Patent ID: 7516090

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of conducting electronic commerce, wherein the method comprises one or more machines executing instructions stored in machine-readable storage medium to cause the machine to perform operations comprising: a) in a system configuration phase: i) receiving dynamic attribute parameters defining an administrator dynamic attribute by which to measure the desirability of a specific responder for a potential commercial transaction involving a requestor and a responder, the dynamic attribute parameters including a name and a data type for the administrator dynamic attribute; and ii) receiving a criterion to automatically determine whether to associate the administrator dynamic attribute with a particular opportunity object, created later, representing a particular potential commercial transaction involving a requestor and a responder, wherein, in advance of a specific responder being engaged for the specific potential commercial transaction, one or more potential responders are to provide input for the requestor to measure the desirability of the one or more potential responders for the specific potential commercial transaction; and b) subsequently in a system usage phase: i) receiving user input from a requestor to generate a new opportunity object for a particular potential commercial transaction involving the requestor and a responder to be determined after an evaluation process, the user input including opportunity attribute data for one or more attributes of the particular potential commercial transaction for which the new opportunity object is being generated; ii) determining whether the particular potential commercial transaction for which the new opportunity object is being generated meets the criterion based on the user input opportunity attribute data; and iii) automatically associating the administrator dynamic attribute with the new opportunity object if the particular potential commercial transaction for which the new opportunity object is being created meets the criterion.