System and method for searching and retrieving information regarding related goods and services

• US 7,233,955 B2
• Filed: 07/08/2003
• Issued: 06/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 07/08/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ent Services Development Corporation LP (DXC Technology Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Company (HP Inc.), NTT Docomo Incorporated (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Inventors: Katagiri, Masaji, Machida, Motohiro, Sugahara, Taro, Shimizu, Hidenori, Iso, Toshiki, McEachern, Marc, Bouno, Hironori, Sugimura, Toshiaki, Nakagawa, Shinya, Ukai, Fumitoshi, Yuasa, Kei
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong; Don
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le; Michael
• Application Number:
  US10/614,517
• Publication Number:
  US 20050097079A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,442 Days
• Field of Search: 707/102, 707/3, 709/229
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

Method and computer program product stored on a tangible medium that store instructions including providing a procedure file, storing and managing a plurality of tickets, each ticket including a first identifier given to a commodity, and searching, based on the first identifier and a ticket request submitted by a user, a ticket of the plurality of tickets corresponding to the first identifier. The method and computer program product then presents information about the commodity included in the ticket, information about a service that provides the commodity, and service provision content information acquired during the search.

Claims

1. A computer program product stored on a tangible medium that stores instructions which when executed by a service provision computer system, causes the computer system to execute the steps comprising:

providing a procedure file that stores access method information for connection to a service;

storing and managing a plurality of tickets, each ticket comprising a first identifier given to a commodity, an access address of a service provider for providing a service related to the commodity, storage location information of the procedure file, and both or one of information about the commodity and information about the service related to the commodity;

searching, based on the first identifier and a ticket request submitted by a user, a ticket of the plurality of tickets corresponding to the first identifier;

retrieving from the ticket obtained by the search the corresponding storage location information of the procedure file and retrieving access method information from the procedure file based on the storage location information;

retrieving a corresponding access address of a corresponding service provider included in the ticket obtained by the search, requesting service provision content information from the service provider based on the access address of the service provider, and acquiring the service provision content information about the service in accordance with an access method stored in the procedure file; and

presenting at least one of the information about the commodity included in the ticket, the information about the service, the access method information retrieved, and the service provision content information acquired,

wherein the ticket further comprises information for deriving a second identifier different from the first identifier, as the information about the commodity or as the information about the service, and

wherein the searching comprises generating the second identifier based on information acquired from the ticket obtained by the search, and searching for a ticket corresponding to the second identifier.

2. The computer program product according to claim 1, further comprising:

accepting the first identifier and the ticket request submitted by the user, with identification information of the user; and

storing user information comprising user'"'"'s preference information and service use information, in correlation with the identification information of the user,

wherein the presentation comprises retrieving user information correlated with the identification information of the user acquired in the accepting step, selecting a service provider based on the user information and the service provision content information, and presenting the service provision content information and access method information about the service provider thus selected.

3. The computer program product according to claim 1, wherein the presentation comprises:

performing a search with a search engine, using a keyword included in the information about the commodity or in the information about the service, as a search key, and

presenting link information obtained by the search.

4. A service provision method executed in a service provision system, the method comprising:

providing a procedure file that stores access method information for connection to a service;

storing and managing a plurality of tickets, each ticket comprising a first identifier given to a commodity, an access address of a service provider for providing a service related to the commodity, storage location information of the procedure file, and both or one of information about the commodity and information about the service related to the commodity;

searching, based on the first identifier and a ticket request submitted by a user, a ticket of the plurality of tickets corresponding to the first identifier;

retrieving from the tickets obtained by the search corresponding storage location information of the procedure file and retrieving access method information from the procedure file based on the storage location information;

retrieving an access address of the corresponding service provider included in the ticket obtained by the search, requesting service provision content information from the service provider based on the access address of the service provider, and acquiring the service provision content information about the service in accordance with an access method stored in the procedure file; and

presenting at least one of the information about the commodity included in the ticket, the information about the service, the access method information retrieved, and the service provision content information acquired,

wherein the ticket further comprises information for deriving a second identifier different from the first identifier, as the information about the commodity or as the information about the service related to the commodity, and

wherein the searching comprises generating the second identifier based on information acquired from the ticket obtained by the search, and searching for a ticket corresponding to the second identifier.

5. The service provision method according to claim 4, further comprising:

accepting the first identifier and the ticket request submitted by the user, with identification information of the user; and

storing user information comprising user'"'"'s preference information and service use information, in correlation with identification information of the user,

wherein the presentation comprises,

retrieving user information correlated with the identification information of the user,

selecting a service provider based on the user information and the service provision content information, and

presenting the service provision content information and access method information about the service provider thus selected.

6. The service provision method according to claim 4, wherein the presentation step comprises:

searching with a search engine, using a keyword included in the information about the commodity or in the information about the service, as a search key, and

presenting link information obtained by the search.

