Patent ID: 7236983

Claim:
A vehicle description language (VDL) hierarchical data structure that is stored in a memory system of one or more communicatively coupled computing systems interconnected through an intermediary subsystem and transmitted via communications medium between the communicatively coupled computing systems to communicate information associated with a vehicle in support of application(s) executing thereon, the data structure comprising: (a) a public block of data, having starting and ending delimiters that identify the beginning and end of the block of data, wherein the public block of data comprises: (i) a vehicle identification sub-block hierarchically nested in the public block of data and comprising a plurality of data items wherein the data items are selected from the group consisting of manufacturer, model, model year and style of the vehicle, (ii) a vehicle detail sub-block hierarchically nested in the public block of data, wherein the vehicle detail sub-block comprises: (1) a standard feature sub-block hierarchically nested in the vehicle detail sub-block and comprising a plurality of standard feature categories, wherein each standard feature category is hierarchically nested in the standard feature sub-block and comprises a plurality of data items relating to standard equipment available on a vehicle, and (2) an optional feature sub-block hierarchically nested in the vehicle detail sub-block and comprising a plurality of option categories, wherein each option category is hierarchically nested in the option sub-block and comprises a plurality of data items relating to a particular category of optional equipment desired on a particular vehicle; and (b) a private block of data comprising a plurality of data items relating to the customer who is ordering the vehicle including at least a ranking of product attributes; wherein one of the computing systems receives the data structure and operates on at least the vehicle detail sub-block to select a subset of a target group of sellers by comparing at least features of the vehicle in a request for quote (RFQ) with products of at least one seller from the target group of sellers.