METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR AGGREGATE WEB SITE DATABASE PRICE WATCH FEATURE

• US 20080288486A1
• Filed: 05/12/2008
• Published: 11/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Kim, Sang-Heun, Stinson, Charles Laurence
• Application Number:
  US12/119,309
• Publication Number:
  US 20080288486A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Signature schema documents may be pre-defined using a query language to provide instructions for application by an engine to extract data from web pages of respective web sites. For a particular web page, signature schema instructions identify a web page family for the web page and extract desired data from the web page in accordance with its web page family. A server may receive data from a web site and apply signature schema instructions maintained in a repository coupled to the engine. Extracted data can be cached to a database coupled to the engine to facilitate querying of the data to enable aggregate results to be presented to a client machine (e.g. a wireless device). The aggregate database can be monitored based upon defined user criteria such as for price changes of an item and provide appropriate notification to the client machine when changes occur.

Claims

1. A method of providing aggregate web site price watch feature, the method comprising:

receiving a price watch request for a product from a client machine comprising a threshold price for the product;

generating a query to an aggregate database for the product;

retrieving data from the aggregate database containing information provided from one or more web sites, extracted by parsing received web site data by an associated signature schema;

determining when the threshold price has been satisfied;

retrieving one or more product details from the aggregate database when the threshold price has been satisfied; and

notifying the client machine that the price threshold was satisfied.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein notifying the client machine further comprises:

generating hyper-text markup language (HTML) data message from the retrieved one or more product details based upon the signature schema associated with the particular web site from which the product details originated; and

sending the generated HTML data message to the client machine.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein notifying the client machine further comprises pushing the one or more product details to a push application on the client machine.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein notifying the client machine further comprises sending an email to the client machine comprising the one or more product details.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

periodically monitoring the one or more websites for changes in a product price associated with the price threshold.

6. The method of claim 1 where in the threshold price is satisfied when a product price is equal to or less than the threshold price.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the data is stored in a relational database.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the query is a Structured Query Language (SQL) query.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the signature schema comprises eXtensible Markup Language (XML) documents comprising query language for extracting data from web pages.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the aggregate database is stored on the client machine.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the client machine periodically queries the one or more web sites to update data in the aggregate database.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the client machine is a wireless device.

21. The system of claim 12 wherein the database comprises a table identifying an hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) link and a product category and a table identifying an product specific HTTP link, product information and pricing for each identified product category.

22. The system of claim 1 wherein the aggregate database is stored on the client machine.

23. The system of claim 1 wherein the client machine is a wireless device.

13. A system for providing aggregate web site database price watch feature comprising:

at least one computing device comprising a processor and a memory coupled thereto, said memory storing instructions and data for configuring the processor to provide an engine to;

receive a price watch request for a product from a client machine comprising a threshold price;

generate a query to an aggregate web site database for the requested product;

retrieve data from the aggregate database containing information provided from one or more web sites extracted by parsing received web site data by and associate signature schema;

determine if the threshold price is satisfied;

retrieve one ore more product details from the aggregate database when the product price threshold has been satisfied; and

notify the client machine that the price threshold was satisfied.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein when the engine notifies the client machine by providing hyper-text markup language (HTML) data generated from the retrieved details based upon a signature schema associated with the particular web site from which the product details originated.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the processor is further configured to provide an engine to periodically monitoring a product price associated with the price threshold until the threshold price is satisfied.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the price threshold is satisfied when the threshold price is met or exceeded.

17. The system of claim 13 wherein the data is stored in a relational database.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the query is a Structured Query Language (SQL) query.

19. The system of claim 13 wherein when the one ore more product details are retrieved, additional metadata associated with the product is retrieved from the aggregate database.

20. The system of claim 13 wherein the signature schema comprises eXtensible Markup Language (XML) documents comprising query language for extracting data from web pages.

24. A computer program product storing computer readable instructions which when executed by a computer processor configure the processor for:

receiving a price watch request for a product from a client machine comprising a threshold price for the product;

generating a query to an aggregate database for the product;

retrieving data from the aggregate database containing information provided from one or more web sites, extracted by parsing received web site data by an associated signature schema;

determining when the threshold price has been satisfied;

retrieving one or more product details from the aggregate database when the threshold price has been satisfied; and

notifying the client machine that the price threshold was satisfied.

25. A method of providing aggregate web site price watch feature for a wireless device, the method comprising:

receiving a price watch request for a product from a client machine comprising a threshold price for the product;

generating a query to an aggregate database for the requested product;

retrieving data from the aggregate database containing information provided from one or more web sites, extracted by parsing received web site data by an associated signature wherein the schema comprises an extensible Markup Language (XML) documents comprising query language for extracting data from the web page;

determining when the threshold price has been satisfied;

periodically monitoring the one or more websites for changes in the product price;

retrieving one ore more product details from the aggregate database when the product threshold price has been satisfied; and

notifying the wireless device that the price threshold was satisfied.