Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Inventory management
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-23
2002-09-03
Kramer, Dean J. (Department: 3652)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Inventory management
C714S025000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06446046
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention generally relates to offering goods and services for sale based on an automatic detection of a client's configuration, and more particularly, to performing a detailed power-on test inspection of the client's hardware and software configuration to determine updates for the client, and automatically take action.
BACKGROUND
In a typical sales environment, a buyer contacts (e.g., via the Internet, an intranet, extranet, world wide web, etc.) a goods or service provider (hereafter seller) seeking goods (e.g., hardware or software sales) or services (e.g., technical support or repairs). Even though the buyer usually has a general understanding of what the buyer wishes to purchase, sellers must still engage in often-lengthy dialogs with the buyer to validate the intended purchase, as well as to determine other goods or services that might be of interest to the buyer. As used herein and the claims that follow, the term “software” is intended to include software installed within hardware such as non-volatile memory, as well as within mass storage devices such as hard disks.
Such dialogues with the buyer are expensive in time and resources since the seller must provide people with whom the buyers interact. These expenses necessarily impact the prices at which the seller may provide the goods and services. In an effort to minimize these costs, sellers have developed various techniques for speeding up the sales process, and therefore minimizing the amount of time required for an operator to aid a buyer. Speeding up time spent with the buyer allows the seller to amortize the seller's fixed costs (e.g., salary, rent, etc. for the agents) across multiple buyers. One obvious improvement has been to computerize the sales process, and allow a seller to search online databases of the seller's products. Another improvement has been to provide cross-references in the database between the buyer's intended purchase and other related purchases, allowing the seller to suggest purchasing the related products. Other improvements have been made as well.
But, one element remaining in these improvements is the presence of a human operator with which the buyer interacts. Thus, even though techniques may be applied to distribute operator-related fixed costs among multiple buyers, the fixed costs have not been avoided.
A related problem is that when a buyer seeks to repair a computing device that fails a test, such as a power-on self-test (POST), it can be particularly difficult to identify computing device components (e.g., installed goods) requiring repair or replacement if the computing device cannot be brought to some minimal functionality. In such circumstances, it would be beneficial to arrange for such replacement during execution of the test itself.
SUMMARY
In one embodiment, a method for procuring goods or services during a test of a client. A test of the client is initiated, and a good of the client requiring replacement is determined. A server is contacted over a network, and the replacement for the good is procured from the server.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5019963 (1991-05-01), Alderson et al.
patent: 5473772 (1995-12-01), Halliwell et al.
patent: 5752042 (1998-05-01), Cole et al.
patent: 5923834 (1999-07-01), Thieret et al.
patent: 5983364 (1999-11-01), Bortcosh et al.
patent: 6035420 (2000-03-01), Liu et al.
patent: 10-269062 (1998-10-01), None
Home Office Computing“Keeping PC problems at bay” (vol. 17, Issue 9), Sep. 1999.*
McAfee.com—press release “The Place for Your PC”, Apr. 1999.*
Network World“Does your Windows net need a physical?” (vol. 14, Issue 11), Mar. 1997.*
Infotech Update“Give your computer a complete physical using oil change and first aid” (vol. 6, Issue 3), May 1997.*
Inside the Internet“Playing catch-up”, (vol. 5, Issue 10), Oct. 1998.*
PC Magazine“First-Rate Updates”, p. 66, Oct. 1998.
Diamond Kent J.
Gronemeyer Cary E.
Intel Corporation
Kramer Dean J.
Yates Steven D.
LandOfFree
Inventory determination for facilitating commercial... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Inventory determination for facilitating commercial..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Inventory determination for facilitating commercial... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2848024