Patents Examined by Amee A. Shah
  • Patent number: 8655743
    Abstract: A system and method for online management of restaurant orders may comprise of a server computer for storing data related to a plurality of vendors; a client computer for sending a request for vendor product to the server computer; and a vendor point of sale system, at a specific location, for interfacing with the server computer and for processing the request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2014
    Assignee: Netwaiter, LLC
    Inventors: Jared R. Shimoff, John C. Easley, Gabriel T. Moothart, Mark A. Birchem, Brandon Casci
  • Patent number: 8645227
    Abstract: One method herein includes forwarding an invoice for a purchase agreement made between a seller and a buyer. The method includes receiving a service selection indicating that the invoice is to be paid using an escrow system. The service selection includes a token for verification of a buyer's signatory. The method receives funding confirmation that the buyer has deposited funds into an escrow account. Based on funding confirmation, notification to ship the goods is sent. The method receives shipping confirmation confirming that the goods have been shipped. Upon receipt of the goods, a receiver is authenticated as the authorized signatory using the verification system. This authentication is based on the stored token matching a provided token. Based on verification of the receiver, the goods are released and the deposited funds from the escrow account are deposited into the seller's account.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2014
    Assignee: The Western Union Company
    Inventor: Dave Owen
  • Patent number: 8635123
    Abstract: A system and method provide an efficient and simple procurement process that is easily customizable and allows the automatic mapping of supplier information and catalogs according to the buyer/purchasing organization's internal data schema used for representing such data, and updates the buyer/purchasing organization's hosted supplier information and catalogs automatically. In an exemplary embodiment, access to an electronic procurement system is requested, a supplier provides supplier data through a graphical user interface (GUI) for storage in one or more databases of an electronic procurement system, the supplier designates a subset of the supplier data as protected supplier data, and conveniently selects one or more buyer organization's supplier management systems to receive the provided supplier data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 15, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 21, 2014
    Assignee: SciQuest, Inc.
    Inventor: Tom Yitao Ren
  • Patent number: 8630919
    Abstract: A method and system for automatically generating a self-updating naturally-reading narrative product summary including assertions about a selected product. In one embodiment, the system and method includes evaluating an existing narrative product summary, comparing an existing attribute name, attribute value, attribute unit, and assertion model, respectively, to a current attribute name, attribute value, attribute unit, and assertion model to determine if one of the comparisons shows a change. The system and method further determines a new attribute associated with the selected product, selects an alternative product, retrieves a new assertion model with assertions that describe the selected product and identify an alternative product in a natural manner.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2014
    Assignee: CBS Interactive Inc.
    Inventors: Daniel R. Baran, Timothy Allen Musgrove, Robin Hiroko Walsh
  • Patent number: 8606653
    Abstract: A system gathers user behavior data from a group of web retailers and/or non-web retailers, analyzes the user behavior data to identify product recommendations for products offered by the web retailers, and provides one of the identified product recommendations in connection with a product page associated with one of the web retailers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2013
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventor: Michael Stoppelman
  • Patent number: 8595086
    Abstract: A method of transacting sales over a computerized network defining a product desired to be purchased by a plurality of purchasers. A plurality of database records are produced and stored, each corresponding to a correlation between the product and a respective one of the purchasers. A cost-of-bid price is calculated in response to a first time rate at which the plurality of database records are accumulated in the database memory during the storing. The process is repeated to produce a cost-of-bid price that varies in time in response to the time rate of accumulation of the database records.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2013
    Inventor: Raphael A. Monsanto
  • Patent number: 8560398
    Abstract: Method and systems for providing item recommendations, displays categories (or tags) of recommended items where the categories are displayed using a quantity identifier indicative of the number of recommended items in that category. When a category is selected, a slide show viewer displays a number of items from the selected category.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2007
    Date of Patent: October 15, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Andrej Gregov, Michael R. Anderson, Jeffrey D Lehman, Jeffrey I Brownell, Jeffrey Few
  • Patent number: 8560227
    Abstract: A route planning system and method for a navigation system which allows the driver to intelligently plan the route when adding waypoints. The route planning navigation system includes a route planning processor which allows the driver to add and prioritize multiple POIs as waypoints. When one or more new waypoints are added, the driver is allowed to prioritize the waypoints if adding new waypoints does not significantly increase the cost of the route, and an optimized route is generated accordingly. In another aspect, if adding new waypoint significantly increases the cost of the route, a notifying message will be generated by the route planning processor so that the driver is able to make a decision whether to proceed to the new waypoint.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 17, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 15, 2013
    Assignee: Alpine Electronics, inc.
