Patent Application
20160239890
The invention involves a computer implemented system for referring products to a professional, wherein the referred product includes at least one characteristic that enables the professional to determine the utility of the product.
The Internet retail platform provides a global access to vast array of goods and services that are accessed by users to download and review informational pages to assess a product or a service that is of interest to him/her.
In some cases, retailers attempt to appeal to an individual customer by highlighting consumer rating of products and based on what other customers may have purchased who bought products feel about it. However, the retailer often does not know why the other customers selected the product and so such rating may accurately reflect the actual impact of product when used by a user depending on his or her personal situation.
It is very useful if such assessment is made by a professional and advice users. This is particularly important in the case of product and services that require technical or professional competence such as a medical devices, nutritional products and food, device and engineering products. The user may not have the knowledge to determine how product attributes may affect its utility. One approach is to use a professional to review the product attribute and then make recommendation based on the user's profile. Thus there is a need for computer implemented systems to refer a product to a professional wherein the referred product includes at least one characteristic that enable the professional to determine its utility. The present invention provides systems and methods for referring products that provides such solutions.
The invention provides a computer implemented method for referring an item to a Professional wherein the method comprises receiving a request to refer an item from a client; and transmitting the request comprising item information to a Professional.
The invention provides a computer implemented method for referring an item to a Professional wherein the method comprises receiving a request to refer an item from a client; and transmitting the request comprising item information to a Professional and the referred product includes at least one characteristic that enables the Professional to determine its utility.
The invention provides a computer implemented method for referring an item to a Professional wherein the method comprises receiving a request to refer an item from a client; and transmitting the request comprising item information to a Professional and the referred product includes at least one characteristic that enables the Professional to determine its utility. The Professional is a nutritionist.
The invention provides a computer implemented method for referring an item to a Professional wherein the method comprises receiving a request to refer an item from a client and transmitting the request comprising item information to a Professional. The process is a single step.
The invention provides a computer implemented method for referring an item to a Professional wherein the method comprises receiving a request to refer an item from a client; and transmitting the request comprising item information to a Professional. The number of steps to reter a product is a maximum of two steps.
The invention provides a computer implemented method for referring an item to a Professional wherein the method comprises receiving a request to refer an item from a client; and transmitting the request comprising item information to a Professional. The number of steps to refer a product is a maximum of three steps.
The invention provides a computer implemented method for referring an item to a Professional wherein the method comprises receiving a request to refer an item from a client; and transmitting the request comprising item information to a Professional wherein at least one characteristic of the product is initially identified and a pre-generated item-characteristic table is created.
The present invention provides a system, comprising: at least one computing device, configured to at least: to receive a request to refer an item from a client; select an item from an electronic catalog; and transmit the item information to a Professional;
The present invention provides a system, comprising: at least one computing device, configured to at least: to receive a request to refer an item from a client; select an item from an electronic catalog; and transmit the item information to a Professional; The process is a single step.
The present invention provides a system, comprising: at least one computing device, configured to at least: to receive a request to refer an item from a client; select an item from an electronic catalog; and transmit the item information to a Professional; The number of steps to refer a product is a maximum of two steps.
The present invention provides a system, comprising: at least one computing device, configured to at least: to receive a request to refer an item from a client; select an item from an electronic catalog; and transmit the item information to a Professional; The number of steps to refer a product is a maximum of three steps
The present invention provides a system, comprising: at least one computing device, configured to at least: to receive a request to refer an item from a client; select an item from an electronic catalog; and transmit the item information to a Professional. The Professional is a nutritionist.
The invention provides a computer implemented system for referring products, wherein the system comprises at least database server, at least one referral engine and the referred product includes at least one characteristic that enables the Professional to determine its utility.
The invention provides a computer implemented system for referring products, wherein the system comprises at least database server, at least one referral engine and the referred product includes at least one characteristic that enables the Professional to determine its utility. The number of steps to refer a product is a maximum of two steps.
The invention provides a computer implemented system for referring products, wherein the system comprises at least database server, at least one referral engine and the referred product includes at least one characteristic that enables the Professional to determine its utility. The number of steps to refer a product is a maximum of three steps.
