Patent ID: 7177850

Claim:
A method for determining a portion of total costs for each entity of a plurality of entities, the total costs relating to a total maximum number of accesses of all the entities occurring in a predetermined time window over a time interval having a plurality of time windows, to a product, and there exists a predetermined relationship between the total maximum number of accesses of all the entities and the total costs, the method which comprises the steps of: obtaining, for each of the entities, a maximum value relating to a maximum number of accesses of the entity in all the time windows over the time interval resulting in a group of maximum values for the plurality of entities; finding a smallest maximum value among the group of maximum values for all the entities; distributing costs for the smallest maximum value among all the entities having access to the product in the time interval; finding a next-higher maximum value among the group of maximum values; determining a difference in costs for the smallest maximum value and the next-higher maximum value from the predetermined relationship; distributing the difference in costs among the entities having an equivalent or a higher maximum value than the next-higher maximum value; repeatedly finding a further next-higher maximum value among the group of maximum values and distributing a determined difference in costs for the further next-higher maximum value among the entities having an equivalent or a higher maximum value; accumulating the costs obtained in the steps of distributing for each of the entities individually to obtain an accumulated cost result; and outputting the portion of the total costs for each of the entities based on the accumulated cost result for each of the entities.