Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-24
2003-01-21
Homere, Jean R. (Department: 2177)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C128S921000, C600S300000, C705S026640, C707S793000, C709S203000, C709S219000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06510430
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a diagnosis and interpretation method for a personal nutrition program. More particularly, the present invention relates to an interactive, dynamic, Internet-based human-machine system with specialized problem-solving expertise that aids an individual consumer in developing a personal nutrition program tailored to the individual consumer's health needs and permits the consumer to produce individual products for ingestion.
2. Background Information
Being healthy means much more than getting treatment for an illness. Health-conscious individual consumers want to have more energy, be stronger, stay mentally alert, and feel healthier and happier; however, each of us is unique. No two bodies or lifestyles are identical. Some of us eat a well-balanced diet whereas others simply diet. One person's metabolism differs from another's. Our habits and programs differentiate us. Our genetic codes are individual. Where we live, what we do, the foods we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink all combine to make each of us unique.
Studies prove that individual consumer diets do not contain the optimal levels of nutrition needed to prevent disease and attain peak health. For example, a 1978 study on consumption conducted by the National Food Council showed that not one person out of 21,500 surveyed received the entire Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of vitamins and minerals through diet alone. And, more than 80% of the men and 70% of the women received less than two-thirds of the RDA nutrients from their diets. Thus, consumers often need to supplement their diet in order to get the most out of life.
Many consumers have taken charge of their own health and wellbeing by taking daily nutritional supplements. To understand what products will benefit them and how to address their specific health issues, many consumers have turned to the Internet. The Internet is an international network of interconnected computers that enables millions of people to communicate with one another in “cyberspace” and to access vast amounts of information from around the world. This network of networks uses certain standard procedures for regulating data transmission between computers such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) or HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) for HyperText Markup Language (HTML) documents. The physical connections of the Internet and the protocols and communication procedures of the Internet are well-known to those in the art.
Through the Internet, individuals may seek out health and nutrition information to educate themselves about a healthier personal lifestyle and use this detailed information to make informed purchase decisions. However, even with the availability of this information through the Internet, it is very difficult for individual consumers to navigate through the myriad of health studies and decide what they should and should not consume. Furthermore, many consumers dismiss such important health information and resort to consuming eight, twelve, or even eighteen pills a day just to ensure that they are receiving sufficient amounts of vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants from generalized formula supplements made for the average person. Unfortunately, taking these generalized formula supplements made for the average person means ingesting binders, excessive fillers, and lubricants, as well as micronutrients in each menu of pills. Moreover, these various pills are often difficult to locate for purchase, are hard to swallow and may contain some vitamins or minerals that are not needed or may not have enough of what is needed. In turn, this leads many individuals to give up on their personal supplement program before the two or three months it takes for such programs to realize their full health potential.
Alternatively, individual consumers may obtain personalized nutritional supplements by seeking out expert nutritionists or pharmacists' services.
FIG. 1
shows the various operations required in the prior art to distribute personalized supplements to an individual consumer. As shown in
FIG. 1
, the consumer first answers a series of health questions, as operation
12
, on a form received from a nutrition consultant. The consumer then gives the answers to the nutritionist at operation
14
. Upon receiving these answers, the nutritionist formulates a supplement program based on the consumer's answers by using public knowledge in operation
16
such as that found in published books. The nutritionist then tailors this formulation specifically to the individual consumer by using known, personal knowledge at operation
18
such as rules of thumb or heuristics. Heuristics enable the human expert to make educated guesses when necessary, to recognize promising approaches to problems and to deal effectively with erroneous or incomplete data. From operation
18
, the nutritionist creates the supplement from raw powders in operation
20
and distributes the supplements to the consumer in operation
22
.
The benefit of this process is that the consumer obtains a supplement that is personalized and free of extraneous material. However, this process is expensive for the consumer, is limited to geographic areas in which expert nutritionists reside, and requires the consumer to always consult the expert since the consumer lacks access to the expert's personal knowledge
18
. The Internet is one area that provides a vehicle to address these problems.
As a unique and wholly new medium of worldwide human communication, the Internet is changing every area of humanity, primarily through the use of host computers. Host computers are those that store information and relay communications. Individuals can obtain access to the Internet from many different sources, generally hosts themselves or entities with a host affiliation. Many corporations provide their employees with access through an office network; most colleges and universities provide access for their students and faculty; many communities and local libraries provide free access; and an increasing number of storefront “computer coffee shops” provide access for a small hourly fee. Several major national “online services” such as America Online, CompuServe, the Microsoft Network and Prodigy offer access to their own extensive proprietary networks, as well as a link to the much larger resources of the Internet.
Anyone with access to the Internet may take advantage of a wide variety of communication and information retrieval methods. These methods are constantly evolving. Methods such as electronic mail (“e mail”), automatic mailing list services (“mail exploders,” sometimes referred to as “listservs”), “newsgroups,” “chat rooms,” and the “World Wide Web” can be used to transmit text; most can transmit sound, pictures, and moving video images. Taken together, these tools constitute a unique medium—known to its users as “cyberspace”—located in no particular geographical location but available to anyone, anywhere in the world, with access to the Internet.
The best known category of communication over the Internet is the World Wide Web, which allows users to search for and retrieve information stored in remote computers, as well as, in some cases, to communicate back to designated sites. In concrete terms, the Web consists of a vast number of documents stored in different computers all over the world. Some of these documents are simply files containing information; however, more elaborate documents, commonly known as Web pages, are also prevalent. Each has its own address—rather like a telephone number. Web pages frequently contain information and sometimes allow the viewer to communicate with the page's (or “site's”) author. They generally also contain “links” to other documents created by that site's author or to other (generally) related sites. Typically, the links are either blue or underlined text—sometimes images.
Navigating the Web is relatively straightforward. A user may eithe
Moguin Brian P.
Oberwager Bradford S.
Acumins, Inc.
Dilworth Paxson LLP
Homere Jean R.
McConathy Evelyn H.
Wassum Luke S
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