The invention provides a computer implemented system for referring products, wherein the system comprises at least one database server, at least one referral engine and the referred product includes at least one characteristic that enables the Professional to determine the product's composition. The professional is a nutritionist.
In one embodiment, the computer implemented system for referring products, wherein the system comprising; at least database server, at least one referral engine and creating a table of plurality of products so each product is associated with a plurality of characteristics, with at least one of the plurality of characteristics is included in the referred product.
The present invention provides a computer implemented system for referring a product to professional, wherein the system including; one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that when executed by the processors cause the processors to perform operations including: identifying the product and identifying or inferring at least one characteristic of the identified product and transmitting product information to a professional.
The present invention provides a computer implemented system for referring a product to professional, wherein the system including; one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that when executed by the processors cause the processors to perform operations including; identifying the product and identifying or inferring at least one characteristic of the identified product and transmitting product information to a professional. The number of steps to refer a product is a maximum of three steps.
The present invention provides a computer implemented system for referring a product to professional, wherein the system including; one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that when executed by the processors cause the processors to perform operations including; identifying the product and identifying or inferring at least one characteristic of the identified product and referring product information to a professional. The process is a single step.
The present invention provides a computer implemented system for referring a product to professional, wherein the system including; one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that when executed by the processors cause the processors to perform operations including; identifying the product and identifying or inferring at least one characteristic of the identified product and referring product information to a professional. The referred items are from a shopping cart.
The present invention provides a computer implemented system for referring a product to professional, wherein the system including; one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that when executed by the processors cause the processors to perform operations including; identifying the product and identifying or inferring at least one characteristic of the identified product, identifying a list of products ranked according to the said characteristic and referring product information to a professional along with a list of alternative products based on the ranking.
The present invention provides a non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying a program executable in a computing device, the program, when executed, causing the computing device to at least: receive request to refer an item from a client; select an item from an electronic catalog; and transmit the item information to a Professional.
This application is a continuation of and claims the benefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 62/111,695, entitled “SYSTEM FOR REFERRING A PRODUCT TO A PROFESSIONAL” and filed Feb. 4, 2015, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Detailed description set forth below are only for illustrative purposes. It will be apparent, however, that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present invention. Various embodiments and aspects of the inventions will be described with reference to details discussed below, and the accompanying drawings will illustrate the various embodiments. The following description and drawings are illustrative of the invention and are not to be construed as limiting the invention. Numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. However, in certain instances, well-known or conventional details are not described in order to provide a concise discussion of embodiments of the present inventions.
The term “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” as used herein means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in conjunction with the embodiment can be included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification do not necessarily all refer to the same embodiment.
The term “Attributes” or “Attribute” or “Characteristic” or “Characteristics” as used herein means a property of a product or an item or a service. Its meaning encompasses the inherent properties like ingredient or a group of ingredients, measurement numbers/figures, density, solubility, boiling point, effective properties such as relief, toxicity, weight loss or adhesiveness, shining, reflective characteristic, specific contents like nutrition facts, proteins, fats, sugar content, etc.
The term “computer or computer device or device” as used herein means any device having appropriate processor, memory, and communications capabilities for interacting with the user and communicating with network including but not limited to desktop computers, laptop computers, mobile devices including a smart phone, tablet computer, personal digital assistant, set top boxes (e.g., for a television), televisions, video game consoles, home appliances (e.g. a refrigerator, microwave oven, washer, or dryer), mobile vehicles and automobile-based computer (e.g., an in-dash navigation system).
The term “product” or “item” or “service” as used herein means any product or service are used interchangeably.
The term “Referral” or “referring” as used herein means a electronically forwarding or sending a product or an item or service identified using the system according to this invention to a professional.
The term “Recommendation” as used herein means a product or an item or service identified using the recommendation method according to this invention.
The term “Professional” as used herein means a person who engages in a job that requires special education, training, or skill including but not limited to a medical professional, engineering professional, culinary professional, etc. They specifically include but not limited to a Registered Dietitian, a Nutritionist, a Registered Nurse, Diabetes Educator, a Chef and a Physician.
The term “Profile” or “User's profile” as used herein means a profile created about a user either by the user or on behalf of him by someone else including the computer implemented system. It includes biographical information, preferences/likes and dislikes entered into the user's account in the system.
