The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 15, 2014
Filed:
Jul. 11, 2011
Yu Deng, Yorktown Heights, NY (US);
Thao N. Nguyen, Katonah, NY (US);
Chang-shing Perng, Bedford Hills, NY (US);
Randy A. Rendahl, Raleigh, NC (US);
Anca Sailer, Scarsdale, NY (US);
Grzegorz M. Swirszcz, Ossining, NY (US);
Yu Deng, Yorktown Heights, NY (US);
Thao N. Nguyen, Katonah, NY (US);
Chang-Shing Perng, Bedford Hills, NY (US);
Randy A. Rendahl, Raleigh, NC (US);
Anca Sailer, Scarsdale, NY (US);
Grzegorz M. Swirszcz, Ossining, NY (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Methods, apparatus, and articles of manufacture are disclosed. These perform the following: accessing records of previous usage within a billing period of service units for customers, wherein the service units are discrete sizes of services for resource types, wherein each usage of an individual one of the service units has start and stop events, and wherein each resource type has a price fixed as of a date of the previous usage; dividing the billing period into time periods determined using the start and stop events for the usage of all of the service units; using the accessed records and the time periods and based on one or more criteria, assigning resource types to the previous usage in the time periods of the service units by the customers; and determining total charge for a selected customer based on the assignments of the resource types and corresponding prices for the selected customer.