Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Electronic shopping
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-22
2003-09-23
Coggins, Wynn W. (Department: 3625)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Electronic shopping
C705S026640, C705S014270, C709S200000, C709S245000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06625581
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
1. Field of Invention
The present invention generally relates to a novel system and method for collecting consumer-product related information and transmitting and delivering the same along the consumer-product supply and demand chain using the International Information Infrastructure (e.g. the Internet), and more particularly to a novel system and method for delivering consumer product related information to consumers within retail environments using Internet-based information servers and sales agents.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Dissemination of consumer-product information between manufacturers and their retail trading partners must be accurate and timely. The traditional methods of phone calls and faxes are time consuming and resource intensive. An electronic Universal Product Code (UPC) Catalog (i.e. database system), accessible 24 hours a day, is a solution. In 1988, QuickResponse Services (QRS), Inc. Of Richmond, Calif., introduced the first independent product information database, using the retail industry standard UPC numbering system. Today the QRSolutions™ Catalog contains information on over 52 million products from over 1500 manufacturers. The QRSolutions Catalog is a Windows-based application providing a critical information flow link between the retailers and the manufacturers along the supply and demand chain.
After assigning a UPC number to each item, the manufacturer organizes and sends the data via an electronic data interchange (i.e. EDI) transmission, or a tape, to QRS, Inc. to be loaded into the UPC Catalog database. Changes to the data can be made on a daily basis. Retailers with access to a manufacturer's data can view and download the data once it has been added or updated. Automatic update capabilities ensure the most recent UPC data will be in the EDI mailbox of each retailer customer quickly.
The effect of a centralized database such as QRS's UPC Catalog improves the flow of merchandise from the manufacturer to the retailer's selling floor and ultimately to the consumer. With the UPC Catalog, accurate, up-to-date product information is available when the retailer needs it, eliminating weeks from the order cycle time.
In addition to the electronic UPC-based product information subsystem (i.e. UPC Catalog) described above, a number of other information subsystems have been developed for the purpose of providing solutions to problems relating to electronic commerce (EC) merchandising and logistics within the global supply chain. Such ancillary information subsystems include, for example: Sales, Analysis and Forecasting Subsystems for producing and providing retailers with information about what products consumers are buying; Collaborative Replenishment Subsystems for determining what products retailers can buy in order to satisfy consumer demand at any given point of time; and Transportation and Logistics Information Subsystems for producing and providing retailers with information about when products purchased by them (at wholesale) will be delivered to their stores. Typically, such information subsystems are connected to various value added information networks in order to efficiently offer such information services t o retailers on a global basis.
While the above-described information systems collectively cooperate to optimize the process of moving raw materials into finished products and into the hands of consumers, such information systems fail to address the information needs of the consumers of retail products who require and desire product-related information prior to, as well as after, the purchase of consumer-products. Moreover, prior art demand chain management systems operate in an open-loop mode with a “break” in information flow cycle, disabling the manufacturers from communicating with the consumers in a n efficient manner to satisfy consumer needs.
Presently, an enormous amount of time, money and effort is being expended by companies in order to advertise and sell their products and services, and to provide product related information, product warranty service and the like after product purchase has taken place. Various types of media for decades have been used to realize such fundamental business functions.
In recent times, there has been a number of significant developments in connection with the global information network called the “Internet”, which has greatly influenced many companies to create multi-media Internet Web-sites in order to advertise, sell and maintain their products and services. Examples of such developments include, for example: the World Wide Web (WWW) based on the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and the Hypertext Transmission Protocol (HTTP) by Tim Berners-Lee, et al. (See “World-Wide Web: The Information Universe” by Tim Berners-Lee, et al; easy to use Java GUI-based Internet navigation tools, such as the Netscape® browser from Netscape Communications, Inc., the Internet Explorer™ browser from MicroSoft Corporation and the Mosaic™ browser from Spyglass Corporation; and the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) by Mark Pecse. Such developments in recent times have made it very easy for businesses to create 2-D Hypermedia-based Home Pages and 3-D VR Worlds (i.e. 3-D Web-sites) for the purpose of projecting a desired “corporate image” and providing a backdrop for financial investment solicitation, as well as product advertising, sales an d maintenance operations.
Presently, a person desiring to acquire information about any particular product has a number of available search options. In particular, he or she may attempt to directly contact the manufacturer, wholesaler or reseller by telephone, US mail, e-mail, or through the company's World Wide Web-site (WWW), if they have one. In the event one decides to acquire product information through the seller's WWW site, he or she must first determine the location of its WWW site (i.e. Internet address) which oftentimes can involve using Internet Search engines such as Yahoo®, AltaVista™, WebCrawler™, Lycos™, Excite™, or the like. This can be a very time consuming process and can sometimes lead to a dead end. Once the Internet address is obtained, one must then review the home page of the company's Web-site in order to find where information about a particular product resides on the Website, if it so exists. This search process can be both time consuming and expensive (in terms of Internet time) and may not turn up desired information on the product of interest.
In some instances, product brochures bear a preprinted Internet address designed to direct or point prospective customers to a particular Web-site where more detailed product information can be found. A recent example of this “preprinted Web Address” pointing technique is the 1996 product brochure published by the Sony Corporation for its Sony® PCV-70 Personal Computer, which refers prospective customers to the Sony Web Address “http://www.sony.com/pc”. While this approach provides a direct way of finding product related information on the Internet, it is not without its shortcomings and drawbacks.
In particular, when a company improves, changes or modifies a n existing Web-site which publishes product and/or service advertisements and related information, it is difficult (if not impossible) not to change the Internet locations (e.g. Web addresses) at which such product and/or service advertisements and related information appear. Whenever a company decides or is forced to change any of its advertising, marketing and/or public relations firms, there is a substantial likelihood that new Web-sites will be created and launched for particular products and services, and that the Web addresses of such new Web-sites will no longer correspond with the Web addresses on preprinted product brochures currently in circulation at the time. This can result in pointing a consumer to erroneous or vacant Web-sites, that present either old or otherwise outdated product and/or service information, possibly adversely influencing the consumer's purchasing decisi
Coggins Wynn W.
Fadok Mark
IPF, Inc.
Perkowski Esq., PC Thomas J.
LandOfFree
METHOD OF AND SYSTEM FOR ENABLING THE ACCESS OF CONSUMER... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with METHOD OF AND SYSTEM FOR ENABLING THE ACCESS OF CONSUMER..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and METHOD OF AND SYSTEM FOR ENABLING THE ACCESS OF CONSUMER... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3111329