The term “User” as used herein means the actual user of the system or his designated person including user's counselor, family member or friend who enter data and seek service on behalf of the user.
The term “user interface” as used herein means desktop computers, laptop computers, mobile devices including a smart phone, tablet computer, personal digital assistant, set top boxes (e.g., for a television), televisions, video game consoles, home appliances (e.g. a refrigerator, microwave oven, washer, or dryer) or any other devices having appropriate processor, memory, and communications capabilities for interacting with the user and communicating with a web server.
The terms “derived characteristic or normalized characteristic or standardized score” as used herein means a characteristic that is standardized using mathematical formula and used for referring products or services.
Although various embodiments described herein generally describe referring a product or a shopping cart, the present disclosure is not limited as such. Various embodiments of the present disclosure may be used to refer products from any number of situations to help a professional determine its utility based attributes or product features.
The invention discloses a computer implemented method for referring an item with at least one characteristic in items to a professional, wherein the characteristic enables the professional the utility of product such as product's quality or performance. The invention discloses a system for referring products to professional wherein the referred product includes at least one characteristic that enables professional to determine product's quality or performance.
The invention has been described in terms of certain preferred embodiments like referring a food item to a professional, other embodiments that are apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art, including embodiments that do not provide all of the features and benefits set forth herein, are also within the scope of this invention. The invention can be implemented for referring paints, cosmetics by cosmetic scientist, etc. Accordingly, the scope of the present invention is intended to be defined only by reference to the appended claims.
Any reference characters used to denote process steps are provided for convenience of description only, and not to imply a particular order for performing the steps. It will be evident, however, to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific steps and processes outlined in examples and figures.
The invention is exemplified by referring food products to a professional from an online store selling grocery items or restaurant menu items. Any network that enables client-server interaction can be used to implement the example. For example, it can be implemented in different settings like local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN) or over internet.
A user seeking recommendation or advice about a food product from a professional in an online store or in physical store refers the product by transmitting product and other product information that includes at least one product characteristic or attribute. The characteristic could be the nutrition facts such as calories, sugars, total carbohydrates, proteins and fats. This is important because the user may not have the required professional knowledge to determine the utility of the product thus requiring the help of a professional.
The scheme in
The client machine 14 can be any communication interface including but not limited to desktop computers, laptop computers, mobile devices including a smart phone, tablet computer, personal digital assistant, set top boxes (e.g., for a television), televisions, video game consoles, home appliances (e.g. a refrigerator, microwave oven, washer, or dryer) or any other devices having appropriate processor, memory, and communications capabilities for interacting with the user and communicating with network as disclosed in this invention. It can be other forms of mobile devices including any of a variety of different types of computing devices having an energy storage device (e.g., a battery) and being capable of communicating via a network, for example via a wireless area network or a cellular network. In some cases, the client/mobile devices 14 are handheld mobile computing devices, such as smart phones, tablets, or the like, or the mobile devices or other special-purpose computing devices, such as an automobile-based computer (e.g., an in-dash navigation system). The client/mobile devices 14 may have a processor and a tangible, non-transitory machine-readable memory storing instructions that provide the functionality described herein when executed by the processor. The memory may store instructions for an operating system, special-purpose applications (apps), and a web browser, depending upon the use case. It should be noted, however, that the present techniques are not limited to mobile devices, and other computing devices subject to geolocation may also generate data useful for identifying user location relevant to store carrying an item. For instance, set-top boxes, gaming consoles, or Internet-capable televisions may be geolocated based on IP address, and data from user interactions with these devices may be used to update user profiles, e.g., with user interaction indicating a time at which a user was at the geolocation corresponding to the device.
The client 14 can consent to capture information in numerous ways. For example, a consumer using client device may enter information via web server 22 or a user in a retail store may use a mobile device equipped with barcode scanning software to capture product related information that is processed for referring at least one product to a professional. It may be a an image captured by the camera which is matched with the product images stored in a data server to retrieve the product information needed to perform a task needed to complete the referral.
