being external to the software modules and being loaded in a relevant module when that module is run during use of the system.