Patent ID: 7660329

Claim:
A method for managing protocol information used in exchanging communications, comprising: storing one or more protocol profiles, wherein each of said one or more protocol profiles is associated with one protocol of a set of protocols, wherein each of said one or more protocol profiles identifies a parameter value for each of a set of parameters for the protocol associated with the protocol profile, and wherein the set of protocols includes one or more business protocols, one or more delivery protocols, and one or more transport protocols; storing one or more transaction profiles, wherein each of said one or more transaction profiles identifies a set of protocol profiles, wherein the set of protocol profiles is a subset obtained from the one or more stored protocol profiles, and wherein said set of protocol profiles includes at least one selected from a group consisting of a profile associated with a business protocol, a profile associated with a delivery protocol, and a profile associated with a transport protocol; storing one or more trading partner transaction profiles, wherein each of said one or more trading partner transaction profiles identifies a transaction profile of said one or more transaction profiles; and after (a) storing said one or more protocol profiles, (b) storing said one or more transaction profiles, and (c) storing said one or more trading partner transaction profiles, updating a particular parameter value of a particular protocol profile, of said one or more protocol profiles, to identify an updated value, wherein a profile hierarchy comprises a first level of protocol profiles selected from the one or more stored protocol profiles, a second level of transaction profiles selected from the one or more stored transaction profiles, and a third level of trading partner profiles selected from the one or more stored trading partner transaction profiles, wherein updating the particular parameter value of the particular protocol profile is performed without updating any of said one or more transaction profiles, wherein updating said particular parameter value of the particular protocol profile causes said updated value to be inherited by at least one transaction profile when the particular protocol profile is associated with the first level of the profile hierarchy and when the at least one transaction profile is associated with the second level of the profile hierarchy.