The third party application(s) 16 can be any application provided by other service providers. It can be any third party service or functionality interface such as login, payment, market place, a third party database (s) like product codes, product characteristics, content, publications or API provider (s). For illustration, a typical third party application may be a software application associated with a computing device including a mobile device. In order for the application server 16 to respond to a user 14 query, the software application associated with the a third party device may need to perform certain functions such as authentication or payment authorization. Third party applications may run on third party server(s) 18 or may share the same network as the application server 20. The third-party applications may be cloud-based applications that may be used to perform certain tasks such as recipe generation, application to verify UPC codes with an external database, preview, or edit a file. A third party application could reside in a device used by a user. For example—Linkedin or Facebook log in page used by user to log in as a client 14. It could be a Google map that helps the application server 20 to identify the geolocation of the user. The third party applications 16 include a data source or product uploads done in batch processes or one off product or content listing from third party vendors. It can be collection of market places providing a number of products, content API sources from several third party market places like Wal-Mart, Shop & Stop, Peapod, Amazon, Google Express. Shoprite, GNC, etc.
Application server (s) 20 is the key component of the network and it can comprise at least one or more likely a number of specific modules. A server is an entity that receives requests from clients, and responds to those requests by providing some type of service. An application server is capable of simultaneously receiving requests, processing requested work, and returning results using multiple, conceptual thread pools. For example: an application server can be used to authenticate users, view server files, provide access to data within one or more databases, manage e-mail, and provide access to web sites, among other things. The application module 26 includes a referral module 28 and may optionally include other applications such as recommendation 28A, search 28B, payment 34, marketplace 36, content 38 and other modules 40. It may involve product image analysis application that can perform various image analysis techniques on the various images to extract product attributes, characteristics, ingredients, dimensions, and other data that is printed on the product's packaging. These applications are shown schematically for illustrative purposes and are not according to any specific order. In alternative embodiments the application modules may be configured individually or in different orders within or outside the network and within and outside the server side. However, it is possible, depending on the network design, to use a series of special purpose servers, each responsible for specific application, also can be used to provide each of these types of services, rather than employing a generic application server.
Payment module 34 is an internal application for processing with external payment/card service providers like Paypal, Amazon payment, Stripe, Apple pay, Google payments, credit card gateways—Master Card, Visa, American Express Discovery, etc. The module(s) provides number of functional capabilities to clients and server side(s) such as order processing, client analytics, currency exchange, coordination with market place application, shipping module(s) for orderly tracking of shipment and banking via external payment application service provider(s) 16 via secure network 12 and optionally a firewall.
Marketplace application 36 provides the products and services to the client via network 12 on his/her web interface 20. An online marketplace enables the exchange of products and services for payments between sellers and buyers. There are a number of online marketplaces that are customized to products and services. They include Megento, Prestashop, Xcart, Shopify, Opencart, etc. Marketplaces interactively works with other applications like payment gateway 36, content module 38, API interface 24, referral module 28 and third party application(s) to smoothly enable transactions.
Referral engine 28 is the most critical application of the invention to refer at least one product to a professional. The referral engine collects information from a variety of sources, processes to generate additional information about a product or service that includes product content, characteristics, use or any other product matter. Referral engines may be dynamic and real time or back office referring at least one product in the backend to a professional depending prior history. For instance—a user may have added products to the shopping cart in a previous browsing session and referral engine infers, based on certain criteria, that user wanted the product sent to a Professional and accordingly may execute the referral as though requested in the current browsing session. The present invention includes at least one referral engine to complete the referral process. Alternatively, it may involve a series of referral engines acting synergistically to complete the referral of an item. It is also possible to have a plurality of referral engines compiling user information, in real time, into a plurality of referrals. For example it is possible to have one engine referring at least one aspect of at least one product while the second engine may transmit another aspect of the product or one referral engine may refer one product while the second referral engine may refer a second product. Referral engine may include one or more algorithms that process information according pre-defined instructions. Irrespective of how each aspect of referral is generated, a data repository stores the plurality of referral characteristics generated by one or more referral engines. Regardless of the particular type of information collected, referral engine collects the information, processes and transmits product information for a professional such a Registered Dietitian. The plurality of referred products is available to applications and services on either a network or a device. The referring is a method of gathering and processing information from one or more sources. The method may comprise a single step or several steps of collecting product information from a plurality of sources and transmitting to a professional.
