Arrangement for and method of expediting commercial product transactions at a point-of-sale site
First Claim
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1. An arrangement for advising customers of the prices of products offered at a self-service store prior to checkout, comprising:
- a) a host having a database in which product identity and price information of each of the products are stored;
b) an actuatable, hand-held, portable unit supported and operated by a respective customer, includingi) an electro-optical reader for reading a coded indicium associated with and identifying a respective product selected by the respective customer,ii) a terminal for accessing the database to retrieve the stored price information of the selected product identified by the reader, andiii) a display on the portable unit within sight of the respective customer; and
c) a transaction actuator on the portable unit and operable by the respective customer, for actuating the portable unit to initiate automatic identification and automatic price retrieval of the selected product, and for automatically displaying the stored price information on the display.
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Abstract
Commercial transactions are expedited at a point-of-transaction site by providing a customer with advance notification of the price of selected goods, by providing the customer with a portable, integrated reader/terminal unit having an on-board display on which the price of the selected goods is displayed in response to a manual action on the part of the customer holding the unit.
14 Citations
16 Claims
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1. An arrangement for advising customers of the prices of products offered at a self-service store prior to checkout, comprising:
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a) a host having a database in which product identity and price information of each of the products are stored; b) an actuatable, hand-held, portable unit supported and operated by a respective customer, including i) an electro-optical reader for reading a coded indicium associated with and identifying a respective product selected by the respective customer, ii) a terminal for accessing the database to retrieve the stored price information of the selected product identified by the reader, and iii) a display on the portable unit within sight of the respective customer; and c) a transaction actuator on the portable unit and operable by the respective customer, for actuating the portable unit to initiate automatic identification and automatic price retrieval of the selected product, and for automatically displaying the stored price information on the display. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method of advising a customer of the prices of products offered at a self-service store prior to checkout, comprising the steps of:
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a) storing product identity and price information of each of the products in a database of a host; b) providing each customer with an actuatable, hand-held, portable unit which contains an electro-optical reader for reading a coded indicium associated with and identifying a respective product selected by a respective customer, a terminal for accessing the database to retrieve the stored price information of the selected product identified by the reader, and a display situated within sight of the respective customer; and c) manually actuating a transaction actuator on a respective portable unit by the respective customer to initiate automatic identification and automatic price retrieval of the selected product, and to automatically display the stored price information on the display. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification