Stephen R Hall

20050222896, Oct 6, 2005

Sep 20, 2004

10/945534

Joseph Rhyne - Little Silver NJ, US
Stephen Hall - Manchester MA, US
Christopher Crowhurst - Whitehall MD, US
Francis Fuca - St. Paul MN, US
Christopher Wolff - Woodbury MN, US

G06F017/60

705010000

One problem recognized by the present inventors is that even in highly successful companies, such as those in the Thomson corporate family, information and solutions provided by one business unit are not readily combined or integrated with those provided by other business units. Accordingly, the present inventors devised, among other things, a computerized implementation of a federated business model and architecture for the creation of integrated information solutions from content sets and service offerings provided by multiple business units. The exemplary system includes a catalog module that facilitates identification of informational assets, such as products, services, and content, that are created by multiple business units; a collaborative infrastructure to facilitate aggregation or integration of two or more informational assets into a new informational asset; and a settlement module for handling one or more financial and accounting aspects of the asset integration.