The information processed by a referral engine can relate to a client's shopping cart, products in shopping cart, nutrition facts of each product, UPC codes, images, analytical information that may identify the content, location, device, or the time of day. The referral engines may also correlate location, device, or time information to the client's particular activities at a location, with a given device, or at a given time. This allows the referral engine to help other applications such as a tracking application to track the user's location, daily food habits, routines, and allows applications and services accessing the client's personal profile to respond to the client's activity based on those correlations. In addition, the referral engine may collect demographic information, information about the user's interaction between multiple applications, and information about particular protocols the client is employing in interacting with the server.
Referral engine 28 interacts with database server(s) 30 to access the items and pre-determined characteristic tables, user's information, prior purchase history, etc. While the referral engine 28 can directly interact with database server 30, it possible to design the process wherein the referral engine 28 interacts with a search engine 28A which in turn searches the database server 28 to fetch the items required by the referral engine 28. Optionally the system may include a recommendation engine 28B that interacts with databases server(s) to fetch the products as recommendation for referred product. The information utilized by the referral engine 28 can be anything including UPC codes, nutrition facts, products codes, ingredient list, allergen information, user's personal data such as age, body mass index, health related information, biomarkers information such as fasting plasma glucose, hemoglobin levels, tracking information such as number of steps, biking or jogging information, genetic profiles, family history, etc. it can also interact with other independent referral applications and specialty applications such as content module 38, marketplace 36 and web interface 22 and third party application(s) 16. Another aspect of this invention includes a referral server to host the referral engine 28 to improve the efficacy of processes.
Web server 22 provides the client 14 a method or a means of accessing the network and its related applications. The client 14 can access at least one or more applications like payment 34, marketplace application 36, third party marketplaces, content application or referral module 28 via web server 22.
Database server(s) 30 is another key component of method of referring a user requested item to a professional according this invention. A database can be regarded as a set of a large number of tables related to products, services, places, events, individuals etc. Database servers are very important part of any network design. Database servers manage data for database clients. Data servers may store both raw information about products, services, patients and providers and processed information such as in a format that is secure and easily accessible to authorized application. They store the information generated by different application engines. There may be several data repositories located in the network for storing information including user profiles. For example, one data repository might partially or fully store only product information and another data repository may store only user profiles. In a typical database system, database clients issue database commands to the database servers to cause the database server to create logical storage structures, such as tables, and to insert, update, read and delete items within those logical storage structures. The items that are managed by the database servers, as well as the logical structures used to contain the items, are typically stored on non-volatile memory, such as magnetic disks provided by a storage system.
Before a database server can read or update data, the database server must retrieve the data from the storage system into volatile memory that is local to the database server. To prevent the same item from having to be retrieved every time it is needed, the database server typically stores the retrieved items in a buffer cache within the volatile memory that is local to the database server. Thus in larger networks, multiple copies of information may also be distributed across multiple data repositories to reduce network congestion when accessing information. Other configurations are also possible. The nature and number of data repositories such as database servers may vary according to the needs of the network where the present invention is to be deployed. Sometimes the information stored in database servers may be encrypted by an encryption code for security purposes.
The database 32 can be a distributed system of databases that includes food and grocery products stored under different servers under different categories such as “Prepared Food” database and a “Grocery” database, or may be combined into a common database. The products in database 32 may be preferably stored in a database as part of the cloud architecture, in some implementations the consumed foods database may be stored locally on the user device 14 or on client computer to facilitate rapid turnaround of information. Wherever the data is stored locally, the dataset may be limited to storing data regarding items relevant to by one or more users associated with the user device. The database 32 may comprise a list of known food products with their respective UPC codes, name variants for the food, nutritional content of the food on a per-serving or per-unit-mass basis. They can be tagged describing other popular name characteristics of the food such as vegan, Mediterranean, dairy-free, vegetarian, whole grain, grass-fed, GMO-free, Kosher, etc. The database 32 may be populated by any suitable means, including by manual updates or by importing from other foods databases such as the manufacturer's data, commercial databases, USDA National Nutrient Database and other similar sources of food information. The database 32 preferably includes almost all of marketed foods including those which are ready to eat prepared foods from restaurants and supermarket groceries, etc. While the items in database 32 is preferably to be universal, but may be limited to storing only foods previously indicated as being consumed by at least one user of the system.
