Patent Document ID: 20070192256
Application ID: 11697816
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A system for facilitating negotiation of a private standard for inter-enterprise collaboration between trading partners, the system being associated with a network service provider and comprising: a set of one or more meta-model elements each capable of being negotiated by two or more enterprises and incorporated into a customized negotiated meta-model that describes an agreement between the enterprises as to collaborations between the enterprises, each meta-model element in the set describing a portion of a potential private standard for collaboration between enterprises; a meta-model negotiation service operable to: receive an indication that two or more enterprises wish to negotiate a private standard for collaborations between the enterprises; provide access to the set of meta-model elements; receive selections of one or more of the meta-model elements for negotiation and incorporation into a customized negotiated meta-model, the negotiated meta-model describing an agreement between the enterprises as to collaborations between the enterprises; facilitate negotiation of the selected meta-model elements; incorporate negotiated meta-model elements into the negotiated meta-model for collaborations between the enterprises, the negotiated meta-model being customized for particular needs of the enterprises; and communicate the customized negotiated meta-model to collaboration software of the enterprises to enable collaborations between the enterprises according to the private standard for collaborations reflected in the customized negotiated meta-model, that collaboration software operable to understand and collaborate according to the customized negotiated meta-model substantially automatically and substantially independent of modification to the collaboration software subsequent to negotiation of the customized negotiated meta-model.