Method of reclaiming products from a retail store

• US 8,396,755 B2
• Filed: 01/09/2012
• Issued: 03/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sunrise R&D Holdings, LLC
• Original Assignee: Sunrise R&D Holdings, LLC
• Inventors: Bonner, Brett Bracewell, Carmack, Robert Edward, Jones, Titus Arthur, Norris, Christopher Dale, Wellikoff, Nathaniel, Zettler, Michael John, Meiser, Doug Steven
• Primary Examiner(s): Zukanovich, Brandy A
• Application Number:
  US13/346,335
• Publication Number:
  US 20120209741A1
• Time in Patent Office: 428 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26.1, 705/26.3, 705/27.1
• US Class Current: 705/26.3
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel

Abstract

A method of reclaiming products from a retail store includes passing a plurality of products through an object identification system, capturing images of the plurality of products with object sensors as the products pass through the object identification system, processing the images to identify an indicium for each product, transmitting the indicium for each product through a wireless communication network to a logic engine, sorting the plurality of products based on the indicia to produce a bundled lot of products, producing a unique identifier for the bundled lot, the unique identifier having a machine readable code, and communicating the unique identifier of the bundled lot and the indicia of the products in the bundled lot to an auctioneer for initiation of a direct-to-consumer auction for auctioning of the bundled lot directly to a group of bidders.

Claims

1. A method of reclaiming products from a retail store, the method comprising:

passing a plurality of products through an object identification system;

capturing images of the plurality of products with object sensors as the products pass through the object identification system;

processing the images to identify an indicium for each product;

transmitting the indicium for each product through a wireless communication network to a logic engine;

sorting the plurality of products based on the indicia to produce a bundled lot of products;

producing a unique identifier for the bundled lot, the unique identifier having a machine readable code; and

communicating the unique identifier of the bundled lot and the indicia of the products in the bundled lot to an auctioneer for initiation of a direct-to-consumer auction for auctioning of the bundled lot directly to a group of bidders.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the indicium of each product in a database, and associating the indicium of each product with the unique identifier of the associated bundled lot in the database.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising saving auction end details in the database for each product sold in the direct-to-consumer auction.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the auction end details comprise the unique identifier, a total cost of the plurality of products in the bundled lot of products, a winning bid amount, and a date and time the direct-to-consumer auction closed.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicium comprises a bar code and a plurality of characters, and the processing the images comprises identifying the characters using an algorithm selected from the group consisting of an optical character recognition algorithm and a matching algorithm that is based on a comparison between character shape and a library comprising selected possible character shapes.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting at least one image for each product in the bundled lot through the wireless communication network to the logic engine, and communicating the at least one image with the unique identifier and the indicia of products in the bundled lot.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a purchaser of the bundled lot is selected from a group of bidders in the direct-to-consumer auction.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the purchaser is a best bidder of the group of bidders.

9. A method of reclaiming products from a retail store, the method comprising:

scanning a plurality of products, one at a time, with an object identification system;

producing a bar code for each product based on said scanning;

transmitting the bar code for each product through a wireless communication network to a logic engine;

sorting the plurality of products based on the bar codes to produce a bundled lot of products;

producing a unique identifier for the bundled lot, the unique identifier having a machine readable code; and

communicating the unique identifier of the bundled lot and the bar codes of the products in the bundled lot to an auctioneer for initiation of a direct-to-consumer auction for auctioning of the bundled lot directly to a group of bidders.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising storing the bar code of each product in a database, and associating the bar code of each product with the unique identifier of the associated bundled lot in the database.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising saving auction end details in the database for each product sold in the direct-to-consumer auction.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the auction end details comprise the unique identifier, a total cost of the plurality of products in the bundled lot of products, a winning bid amount, and a date and time the direct-to-consumer auction closed.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

capturing at least one image of each product with object sensors as the products are scanned with the object identification system;

transmitting the at least one image for each product in the bundled lot through the wireless communication network to the logic engine; and

communicating the at least one image with the unique identifier and the bar codes of the products in the bundled lot.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein a purchaser of the bundled lot is selected from a group of bidders in the direct-to-consumer auction.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the purchaser is a best bidder of the group of bidders.