Database server(s) 30 interacts with applications such as referral engine 28 and content module 38. Some of the data like item-pre-determined characteristic may often be created offline. In order to provide responses client requests, data may also be cached as web cache that is available to referral engine 28 dynamically and provide results to web interface 22 for client 14 via network 12. Alternatively there may be more than one database server and cache server to provide support for a large number of dynamic search and backend processes.
The web interface 22 specifically helps the application module 26 to accept requests from a client user 14 to Input information for referring at least one product. The request is transferred to application module and or referral engine 28 which may optionally search database server 30 for any additional information needed for referring at least one product to a professional. Still further, the referral engine 28 may optionally blind the use to remove information such as product's name and other identify information that identify the product prior to transmitting the item to the professional. The referral module 28 may also forward alert information to a client 14 connected via the same web interface 22 to provide a update. The web interface 22 is also used for automatic information transfer such as the checkout of products from cash registers or from a mobile device such as a cell phone or GPS or user mounted monitors.
The
The
In order to facilitate rapid response to request 30 from user 12, the system may configure its database in several forms. A typical supermarket contains over 20,000 food products and similarly a large number of restaurants prepare a variety of food products based on ethnicity and culture. But a typical individual buys an average of less than 250 preferred grocery and food items and probably consumes less than 300 prepared food products. The list of products relevant for a typical user 12 can be easily selected rapidly by pre-populating a table based on the user 12. However the database 28 is likely contain over 50,000 products to account for a wide range users who may use the system. Still further, an average user tends to use less than 25-50 products repetitively. Thus, while the most preferred grocery and food items may comprise all 250 products foods, the most heavily consumed database may contain the set of just the 200 foods that the user consumes and is substantially easier to parse than all the known foods. Since a majority of the database searches performed will involve searching for items that are similar to routinely consumed foods, and can begin with this smaller set of most heavily consumed foods. Thus, storing the foods that the user normally consumes separately and optionally in user local device makes selecting the foods database much more efficient when, for example, determining list of products in user query 30. Such a list may be populated in an App in the client's hand held device including a smart phone or a tablet.
The referred product as per user query 30 in certain implementations is received at the web-user interface 16, with the first input indicating a product selected from product catalog or a pre-determined list. The second input identifying a list of products from the shopping cart by attaching the entire cart or selecting specific products by checking a selection box in a shopping cart as shown in
In some implementations, the user 12 uses a device configured to scan a bar code of a product to enter the data. For example, the user 12 may use a scanning device to scan the barcode to indicate that as one of the foods the user is interested referring to a professional. Using a device to scan the product barcode allows for efficient and rapid logging of food entries because it avoids the need for the user to search through a list of foods to locate the consumed food. Using a scanning device to scan the product code also avoids the need for the user to enter product characteristics of the food. It also helps capture the time and geolocation from where the user 12 is updating the profile to generate the referral to local professional because the location of scanning may be used a default location to identify a local professional. Instead, the user 12 may use a mobile device to quickly scan the barcode, and the application server 14 may use the barcode data to quickly locate the scanned item in a database. The database 32 usually stores the product identifiers such as UPC codes or EANs, identifying the nutrition facts, ingredients and allergen using scanning codes makes the task of locating the scanned item more efficient. The data stored in include client's recipe, meals breakfast, dinner, snacks, beverages, serving sizes, weight of products, extent of utilization, device, location, or the time of day. The referral, recommendations engines may also correlate location, device, or time information to the client's health condition, with a given device, or at a given time. This allows the referral engine to track the user's daily routines and allows applications and services accessing the client's personal profile to respond to the client's activity based on those correlations. In addition, the system may also collect demographic information, application information, information about the user's interaction between multiple applications, and information about particular protocols the client is employing.
Further the user 12 may use the barcode to indicate that the user is considering purchasing the product enabling onsite confirmation from a professional or if any to make alternate recommendation to the user referred product. The user device 12 may be equipped with scanning application that can scan the product code to display the product information to the users to help the shopper decide whether to refer the product.
The product code, image or name is either mapped to its nutrition facts, ingredients list and allergen information from an internal data source or gathered from a separate process. For each product, in addition to ascertaining the product name, the referral process may involve determining it is consumed by an individual. For example, in addition to identifying the breakfast cereal referred by an individual, a professional may need the information about how many servings user may plan to consume in order to determine its utility for the consumer.