    Inventor: Kyte Feng
  • Patent number: 8548873
    Abstract: Product configuration selections automatically cross-over between plural product types based upon end user component selections. If end user component selections initiate a cross-over trigger, the end user is presented with an option to cross over from an initially-selected product type to a product type associated with the cross-over trigger. Upon selection of the cross-over product type, the product configuration is automatically reconfigured to update components selected by the end user for the initially-selected product type to components associated with the cross-over product type.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 6, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 1, 2013
    Assignee: Dell Products L.P.
    Inventors: Anthony E. Peterman, Scott Depta, Matthew Krupnick
  • Patent number: 8533054
    Abstract: Embodiments for implementing a buyer global search in electronic commerce include a method of detecting, by a computing device, that a search query for a product item within a first marketplace is unsuccessful and in response to the unsuccessful search query, executing the search query for the product item within a second marketplace. The method further includes detecting that the search query for the product item within the second marketplace is successful; and in response to the successful search query in the second marketplace, offering a user that submitted the search query in the first marketplace to purchase the product item being sold by a seller.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 22, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Stefan M. Haney, Aravind Yalamanchi
  • Patent number: 8533068
    Abstract: Systems and methods enabling suppliers to control the distribution of products to consumers in a network environment while accommodating the concerns of its brick and mortar distribution channels are described. Consumer orders for products are received, and consumer product orders are routed in accordance with fulfillment policies respectively selected by the supplier(s). The system includes a graphical consumer interface configured to receive consumer orders for products, and an order flow controller configured to route consumer product orders in accordance with fulfillment policies respectively selected by the supplier(s). The system also includes a graphical consumer interface that is accessible over the Internet and is configured to display price and availability information for the products of each of the suppliers organized by product category and is configured to receive consumer orders for products.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2013
    Inventors: Richard W. Berger, Brant W. Berger, John L. Funk
  • Patent number: 8527361
    Abstract: An application management system modifies developer-submitted applications, such as mobile applications, to add various types of functionality before such applications are made available for purchase. The added functionality may, for example, enable end users to make in-application purchases of content items from an application store. As another example, Digital Rights Management (DRM) functionality may be added for controlling user access to content items, such as content items available in an application store.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 3, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Ameesh Paleja, Sunbir Gill, Matthew A. Jones, Alexander L. Rouse, Mekka C. Okereke, Yael Peled
  • Patent number: 8515828
    Abstract: A product recommendation system and method identify product characteristics from customer reviews using a semantic analysis of the product review text. The semantic analysis identifies negative sentiment keywords associated with one or more product characteristics in the customer review and assigns each negative sentiment keyword a value. The value of each identified negative sentiment keywords is then used to calculate a score for the product characteristic to which the negative sentiment keyword is correlated. A product recommendation report comprising the identified products, their product characteristics, a list of scored product reviews, or a combination thereof is then presented to the end user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 29, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2013
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Noam Wolf, Zutao Zhu, Nemo Semret, Jacob Baskin
  • Patent number: 8484095
    Abstract: A supplier for commerce is approved of. In the event activity in a buyer operated application occurs, authorization of the supplier is initiated. Via a supplier network, information about the supplier with respect to a buyer is received. The received information includes a structured commerce profile for the supplier. The received information is made available to the buyer to make a decision regarding whether to approve of the supplier. The decision is received from the buyer. In the event the received decision is to approve of the supplier, an indication associated with adding the supplier to an approved supplier list in a buyer operated application is sent.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2013
    Assignee: Ariba, Inc.
