Technologies for identifying product sources

• US 10,387,933 B2
• Filed: 08/12/2016
• Issued: 08/20/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: 84.51 LLC
• Original Assignee: 84.51 LLC
• Inventors: Blake, William, Salava, Heidi, Rock, Brian, Roney, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Garg, Yogesh C
• Application Number:
  US15/236,014
• Publication Number:
  US 20170046761A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,103 Days
• Field of Search: 705 261, 705 2661, 705 271
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

Technologies for identifying product sources include a product source management server. The product source management server receives an unidentified Universal Product Code (UPC) corresponding to a product of a manufacturer. The unidentified UPC is compared to a library including reference Universal Product Codes (UPCs) and corresponding manufacturer identification data to identify the manufacturer of the product. A brand of the product is determined when the product manufacturer is not identified via the reference UPCs. The determined brand is compared to another library including reference brands and corresponding manufacturer identification data to identify the product manufacturer. When the determined brand does not match one of the reference brands, the product source management server compares product description data corresponding to the product to a different library including reference product description strings. The product manufacturer may be determined based on a matching reference product description string. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method of identifying product sources, the method comprising:

receiving, by a product source management server, an unidentified Universal Product Code (UPC) that corresponds to a product of a manufacturer;

comparing, by the product source management server, the unidentified UPC to a preconfigured and preselected first library comprising a plurality of reference Universal Product Codes (UPCs), each reference UPC is associated with first manufacturer identification data that identifies the manufacturer of the product corresponding to the reference UPC, and each reference UPC is further associated with a product carried by the retailer;

identifying, by the product source management server and in response to a determination that the unidentified UPC matches one of the reference UPCs of the first library, the manufacturer of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC as the manufacturer of the product corresponding to the matching reference UPC;

determining, by the product source management server and in response to a determination that the unidentified UPC does not match one of the reference UPCs of the first library, a brand of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC based at least in part on product description data associated with the product;

comparing, by the product source management server, the determined brand of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC to a second library comprising a plurality of reference brands, each reference brand is associated with second manufacturer identification data that identifies the manufacturer of the reference brand;

comparing, by the product source management server and in response to a determination that the determined brand of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC does not match one of the reference brands of the second library, the product description data associated with the product to a third library, wherein the third library comprises a plurality of reference product descriptions strings, each reference product description string is associated with product identification data that identifies the product and brand corresponding to the reference product description string;

obtaining brand identification data from remote electronic sources, in response to a determination that the determined brand of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC does not match one of the reference product description strings of the third library, by crawling the remote electronic sources for the brand identification data for the product associated with the unidentified UPC using the product source management server; and

identifying, by crawling the remote electronic sources using the product source management server, the manufacturer of the product corresponding to the brand identification and the unidentified UPC,

wherein the obtained brand identification data and the manufacturer for the product associated with the UPC are used by the product source management server to revise or update at least the second library.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating, by the product source management server, a master list of unidentified UPCs for a retailer, wherein the master list comprises the unidentified UPC and a plurality of other unidentified UPCs, the unidentified UPC and the plurality of other unidentified UPCs each correspond to a different product of one or more manufacturers.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

receiving, by the product source management server and from a remote computing device, a list comprising a plurality of active UPCs; and

wherein generating the master list comprises generating the master list based at least in part on the plurality of active UPCs of the received list.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, by the product source management server, the product description data associated with the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein determining the product description data comprises requesting the product description data associated with the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC from a remote product description repository.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the product description data associated with the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC comprises at least one of a brand name, a product name, a product size, and a product weight.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the product description data associated with the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC comprises a brand name of the product;

and

wherein determining the brand of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC comprises parsing the product description data to obtain the brand name of the product.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating, by the product source management server, a notification message indicating that the manufacturer of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC could not be determined.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the remote electronic sources comprise at least one of a remote manufacturer website, a remote e-commerce website, a remote news website, and a remote marketing server.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising displaying, by the product source management server, the notification message via a display of the of the product source management server.

11. A product source management server for identifying product sources, the product source management server comprising:

at least one processor and non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon which when executed by a processor cause the processor to;

receive an unidentified Universal Product Code (UPC) that corresponds to a product of a manufacturer;

compare the unidentified UPC to a preselected and preconfigured first library comprising a plurality of reference Universal Product Codes (UPCs), each reference UPC is associated with first manufacturer identification data that identifies the manufacturer of the product corresponding to the reference UPC, and each reference UPC is further associated with a product carried by the retailer;

identify, in response to a determination that the unidentified UPC matches one of the reference UPCs of the first library, the manufacturer of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC as the manufacturer of the product corresponding to the matching reference UPC;

determine, in response to a determination that the unidentified UPC does not match one of the reference UPCs of the first library, a brand of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC based at least in part on product description data associated with the product;

compare the determined brand of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC to a second library comprising a plurality of reference brands, each reference brand is associated with second manufacturer identification data that identifies the manufacturer of the reference brand;

compare, in response to a determination that the determined brand of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC does not match one of the reference brands of the second library, the product description data associated with the product to a third library, wherein the third library comprises a plurality of reference product description strings, each reference product description string is associated with product identification data that identifies the product and brand corresponding to the reference product description string;

obtain brain identification data from remote electronic sources, in response to a determination that the determined brand of the product corresponding to the unidentified UPC does not match one of the reference product description strings of the third library, by crawling the remote electronic sources for brand identification data for the product associated with the unidentified UPC; and

identify, by crawling the remote electronic sources, the manufacturer of the product corresponding to the brand identification and the unidentified UPC,

wherein the obtained brand identification data and the manufacturer for the product associated with the UPC are used by the product source management server to revise or update at least the second library.