Method and apparatus for collecting, aggregating and providing post-sale market data for an item

• US 7,406,436 B1
• Filed: 03/21/2002
• Issued: 07/29/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/22/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Convergent Media Solutions LLC (Strategic Intellectual Solutions, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Richard Reisman
• Inventors: Reisman, Richard
• Primary Examiner(s): Jeanty, Romain
• Application Number:
  US10/103,343
• Time in Patent Office: 2,322 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7, 705/10
• US Class Current: 705/7.32
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0203 Market surveys; Market polls
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations

Abstract

Various systems for collecting individual post-sale market data for products or services, and determining aggregate post-sale market data therefrom, are provided. In such systems, a sale of a product or service may trigger a third party, such as a payment provider, to arrange for the collection of individual post-sale market data from the consumer. Dependent upon the type of product or service involved, a schedule for continuously submitting post-sale market data for the product or service may be provided and the consumer may be encouraged to submit post-sale market data in accordance therewith through a variety of incentives. The received, individual, post-sale market data may be aggregated by one or more sources to determine aggregate post-sale market data for the product or service. The submitted individual data and/or the determined aggregate post-sale market data may then be provided to consumers in order to assist them in making purchasing decisions.

Claims

1. A method for generating an analysis of post-sale market data for an item, comprising:

detecting a trigger event corresponding to the item and a current user;

assigning a unique identifier to the item in response to the detected trigger event; and

receiving post-sale market data associated with the item that includes operational data related to the operation of the item by the current user;

retrieving additional item operational data associated with one or more additional item instances, wherein the additional item operational data is collected from one or more independent users of additional instances of the same item type as the item;

retrieving related item operational data associated with one or more related items classified in an item category that is associated with the item, wherein the related item operational data is collected from one or more independent users of related items;

characterizing the current user'"'"'s usage of the item based on the received current user item operational data;

analyzing item data based in part on the characterization of the current user'"'"'s usage of the item and the related item operational data collected from one or more independent related item users, as well as the additional item operational data collected from one or more independent additional item users; and

generating an item data analysis, which is presented to the current user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the trigger event comprises a sale of the item.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an agreement from the current user to submit the post-sale market data.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a schedule for submitting at least one rating for the item.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the schedule corresponds to at least one of:

a maintenance history of the item, a periodic evaluation of utility of the item, and a use of the item.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the schedule commences from an installation of the item.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the item is one of:

a product or a service.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the item is a service provided over the Internet.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said detecting further comprises receiving an indication of one of:

an online sale and an offline sale.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said detecting further comprises receiving an indication of the trigger event from one of:

the current user, a seller of the item, a manufacturer of the item, a maintenance service provider, and a payment processor.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein said detecting further comprises receiving an indication of the trigger event from a transaction processing system.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning a second unique identifier to the current user.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

associating the unique identifier with the second unique identifier.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a rating for the item from the current user.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said receiving further comprises:

receiving a timestamp corresponding to a time the rating was generated by the current user.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

identifying a group of items corresponding to the item; and

determining a group rating for the group of items based on the received rating.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the item is a product and the group of items is a class of products to which the product belongs.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the item is a service and the group of items is a class of services to which the service belongs.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

providing the group rating to a plurality of users.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the plurality of users comprise a plurality of subscribers.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein said providing further comprises:

providing the group rating to the plurality of users over a computer network.

22. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

updating the group rating upon receipt of a subsequent rating from at least one of said current user and a second user.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein said providing the group rating is performed substantially in real-time upon receipt of the subsequent rating.

24. The method of claim 14, wherein the rating is at least one of a utility of the item and a utility per dollar cost for the item.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the utility and the utility per dollar cost are expressed as a negative value.

26. The method of claim 14, wherein the rating includes a price paid for the item by the user associated with the rating.

27. The method of claim 14, wherein the rating is based on a dollar amount paid for the item.

28. The method of claim 14, wherein the rating is based on a utility expressed on a dollar-denominated scale.

29. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

identifying the current user as a subscriber based on information received with the received rating.

30. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

providing to the current user, in exchange for the rating, at least one of;

a monetary payment, an offer of a discount on a purchase, and a credit.

31. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating revenue from at least one of;

a banner advertisement, a collection of a service fee from a provider of the item, a collection of a membership fee from a user and a sale of market data generated from the received rating.

32. The method of claim 1, wherein the post-sale market data comprises operational data used in generating simulation data for the item.

33. The method of claim 32, further comprising:

wherein the item is a vehicle and the characterization relates to the user'"'"'s use of the vehicle.

34. A computer readable medium encoded with processing instructions for implementing a method, performed by a computer, for collecting post-sale market data for an item, the method comprising:

detecting a trigger event corresponding to the item and a current user;

assigning a unique identifier to the item in response to the detected trigger event; and

receiving post-sale market data associated with the item that includes operational data related to the operation of the item by the current user;

retrieving additional item operational data associated with one or more additional item instances, wherein the additional item operational data is collected from one or more independent users of additional instances of the same item type as the item;

retrieving related item operational data associated with one or more related items classified in an item category that is associated with the item, wherein the related item operational data is collected from one or more independent users of related items;

characterizing the current user'"'"'s usage of the item based on the received current user item operational data;

analyzing item data based in part on the characterization of the current user'"'"'s usage of the item and the related item operational data collected from one or more independent related item users, as well as the additional item operational data collected from one or more independent additional item users; and

generating an item data analysis, which is presented to the current user.

