Patent ID: 7913264

Claim:
A computer system for receiving a request from a user and providing a response thereto; the system including: a processor; a logic engine adapted on the processor to communicate with a remote third party server, wherein the logic engine is arranged to be in communication with the remote server via a network and are is remote from the remote server the logic engine comprising a logic module, and an adapter and interface, and wherein the remote server is adapted to host one or more applications and an application programming interface (API) which is capable of accessing the one or more applications on the remote server in response to an interrogation from the logic module, wherein the logic module is adapted to receive and process the request from the user and determine whether the request requires third party data which is not available in the logic engine; wherein the logic module is adapted to identify the third party to enable the adapter and interface to configure the request in a predetermined format to send to the API and to receive from the API messages in the predetermined format and convert back to the format supported by the logic module; wherein the logic engine is adapted to call the adaptor and interface to interrogate the remote server by sending a message in the predetermined format to the API to ensure that the API will be able to act upon the message to thereby obtain and return the third party data from the remote server; and wherein the logic module is adapted to receive the returned third party data from the remote server and generate a response to the request which response is determined by using the third party data; wherein the API is described by procedure orientated description (POD) data and; wherein the POD data comprises XML or WSDL.