Wish list

• US 20050182689A1
• Filed: 04/07/2005
• Published: 08/18/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Blinn, Arnold N., Martineau, Teresa
• Granted Patent: US 7,711,611 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 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

An electronic item list system and method, such as a wish or gift list, for an electronic shopping mall/online shopping portal, or an item list system provided as a software service. The system and method provides a user with the ability to create a list of items that the user would like others to purchase for the user as a gift or as a list of items that the user would like to retain for a later purchase. A user interface is provided that allows the user to select items electronically to add to a user specific gift list. The items are not limited to specific products, but can include general product categories and/or products from a specific merchant or manufacturer. The user interface communicates through an interface component that extracts data from a number of databases. For example, the databases can include a merchant database, an offers database, a manufacturers database and a products database. The interface will extract data from one or all of the databases based on the amount of information in a gift list request and provide the best results. As records are removed from the databases, the interface allows for graceful degradation of the display, such that something is always displayed to the user.

Claims

1. A system that creates and maintains an electronic item list for items residing on the Internet comprising:

an item list database and at least one database with item information stored in records; and

an interface component that receives a request to add an item, which is not in the at least one database, to an item list stored in the item list database, the item is associated with information that comprises structured data that conforms to a format of the records in the at least one database and unstructured data that does not conform to the format of the records in the at least one database or reside in the records in the at least one database.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a custom input component that allows a user to add a custom element to the item list, the custom element component comprises structured and unstructured data.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising a user interface component that receives data related to a custom element from a user, the data comprises at least one of structured and unstructured data.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a remote input component that allows a user to add an item to the item list having a description residing on a remote merchant'"'"'s site, the remote merchant site employs a link to the remote input component to invoke the remote input component.

5. The system of claim 4, the remote input component adds the description of the item to the item list, the description includes one of structured and unstructured data.

6. The system of claim 4, the description is linked to information associated with an item in the at least one database and the remote input component adds the information with respect to the item to the item list.