Unified product purchasing system and method

• US 20020065737A1
• Filed: 06/15/2001
• Published: 05/30/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Liberty Peak Ventures, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Thomason, Kenny, Moeller, Kelvin, Aliabadi, Amir, Sovine, Scott
• Granted Patent: US 7,373,314 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0629 for generating comparisons

Abstract

The present invention is directed to providing a method, apparatus and system for a unified product purchasing service and order injection system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to providing a shopping service that obtains products for a consumer across many different merchant and supplier sites while maintaining a consistent user interface for the consumer no matter which merchant provides the products. In particular, the present invention allows a consumer to search for, compare prices and order products from many different merchants located on the Internet. The consumer completes their shopping on the shopping site provided by the present invention and is not directed to another merchant'"'"'s site to complete an order.

Claims

1. A method for collecting product data to provide uniform searching, viewing and purchasing of products over a network, comprising:

retrieving new product data from a plurality of providers;

determining that a first portion of said new product data may be entered with stored product data;

integrating said first portion with said stored product data;

determining that a second portion of said new product data may not be entered with said stored product data; and

adding said second portion to a buffer.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said providers comprise merchants.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining that said first portion may be entered with said stored product data comprises matching product producer names and product producer product identifiers from said first portion to product producer names and product producer product identifiers from said stored product data.

4. The method according to claim 2, wherein determining that said first portion may be entered with said stored product data comprises matching product SKUs from said first portion to product SKUs in said stored product data.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein said providers comprise canonical suppliers.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein said providers comprise merchants and canonical suppliers.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising indexing said stored product data and forwarding said indexed stored product data to at least one searchable database.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said at least one searchable database has at least one mirrored database.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein said indexed stored product data comprises index meta-data and indexed data.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one searchable database is load balanced with at least one mirrored database.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising updating at least one priced products database with said stored product data.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising examining said buffer and determining that at least one entry in said buffer contains product data which may be entered with said stored product data.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising categorizing said at least one entry.