    Inventors: Craig Michael Federighi, Mohak Shroff, Aarathi Vidyasagar
  • Patent number: 8478662
    Abstract: Architectures and techniques are described to provide customized versions of electronic books with various supplemental content items. The electronic books include a framework having core content that is provided with each electronic book and supplemental content portions that are populated with supplemental content items based on the preferences of particular readers of the electronic books. In some cases, the electronic books may include supplemental content options that are selectable to provide access to supplemental content items by readers of the electronic books. The supplemental content items accessible via the supplement content options may also depend on the preferences of the readers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 24, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2013
    Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Ryan J. Snodgrass, Tom Killalea, Luis Felipe Cabrera
  • Patent number: 8478661
    Abstract: A system for purchasing and delivering a specific gift, in which, at the time of the purchase, the buyer, instead of being provided with the gift, is provided with a gift proxy or special package which includes a gift token which includes an authentication device. The gift proxy also includes a picture of the specific gift. The buyer delivers the gift proxy to the recipient. At a future time and place, not necessarily pre-determined, the recipient provides the gift proxy to the seller, the seller authenticates the gift proxy, and the recipient receives the gift from the seller. A centralized and networked order management system monitors the gift tokens. The system can be online and/or store oriented, and can be used to transact in goods and/or services other than gifts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2013
    Inventor: Joyce R. Kressler
  • Patent number: 8473371
    Abstract: Embodiments of methods and systems are provided that allow a user to upload inventories, view inventories in the proximity of the user, and/or facilitate transactions over a user device in a simple manner. In an embodiment, a method for transactions comprises loading, by a server at a remote location, an application on a user device of a user, wherein the application allows the user to upload an inventory comprising one or more items and/or services offered for sale by the user, as well as to view on the user device other inventory offered for sale by one or more other users as the user comes into proximity of the one or more other users, and wherein an inventory list maintained at the user device is constantly updated with the other inventory viewed by the user device. The method also comprises receiving, by the server at the remote location, transaction information associated with conducting a transaction in connection with the inventory list over the user device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 28, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2013
    Assignee: eBay Inc.
    Inventor: Eric Stuart Wright
  • Patent number: 8473364
    Abstract: This document discusses, among other things, example embodiments of a transaction system that may receive, over a network, a first set of transaction data associated with a transaction for an item. In an example embodiment, a reputation application may adjust a rating associated with the transaction when the first set of transaction data indicates a purchase or a return of the item.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 25, 2013
    Assignee: eBay Inc.
    Inventors: Mark J. Boyd, Alexander Grinenko
  • Patent number: 8458043
    Abstract: Call center order system and process allows a customer service representative to make remote calls to a server to perform shopping cart actions, all on one web page. Historically, representatives would need to enter client information and product information on several different web pages to satisfy a purchase. Eventually, the representative would have “loaded” several different pages to enter product and customer information. This method resulted in a high amount of errors and increased the risk of fraud. The system utilizes AJAX and dynamic HTML technology. The representative is able to add, update, or remove products in the cart without waiting for the page to “refresh” after every action. Cart actions are flagged with a “ticking” indicator bar. Orders may be placed in a “queue” instead of loading a different page. A mild fraud mode to allow multiple orders is also described. A storefront is used in this process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2013
    Assignee: Digital River, Inc.
    Inventors: Jason Dennis Moon, Daniel John Charbonneau
  • Patent number: 8452667
    Abstract: A system and method for online management of restaurant orders may comprise of a server computer for storing data related to a plurality of vendors; a client computer for sending a request for vendor product to the server computer; and a vendor point of sale system, at a specific location, for interfacing with the server computer and for processing the request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 2005
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2013
    Assignee: Netwaiter, LLC
    Inventors: Jared Richmond Shimoff, John Christopher Easley, Gabriel Thomas Moothart, Mark Allen Birchem, Brandon Casci