The system may optionally involve two sets of processes to facilitate the system for referring products to a professional according to this invention. The batch processes are often conducted offline to create the content needed that are optionally sent to a professional in a referral process which is conducted dynamically online by user triggered events. The data source 22 can be any format—digital or paper or manual entry of information to link each product names (generic or brand or category names) with respective product codes such as International Article Number (EAN) or Universal Product Codes (UPC). This process enables item-product code 24 as illustrated in
The entire process of identifying the product and determining its utilization can be just online alone or just offline alone or a combination of both online and offline processes. It can be designed in such a way that some or all of the processes may be performed on client's device or entirely on server. The processes disclosed in the Figures are for illustrative purpose and may be performed in a different order easily known to person skilled in the art of designing and developing such products.
The system may gather other information including details such as image of the product, product code, product names, nutrition facts, ingredient list personal information, health information, laboratory data, medical claims data, pharmacy claims data, referral post hospital discharge data, health risk assessment, insurance premiums, magazine subscriptions, events, functional status data, laboratories values, pre-notification or authorization data, activity data such as biking distance, patient related information such as blood pressure, blood work data, tracking information of device, product check out from cash register, data extracted from a rewards program, browsing behavior, clinical data, descriptive and quantitative information, etc to enable a Professional to determine the utility of referred product and alternate products.
In order for the system to rapidly identify products and relate them to their product characteristics, the products are stores in the database. The grocery products are usually identified using their EAN or UPC codes. However, those are one set of product codes and system can generate its own codes for identification purposes.
The normalization step is optional and is only included to illustrate the application of invention to include normalized characteristics to help product to product comparison. The processes involve algorithm(s) that routinely conduct batch operations offline and online to update this table periodically. The data from data source 300 was assessed to create an item-complete characteristic table 302A as described under
The
The UPC-nutrition facts 528, the optional UPC-normalized nutrition facts such as UPC-Carbohydrate Percent, UPC-Fat Percent, UPC-Protein Percent, etc may be generated using a data source 526 as described in
The referral engine 534 can be use either dynamically with User 504 sending a request to refer products 536 or it can also done offline at a user designated timing trigger. The request 532 is transmitted to referral engine 534 and optionally to other applications to elicit a one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of a server or a portable device of a consumer having collectively thereon computer-executable instructions when executed tact a product 538 to a Registered Dietitian. The product is displayed to a Registered Dietitian (A second client) 540 again via web interface 508. The completion of referral process may be alerted to both clients as a message. In other implementations, the referred products are displayed to a Registered Dietitian alongside a list of alternative product arranged in ascending or descending order based on a desired characteristic. For instance, a referred product with a carbohydrate percent of 70% is displayed with a list of four similar products with lower carbohydrate percentages than 70% arranged either by increasing or decreasing order of carbohydrate content to facilitate the Registered Dietitian to make a determination which is a better alternative for the user.
The implementation illustrates the referring grocery item to a Registered Dietitian to provide advice on the utility of grocery item. In other implementations such as paints, the professional is a painter or a carpenter in case of logs or a chemist in case of a cosmetic etc.
One or more embodiments of the invention include a platform which can be used to refer products, connected to a patient with medical condition and a healthcare professional to provide to the user.
Thus the invention provides a computer implemented referral system that hips a professional to use an item characteristic to personalize the recommendation to a user by mapping the item ranked using at least one item characteristic with the user's profile.
This disclosure encompasses all changes, substitutions, variations, alterations, and modifications to the example embodiments herein that a person having ordinary skill in the art would comprehend. Similarly, where appropriate, the appended claims encompass all changes, substitutions, variations, alterations, and modifications to the example embodiments herein that a person having ordinary skill in the art would comprehend. Moreover, reference in the appended claims to an apparatus or system or a component of an apparatus or system being adapted to, arranged to, capable of, configured to, enabled to, operable to, or operative to perform a particular function encompasses that apparatus, system, component, whether or not it or that particular function is activated, turned on, or unlocked, as long as that apparatus, system, or component is so adapted, arranged, capable, configured, enabled, operable, or operative.
