Systems and methods for enabling information management incorporating a personal computing device

• US 7,966,228 B2
• Filed: 04/28/2006
• Issued: 06/21/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mercatus Technologies Inc.
• Original Assignee: Mercatus Technologies Inc.
• Inventors: Springer, Harold, Harrison, Robin, Segal, Robert, Montuzenko, Denys, Perrier, R. Sylvain, Fedorov, Michael, List, Jeremy, List, Lucy, Zhao, Jiang, Harper, Russell
• Primary Examiner(s): Rosen; Nicholas D
• Application Number:
  US11/412,871
• Publication Number:
  US 20060265238A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,880 Days
• Field of Search: 705/22, 705/28, 705/500
• US Class Current: 705/28
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/284 Relational databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/203 Inventory monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• 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: G06Q 30/0603 Catalogue ordering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0621 Item configuration or customization
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces

Abstract

Systems, methods, and computer-readable mediums provide for storing location information of a plurality of products, receiving information from a remote electronic device, wherein the received information includes information relating to a position of the remote electronic device and identifying information of one of the plurality of products, and updating the location information of the one of the plurality of products with the position of the remote electronic device. Alternatively, systems, methods, and computer-readable mediums provide for obtaining location information of a plurality of products at an electronic device and position information of the electronic device, and transmitting the obtained location information of the one of the plurality of products and the position of the electronic device to a remote computing device, wherein the location information of the one of the plurality of products is updated at the remote computing device with the position of the electronic device.

Claims

1. A method for automatically updating location information, comprising:

storing location information of a plurality of products;

receiving information from a remote electronic device, wherein the received information includes information identifying a position of the remote electronic device and identifying information of one of the plurality of products;

obtaining a current location of the one of the plurality of products;

comparing the current location with the position of the remote electronic device;

recording an exception when the current location of the one of the plurality of products is not within a predetermined distance from the position of the remote electronic device;

determining the current location of the one of the plurality of products should be updated when more than one exception is recorded; and

updating the location information of the one of the plurality of products with the position of the remote electronic device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method includes:

flagging the one of the plurality of products as potentially requiring an updated location when one exception is recorded.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein updating the location of the one of the plurality of products with the position of the remote electronic device includes storing the current location of the one of the plurality of products and storing the updated location of the one of the plurality of products.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein received information identifying the position of the remote electronic device is not received from an RFID tag.

5. A computer-readable medium storing a set of instructions, executed by a processor, to perform the method for automatically updating location information, the method comprising:

storing location information of a plurality of products;

receiving information from a remote electronic device, wherein the received information includes information identifying a position of the remote electronic device and identifying information of one of the plurality of products;

obtaining a current location of the one of the plurality of products;

comparing the current location with the position of the remote electronic device;

recording an exception when the current location of the one of the plurality of products is not within a predetermined distance from the position of the remote electronic device;

determining the current location of the one of the plurality of products should be updated when more than one exception is recorded; and

updating the location information of the one of the plurality of products with the position of the remote electronic device.

6. An apparatus for automatically updating location information, comprising:

a memory storing a set of instructions; and

a processor, executing instructions stored in memory, to perform a method for automatically updating location information, the method comprising;

storing location information of a plurality of products;

receiving information from a remote electronic device, wherein the received information includes information identifying a position of the remote electronic device and identifying information of one of the plurality of products;

obtaining a current location of the one of the plurality of products;

comparing the current location with the position of the remote electronic device;

recording an exception when the current location of the one of the plurality of products is not within a predetermined distance from the position of the remote electronic device;

determining the current location of the one of the plurality of products should be updated when more than one exception is recorded; and

updating the location information of the one of the plurality of products with the position of the remote electronic device.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the method includes:

flagging the one of the plurality of products as potentially requiring an updated location when one exception is recorded.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein updating the location of the one of the plurality of products with the position of the remote electronic device includes storing the current location of the one of the plurality of products and storing the updated location of the one of the plurality of products.

9. A method for automatically updating location information, comprising:

obtaining location information of one of a plurality of products at an electronic device and a position of the electronic device;

transmitting the obtained location information of the one of the plurality of products and the position of the electronic device to a remote computing device;

obtaining a current location of the one of the plurality of products;

comparing the current location with the position of the electronic device;

recording an exception when the current location of the one of the plurality of products is not within a predetermined distance from the position of the electronic device; and

determining the current location of the one of the plurality of products should be updated when more than one exception is recorded, wherein the location information of the one of the plurality of products is updated at the remote computing device with the position of the electronic device.