US Patent 7236939 Peer-to-peer inter-enterprise collaborative process management method and system

A collaborative business process for modeling inter-enterprise collaboration (e.g., peer-to-peer (P2P) or business-to-business (B2B) interaction) that involves at least two players from two different enterprises is defined. The collaborative business process has a plurality of work nodes. Each work node has a task-role identifier for identifying a particular player to execute each node. A first collaborative process manager (FCPM) associated with the first player is provided to execute a first instance of the collaborative business process. A second collaborative process manager (SCPM) associated with the second player is provided to execute a second instance of the collaborative business process.