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Managing a Service Catalog through Crowdsourcing: Key Insights from Patent 8959076

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

Service catalogs play a critical role in managing organizational services, and crowdsourcing has become a popular tool for leveraging large numbers to accomplish tasks. A patent filed by Herger, Lorraine M., Keller, Neal M., McCarthy, Matthew A., and Pickover, Clifford A. on May 21, 2012, describes a method for managing a service catalog through crowdsourcing. This patent has been published online on February 17, 2015, by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

The patent's background information explains that a service catalog is a list of services provided by an organization, and it may include metadata such as service description, SLA, and costs. On-demand software, or software as a service (SaaS), is a delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally. Crowdsourcing refers to the practice of using a group of people to accomplish a task, often over the Internet.

Key Takeaways:

  • The patent describes a method for managing a service catalog through crowdsourcing, which includes receiving metadata about one or more services, analyzing the metadata to determine whether to perform a management activity, and generating a signal to gather additional metadata if the metadata is insufficient.
  • The method can be performed using a server, a computer program product, or a computer-readable storage medium with computer-readable program code.
  • The system can analyze metadata to recommend one or more services in the service catalog or couple two or more services in the service catalog.
  • The patent highlights the importance of metadata and its role in determining whether to perform a management activity on the service catalog.
  • The method can be used to manage a plurality of services in a service catalog, making it a scalable solution for large organizations.

Statistics:

  • The patent was filed on May 21, 2012, and published online on February 17, 2015, by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
  • The patent is assigned to International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, NY).
  • The patent covers the field of service catalog management, specifically managing a plurality of services in a service catalog through crowdsourcing.
  • The patent includes three examples of the present invention: a method, a system, and a computer program product.

Sources:

  • Herger, Lorraine M.; Keller, Neal M.; McCarthy, Matthew A.; Pickover, Clifford A. (2012). Managing a Service Catalog through Crowdsourcing. U.S. Patent Number 8959076, filed May 21, 2012, and published online on February 17, 2015. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8959076.PN.&OS=PN/8959076RS=PN/8959076
  • VerticalNews (2015). Patent for Managing a Service Catalog through Crowdsourcing Filed. Retrieved from

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