System and method for an interactive shopping news and price information service

• US 20080091667A1
• Filed: 02/12/2007
• Published: 04/17/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tensilrus Capital NV LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Tensilrus Capital NV LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Nair, Mark
• Granted Patent: US 9,037,504 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0257 User requested
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0281 Customer communication at a business location, e.g. providing product or service information, consulting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

A system and associated method for assisting a user to efficiently query for product information and promotional information available from electronic commerce websites over the Internet includes a sub-server for searching the electronic commerce websites, a controlling server, and a local database. The method involves determining whether product information related to a user query is cached in a local database and if the requested information is not cached, searching the electronic commerce websites for the requested information.

Claims

1. An apparatus for assisting a user to efficiently query for product information and promotional information available from electronic commerce websites over the Internet, said apparatus comprising:

a server, controlling one or more sub-servers, optimized to search electronic commerce websites on the Internet;

a database, associated with the server, optimized to store product information and promotional information received from the server; and

an interface website, associated with the server, the interface website optimized to receive a user query and return results to a user.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the interface website accepts a live shopping request from the user.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the interface website receives a user query, the server sends the user query to a sub-server with instructions to search one or more e-commerce websites and receives the results of the search by the sub-server, and the interface website displays the results of the user query.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the interface website receives a user query, the server sends the user query to the database with instructions to search cached product information and promotional information and receives the results of the search by the database, and the interface website displays the results of the user query.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the interface website displays matches to the user query to the user.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the user selects from one of the matches to the user query displayed to the user.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the interface website displays a list of popular items to the user.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the user selects from the list of popular items to the user.

9. A method for assisting a user to efficiently query for product information and promotional information available from electronic commerce websites over the Internet, said method comprising the steps of:

polling at least one available website to find a match to a user query, wherein the user query relates to at least one product said user desires to find product information for from at least one available website, wherein the product information for the at least one selected product is retrieved and is cached by the local database; and

displaying the polling results to the user, wherein the user may locate the at least one available website offering the at least one product associated with the desired product information.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of:

if the at least one available website contains at least one match to the user query, accepting a selection input from the user, wherein the user refines the user query by specifically selecting the at least one product.

11. A system for assisting a user to efficiently query for product information and promotional information available from electronic commerce websites over the Internet, said system comprising:

means for checking a local database to find a match to a user query, wherein the user query relates to at least one product said user desires to find product information for from at least one available website;

means for accepting, if the local database contains at least one match to the user query, a selection input from the user, wherein the user refines the user query by specifically selecting the at least one product;

means for determining whether the local database has cached product information relating to the at least one product within a specified time limit;

means for polling, if the local database has not cached the product information within the specified time limit, the at least one available website, wherein the product information for the at least one selected product is retrieved and is cached by the local database; and

means for displaying the polling results to the user, wherein the user may locate the at least one available website offering the at least one product associated with the desired product information.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

means for accepting the user query, wherein the user query is entered by way of a user interface.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the specified time limit is a variable, said variable being set dynamically depending on Internet congestion and use of the at least one available website.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising:

means for displaying to the user the elapsed since the product information was last cached in the local database.

15. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

means for accepting override input from the user, wherein the user may initiate polling of the at least one available website for the product information after the local database has cached the product information within the specified time limit.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the means for polling the at least one available website for the product information further comprises:

means for receiving a request to poll at least one assigned website, wherein the at least one assigned website is one of the at least one available websites;

means for analyzing the at least one assigned website utilizing the HTML structure of the assigned website;

means for determining a location of the product information within the at least one assigned website;

means for extracting the product information from said location; and

means for transmitting the extracted product information, wherein the extracted product information is transmitted to a base server, and wherein the base server directs the local database to cache the extracted product information.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein means for displaying the polling results to the user further comprises:

means for receiving the product information, wherein the product information is received at a base server;

means for arranging the product information; and

means for displaying the arranged price information by way of an HTML page.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein means for polling the at least one available website further includes means for retrieving promotional information from the at least one available website.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising means for storing the retrieved promotional information in the local database.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising:

means for accepting a user input, wherein the user input indicates that the user wishes to view the promotional information and selects the at least one available website the user is interested in;

means for accumulating a specified number of results for each of the at least one selected websites, wherein the specified number of results consists of the promotional information associated with the at least one selected website and is determined based on at least one of a time when results were retrieved and an order of importance determined by the at least one selected website; and

means for generating a display of the specified number of results for each of the at least one selected websites, wherein the display further includes a link to the at least one selected website and a time and date stamp indicating when the promotional information was last retrieved.