Patent ID: 7720778

Claim:
A system including instructions recorded on a computer-readable storage medium, the system for selecting a provider service that fulfills a specification of a service request, the system comprising: a storage unit configured to store a generic contract that is a concept of an ontology; a transformer unit executed by a computing device using the instructions and configured to transform a provider service and a second provider service into a provider sub-concept and a second provider sub-concept, respectively, transform the service request to a request sub-concept, and modify the ontology to obtain a modified ontology for storage within the storage unit, the modified ontology including the provider sub-concept, the second provider sub-concept, and the request sub-concept as concepts of the ontology and sub-concepts connected to the generic contract within the modified ontology, and to include the request sub-concept as a sub-concept connected to the provider sub-concept within the modified ontology; and a selection unit configured to select the provider service over the second provider service based on the modified ontology and including accessing the modified ontology from within the storage unit, and including a determination that the request sub-concept is a sub-concept of the provider sub-concept.