7. A computer program product stored on a tangible medium that stores instructions to be executed by an information provision control computer system which when executed on the computer system, causes the computer system to execute instructions comprising:

providing a procedure file that stores access method information for connection to a service;

storing and managing a plurality of tickets, each ticket comprising a first identifier given to a commodity, an access address of a service provider for providing a service related to the commodity, storage location information of the procedure file, and both or one of information about the commodity and information about the service related to the commodity;

accepting the first identifier and a ticket request submitted by a user, with identification information of the user;

storing user information comprising user'"'"'s preference information and service use information, in correlation with identification information of the user;

searching, based on the first identifier and a ticket request acquired from the user, a ticket of the plurality of tickets corresponding to the first identifier;

retrieving from the ticket obtained by the search corresponding storage location information of the procedure file and retrieving access method information from the procedure file based on the storage location information;

retrieving a corresponding access address of a corresponding service provider included in the ticket obtained by the search, requesting service provision content information from the service provider based on the access address of the service provider, and acquiring the service provision content information about the service in accordance with an access method stored in the procedure file; and

presenting at least one of the information about the commodity included in the ticket, the information about the service, the access method information retrieved, and the service provision content information acquired,

wherein the ticket further comprises permission condition information indicating a condition for the user to whom presentation of the information included in the ticket is permitted, and

wherein the presentation comprises,

retrieving user information correlated with identification information of the user acquired in the acceptance step,

determining whether the presentation of the information in the ticket to the user is to be permitted, based on the user information and the permission condition information in the ticket, and

performing the presentation to the user when the presentation is permitted.

8. The computer program product according to claim 7, further comprising:

keeping and managing predetermined registration information of members belonging to a community and, in response to the registration request from the member, registering corresponding registration information of the member; and

accepting a registration request for registration of a ticket comprising an identifier given to a commodity related to the member information and an access address of the member, which is submitted from the registered member becoming the service provider and desiring to provide information of the access address of the member, and registering the ticket,

wherein the storing and managing registers a new ticket comprising the identifier and the access address, based on the registration request for registration of the ticket.

9. The computer program product according to claim 7, further comprising:

keeping and managing predetermined registration information of members belonging to a community and, in response to the registration request from a member, registering corresponding registration information of the member; and

accepting an information presentation request for presentation of information of a ticket about a commodity related to the member information from the registered member, and updating the member information stored during the keeping and managing step, to correlate the member information with the permission condition information about the ticket so as to permit the presentation of the information in the ticket to the user.

10. An information provision control method executed in an information provision control system, the method comprising:

providing a procedure file that stores access method information for connection to a service;

storing and managing a ticket comprising a first identifier given to a commodity, an access address of a service provider for providing a service related to the commodity, storage location information of the procedure file, and both or one of information about the commodity and information about the service related to the commodity;

storing user information comprising user'"'"'s preference information, in correlation with identification information of the user;

accepting the first identifier and a ticket request submitted by the user, with identification information of the user;

searching, based on the first identifier and the ticket request acquired in the accepting step, a ticket corresponding to the first identifier;

retrieving from the ticket obtained by the search corresponding storage location information of the procedure file and retrieving access method information from the procedure file based on the storage location information;

retrieving an access address of a service provider included in the ticket obtained by the search, requesting service provision content information from the service provider based on the access address of the service provider, and acquiring the service provision content information about the service in accordance with an access method stored in the procedure file; and

presenting at least one of the information about the commodity included in the ticket, the information about the service, the access method information retrieved, and the service provision content information acquired,

wherein the ticket comprises permission condition information indicating a condition for the user to whom presentation of the information included in the ticket is permitted, and

wherein the presentation step is configured to retrieve user information correlated with the identification information of the user acquired in the accepting step, to determine whether presentation of the information in the ticket to the user is to be permitted, based on the user information and the permission condition information in the ticket, and to perform the presentation to the user when the presentation is permitted.

11. The information provision control method according to claim 10, further comprising:

keeping and managing predetermined registration information of users belonging to a community and, in response to a registration request from the user, registering corresponding registration information of the user;

registering the ticket based on a registration request for registration of a ticket comprising an identifier given to a commodity related to the user information of the user and an access address of the user, which is submitted by the registered user becoming the service provider and desiring to provide information of the access address of the user; and

registering a new ticket comprising the identifier and the access address, based on the registration request for registration of the ticket.

12. The information provision control method according to claim 10, further comprising:

keeping and managing predetermined registration information of users belonging to a community and, in response to a registration request from a user, registering corresponding registration information of the user, and

updating, based on an information presentation request for presentation of information of a ticket about a commodity related to the user information of the user, which is submitted by the registered user, the user information of the user, to correlate the user information of the user with the permission condition information about the ticket so as to permit the presentation of the information in the ticket to the user.