35. An apparatus for collecting post-sale market data for an item, comprising:

means for detecting a trigger event corresponding to the item and a current user;

means for assigning a unique identifier to the item in response to the detected trigger event; and

means for receiving post-sale market data associated with the item that includes operational data related to the operation of the item by the current user;

means for retrieving additional item operational data associated with one or more additional item instances, wherein the additional item operational data is collected from one or more independent users of additional instances of the same item type as the item;

means for retrieving related item operational data associated with one or more related items classified in an item category that is associated with the item, wherein the related item operational data is collected from one or more independent users of related items;

means for characterizing the current user'"'"'s usage of the item based on the received current user item operational data;

means for analyzing item data based in part on the characterization of the current user'"'"'s usage of the item and the related item operational data collected from one or more independent related item users, as well as the additional item operational data collected from one or more independent additional item users; and

means for generating an item data analysis, which is presented to the current user.

36. An apparatus for collecting post-sale market data for an item, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory in communication with the processor, the memory for storing a plurality of processing instructions directing the processor to;

detect a trigger event corresponding to the item and a current user;

assign a unique identifier to the item in response to the detected trigger event; and

receive post-sale market data associated with the item that includes operational data related to the operation of the item by the current user;

retrieve additional item operational data associated with one or more additional item instances, wherein the additional item operational data is collected from one or more independent users of additional instances of the same item type as the item;

retrieve related item operational data associated with one or more related items classified in an item category that is associated with the item, wherein the related item operational data is collected from one or more independent users of related items;

characterize the current user'"'"'s usage of the item based on the received current user item operational data;

analyze item data based in part on the characterization of the current user'"'"'s usage of the item and the related item operational data collected from one or more independent related item users, as well as the additional item operational data collected from one or more independent additional item users; and

generate an item data analysis, which is presented to the current user.

37. A method for generating an analysis of post-sale market data for an item comprising:

receiving operational data relating to the operation of the item associated with a current user;

retrieving post-sale data collected from one or more independent users that includes item operational data associated with one or more qualifying related items and post-sale data collected from one or more independent users that includes item operational data associated with additional item instances of the same item type as the item;

characterizing the current user'"'"'s usage of the item based on the received current user'"'"'s item operational data; and

generating an item data analysis by analyzing item data based in part on the characterization of the current user'"'"'s item usage and the retrieved independent user related item operational data and the retrieved independent user additional item operational data, wherein the item data analysis is presented to the current user.

38. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37, wherein the receiving, characterizing, analyzing, and presenting are all performed by web services associated with a post-sale market data analysis system.

39. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37 wherein the analyzing is done using the characterization of the user'"'"'s usage as a filter for assessing the operational data received from independent users of one or more qualifying related items.

40. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 39, wherein the item analysis report includes comparisons of the expected performance of respective related items when the related items are used in a manner correlated with the current user'"'"'s usage characterization.

41. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37, wherein the analyzing includes filtering of operational data to assess expected item performance when the item is used in a manner correlated with the usage of the current user'"'"'s usage characterization.

42. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37, wherein the characterization of the user'"'"'s usage is used to identify independent item users with similar usage characterizations.

43. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 42, wherein the analyzing modifies a correlation weighting to operational data aggregated from item users with characterizations that are similar or dissimilar to a consumer profile.

44. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 42, wherein recommendations of alternative related item are provided based at least in part on a determination that the related items have been used by users with usage characterizations that are similar to the current user'"'"'s usage characterization.

45. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 44, wherein the recommendations are also based on the performance of the alternative related items based on one or more of the operational data, user ratings, and pre-sale specifications of the item.

46. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37, wherein the characterizing is also based on item user specifications of their characteristic usage by said user.

47. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 46, wherein the characterizing is based in part on projected future usage that differs from past usage.

48. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37, wherein the analyzing is based in part on user specifications of characteristic usage by other users.

49. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37, wherein the analyzing is based in part on user ratings of the item.

50. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37, wherein the analyzing is based in part on pre-sale specifications of the item or one or more related items.

51. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37, wherein the independent users meet demographic or psychographic qualification metrics to qualify for the data analysis.

52. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 37, wherein operational data is automatically collected and transmitted.

53. The method for analyzing post-sale market data for the item of claim 52, wherein the automatic collection and transmission is effectuated by the item or a controller associated with the item.

54. The method of claim 37, further comprising:

generating simulation data for the item from the operational data.

55. The method of claim 54, wherein the item is a vehicle and the characterization relates to the user'"'"'s use of the vehicle.

56. The method of claim 37, wherein the item is one of:

a product or a service.

57. The method of claim 37, wherein the item is a real item.

58. The method of claim 37, wherein the item is a virtual item.

59. The method of claim 37, wherein the item is a composite item.

60. The method of claim 37, wherein the item involves a consuming device, an adjunct device, or a local or remote server.

61. The method of claim 37, wherein the operational data may include composite item operational data or multi-item-type operational data.

62. The method of claim 37, wherein the analysis may relate to one or more selected item elements within composite item operational data or multi-item-type operational data.