Any of the steps, operations, or processes described herein may be performed or implemented with one or more hardware or software modules, alone or in combination with other devices. In one embodiment, a software module is implemented with a computer program product comprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code, which can be executed by a computer processor for performing any or all of the steps, operations, or processes described.
Embodiments of the invention may also relate to an apparatus for performing the operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, and/or it may comprise a general-purpose computing device selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in the computer, Such a computer program may be stored in a tangible computer readable storage medium or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and coupled to a computer system bus. Furthermore, any computing systems referred to in the specification may include a single processor or may be architectures employing multiple processor designs for increased computing capability.
The invention has been described with reference to several exemplary embodiments, but it must be understood that the words have been used are words of description and illustration, not the words of limitation. Changes can be made within the purview of the appended claims, as presently stated and as amended, without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention in its aspects. Although the invention has been described with reference to particular means, materials and embodiments, the invention is not to be interpreted as limitations because of the specifics of the description; rather the invention fully extends to all functionally equivalent structures, methods, and uses such as are within the scope of the appended claims.
The term “computer-readable medium” shall also include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set of instructions for execution by a processor or that cause a computer system to perform any one or more of the methods or operations disclosed herein. Though the computer-readable medium is shown as just a single medium, the term “computer-readable medium” includes a single or multiple media, such as a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers that store one or more sets of instructions. The term “computer-readable medium” includes not just the a solid-state memory such as a store card, a memory card or other package that houses one or more non-volatile read-only memories but also a random access memory or other volatile re-writable memory, a magneto-optical or optical medium, such as a disk or tapes or other storage device to capture carrier wave signals such as a signal communicated over a transmission medium. Thus the disclosure is considered to include any computer-readable medium or other equivalents and successor media, in which data or instructions may be stored.
Although the specification as written describes components and functions that may be implemented in particular embodiments with reference to particular standards and protocols, the disclosure is not limited only to such standards and protocols. For example, standards for Internet and other network systems such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microcell and the like represent examples of the state of the art. However the standards that prevail today are periodically superseded by faster or more efficient equivalents having essentially the same functions. Accordingly, the invention's scope includes such replacement standards and protocols having the same or similar functions are considered equivalents thereof.
The illustrations shown in the specification are not intended to serve as a complete description of all of the elements and features of apparatus and systems that utilize the structures or methods described herein. The illustrations of the embodiments described herein are intended to provide a general understanding of the structure of the various embodiments.
In addition, many other embodiments of this invention may be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the disclosure. The scope of this invention includes other embodiments that may be utilized and derived from the disclosure, such that structural and logical substitutions and changes may be made without departing from the scope of the disclosure. Further, the illustrations are merely exemplary and representational and are not intended to accurately drawn to scale. For the purposes of clarity, certain drawings and representations within the illustrations may be exaggerated, while other drawings and representations may be minimized. Accordingly, the disclosure and the figures are to be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive of the scope of the inventions.
The term “invention” as used herein is merely for convenience and without intending to voluntarily limit the scope of this application to any particular invention or inventive embodiment or concept. Combinations of the above embodiments, and other embodiments not specifically described herein, will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the description. One or more embodiments of the disclosure may be referred to herein, individually and/or collectively no way limit the scope of the term “invention”. Moreover, although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it should be appreciated that any subsequent arrangement designed to achieve the same or equivalent purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments described in the specification. This disclosure is intended to cover any and all follow up adaptations or variations of different embodiments.
The disclosed subject matter of this invention is to be considered illustrative, and not restrictive, and the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications, enhancements, and other embodiments which fall within the true spirit and scope of the present disclosure. Thus, to the maximum extent allowed by law, the scope of the present disclosure is to be determined by the broadest permissible interpretation of the following claims and their equivalents, and shall not be restricted or limited by the foregoing detailed description.
This disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter may be directed to less than all of the features of any of the disclosed embodiments. Thus, the following claims are incorporated into the detailed description, with each claim standing on its own as defining separately claimed subject matter.
The abstract of the disclosure is not intended to be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing specification, various features may be grouped together or described in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure.
In the claims which follow, any reference characters used to denote process steps are provided for convenience of description only, and not to imply a particular order for performing the steps.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 62111495 | Feb 2015 | US |
| Child | 14998712 | US |
