Auction notification system

• US 20030097376A1
• Filed: 01/06/2003
• Published: 05/22/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ortega, Ruben E., Edelman, Alexandre
• Granted Patent: US 7,542,978 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A method and system for generating notifications of auctions based on user notification requests. In one embodiment, the notification system receives from users selection specifications that specify the types of auctions for which the user is to be notified. The selection specifications may include a category of the auctions, keywords for identifying auctions, and values for attributes associated with the category. When the notification system receives a selection specification, it determines whether that selection specification is the same as or nearly the same as other selection specifications that have been received. The notification system periodically determines whether any new auctions satisfy a selection specification by submitting a query to an auction database and then notifies the users when new auctions are identified. The notification may include a list of auctions that is sorted based on access patterns of users who are presented with lists of auctions using selection specifications with similar category, attribute, or keyword values.

Claims

1. A method in a computer system for generating notifications of transactions to be provided to a user, the method comprising:

receiving a selection specification for selecting transactions;

receiving a timing indication that indicates when notifications are to be provided to the user;

when the timing indication indicates that a notification is to be provided to the user, identifying transactions that satisfy the selection specification; and

notifying the user of the identified transactions.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the transactions are auctions.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the user is only notified of transactions for which the user has not previously received a notification.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the timing indication specifies a frequency at which the user is to be notified of transactions that satisfy the selection specification.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the notifying includes only notifying the user of transactions that are likely to be open when the user receives the notification.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the received selection specification includes a specification of a category.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the notification is sent via electronic mail.

8. A method in a computer system for generating notifications of transactions to be provided to a user, the method comprising:

providing a categorization of the transactions;

receiving from the user a selection of a category;

identifying a transaction that is within the selected category and for which the user has not yet been notified; and

notifying the user that the identified transaction is within the selected category.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the identifying is performed at a time designated by the user.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the identifying is performed at a frequency designated by the user.

11. The method of claim 8 including receiving keywords for selecting auctions within the selected category and wherein the identifying identifies open auctions within the selected category based on the received keywords.

12. The method of claim 8 wherein the notification is sent via electronic mail.

13. A method in a computer system for generating notifications of transactions to be provided to users, the method comprising:

for each of a plurality of users, receiving a selection specification for selecting transactions;

normalizing the received selection specifications;

generating a mapping from each user to the normalized selection specification, wherein at least two users are mapped to the same normalized selection specification;

identifying transactions that satisfy a normalized selection specification; and

notifying users who are mapped to the normalized selection specification of the identified transactions.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the transactions are auctions.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein the transactions are sales of items at fixed prices.

16. The method of claim 13 wherein the selection specifications include keywords which are normalized.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the selection specifications include categories.

18. A method in a computer system for generating notifications of transactions to be provided to a user, the method comprising:

receiving a selection specification from the user;

identifying transactions that satisfy the received selection specification and for which the user has not yet been notified; and

notifying the user that the identified transactions satisfy the selection specification, the identity of the transactions being ordered based on access patterns in accessing results of queries.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the results of queries are generated to notify user of new transactions.

20. The method of claim 18 wherein the notifying is performed via electronic mail.

21. The method of claim 18 wherein the transactions are auctions.

22. The method of claim 18 wherein the queries are other selection specifications for notifications.

23. The method of claim 18 wherein the queries are submitted as searches for items.

24. A method in a computer system for generating notifications of actions to be provided to a user, the method comprising:

receiving from the user a selection specification for identifying auctions;

identifying auctions that satisfy the selection specification; and

sending an electronic mail notification to the user that provides an indication of the identified auctions.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein the selection specification includes a category.

26. The method of claim 24 wherein identifying occurs at certain time periods.

27. The method of claim 24 wherein the identifying occurs when the identified auction is opened.

28. The method of claim 24 wherein the identifying and sending are terminated after a certain time period.

29. The method of claim 24 wherein selection specifications are normalized and two different selection specifications provide the same normalized selection specification.

30. The method of claim 29 wherein the identifying is performed for normalized selection specifications and the electronic mail message is sent multiple users whose selection specifications map to the same normalized selection specification.

31. A method in a computer system for receiving notifications of transactions, the method comprising:

receiving from a user a selection specification for transactions, the selection specification including a category;

sending the received selection specification to a server; and

receiving notifications from the server that identify transactions that satisfy the selection specification and for which notifications have not yet been received by the user.

32. The method of claim 31 wherein the transactions are auctions.

33. The method of claim 31 including receiving from the user an indication as to when the notifications should be terminated.

34. The method of claim 31 including receiving from the user an indication as to when the notifications should be sent.

35. The method of claim 31 wherein the selection specification includes keywords.

36. The method of claim 31 wherein the received notifications are sent via electronic mail.

37. A data transmission medium that contains identifications of transactions that satisfy a selection specification provided by a user, the selection specification including a category, the identifications transmitted on the data transmission medium when the user has not yet been notified of transactions that satisfies the selection specification.

38. The data transmission medium of claim 37 wherein the identifications are ordered based on access patterns of users when presented with identifications of transactions.

39. The data transmission medium of claim 37 wherein the identifications are transmitted at a time designated by the user.

40. A computer system for generating notifications of transactions to be provided to users, comprising:

means for identifying transactions that are within a category specified by a user and for which the user has not yet been notified; and

means for notifying the user that the identified transactions are within the selected category.

41. The computer system of claim 41 wherein the identifying is performed at times indicated by the user.

42. The computer system of claim 41 wherein the means for identifying identifies transactions that related to keywords specified by the user.

43. The computer system of claim 41 wherein the transactions are auctions.