Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Expedia, Inc.

David Alan Beitel

Hugh Herrick Birch

Dhiren R Fonseca

Described is a system and method for matching a customer's offer for travel services with quotes from providers of those travel services in a way that allows the providers to negotiate preferential treatment. An online travel service exchanger receives an offer from a customer for travel services, such as airfare. The online travel service exchanger attempts to satisfy the customer's offer by retrieving from a global distribution system one or more quotes for the identified travel services. Rather than merely requesting quotes from randomly selected airlines, the online travel service exchanger first requests quotes from one preferred airline at a time in descending order of preference until the offer is satisfied. If no preferred airline satisfies the offer, the online travel service exchanger may request quotes from a group of non-preferred airlines. The online travel service exchanger then satisfies, if possible, the offer with one of the quotes from the non-preferred airlines.

System and method for matching an offer with a quote

A method and system for dynamically plotting an element on an image using a table. A page background is created using the image. A table is created containing the element. The table contains a first buffer row, an element row and a second buffer row. The first buffer row positions the element in the table. The element row displays the element and the second buffer row positions any additional characters on the page below the image. The element is overlaid on the image by displaying the table containing the element over the page background containing the image.

Growing community of inventors

Seattle, WA, United States of America

David Alan Beitel