Patent Application
20100023425
This invention relates to the field of sales and more particularly to a system, method and apparatus for restricting sales of certain items to certain geographic boundaries.
Recently, Internet sales have become a way of life. Internet sales offer a certain amount of convenience coupled with a huge amount of variety and competition, all good for the consumer. Several businesses such as Amazon.com have emerged as entirely Internet sales companies, while others such as Barnes and Nobles have paralleled their brick and mortar business with Internet web sites that sell much of the same products as available in their brick and mortar stores. Today, it is almost impossible to find a brick and mortar store that doesn't also have a web site to offer Internet sales.
The Internet is an international network permitting sales of products nation-wide as well as world-wide. A store located in New York City is able to sell its products to a customer in California, Hawaii, Japan, South Africa, etc. Credit card companies help enable this by automatically providing currency exchange on sales made with their credit cards. Unfortunately, what is good for one is not always good for all. Some goods and services that that are totally acceptable in one place are unacceptable in another. In some cases, some goods and service are legal in one place and illegal in others. Presently, companies offering products for sale over the Internet prevent goods having objectionable content from being shipped to locations in which such goods are unacceptable, deemed immoral or illegal. This method helps prevent objectionable material from entering locations in which it is objectionable, but frustrates the purchaser and requires the merchant to refund monies already collected.
Furthermore, in some communities, the descriptions and images of the products being offered are objectionable or even illegal.
In another existing method, Internet sales software require a customer enter or store their shipping information and, when a shopping cart contains such objectionable material, the software prevents continuing the checkout process until the objectionable material is removed. This method is an improvement over the last, but has one major problem. Often, pictures of items are displayed on Internet sales web sites and the pictures of the items are banned, illegal or immoral in certain locations. Therefore, in some examples, an Internet sales site catering to the norms of one country breaks the laws of another country. In another example, an Internet sales site located in one state of one country breaks the laws of another state within the same country.
What is needed is a system that will provide offers for sale of certain products/services to geographic regions that allow such products/services and restrict such offers to geographic regions that ban such products/services.
In one embodiment, a method of presenting items of a catalog in various geographic regions is disclosed including providing a catalog of items, each item having associated therewith at least one geographic code. A search term and a geographic location are provided. The catalog is searched for matching items that are related to the search term and in which the geographic code indicates the item is suitable for the geographic location.
In another embodiment, a system for presenting items of a catalog is disclosed including a server interfaced to a network and a terminal connected to the server through the network. A catalog of items is interfaced to the server. Each item has associated therewith at least one geographic code. A software module running on the server accepts a search term from the terminal and determines the geographic location of the terminal. A second software module running on the server searches the catalog for matching items that are related to the search term and in which the geographic code indicates the item is suitable for the geographic location.
In another embodiment, an apparatus for presenting a catalog is disclosed including a server computer, a terminal and a database interfaced to the server computer. The database includes records, each having a fields and one of the fields including a geographic field. Search software running on the server computer communicates with the terminal and obtains a geographic location of the terminal. The search software receives catalog search requests from the terminal and responsive to the search requests, searches the database to find resulting records related to the search request and absent of objectionable material then sends remaining resulting records to the terminal. The objectionable material is material in which the geographic field contains the geographic location.
In another embodiment, a computer program runs on a programmed computer for accessing a catalog from a remote terminal is disclosed including computer usable medium having computer-readable code embodied in the medium, the computer-readable code including code for reading an IP address of the remote terminal, code for accepting a search request from the remote terminal, code for translating the IP address into a geographic address, code for finding appropriate items in a catalog related to the search request and code for sending the appropriate items to the remote terminal.
The invention can be best understood by those having ordinary skill in the art by reference to the following detailed description when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
Reference will now be made in detail to the presently preferred embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Throughout the following detailed description, the same reference numerals refer to the same elements in all figures.
Referring to
To best describe the operation of the present invention, let the first geographic region be California (CA), the second geographic region be Mississippi (MS) and the third geographic region be three states including Alabama (AL), Kansas (KS) and Mississippi (MS).
The catalog server 30 of the embodiment presents offers for presentation and/or sale various products and/or services. Examples of such are music, movies, electronic goods, escort services etc. The consumer/shopper browses an online catalog 32 viewing the products and/or services available. In some catalogs 32, descriptions of the products/services are available. In some catalogs 32 other information regarding the products/services is available including but not limited to pictures, pricing, shipping information and samples (e.g., music or video segments), for example. Typically, the customer/shopper enters a search term or search request into a data entry screen running within a browser, the browser operating on the customer/shopper's terminal device 20/22/24/26. The search term is sent to the server to locate products/services from the catalog that are related to the search term. For example, a search term contains a color finds items in the catalog that have an attribute of the same color, etc.
Typically, the customer/shopper selects one or more items found and the items are placed in a virtual shopping cart. When finished, the shopper/customer checks out by supplying their credit card or other payment (e.g., Paypal). In some embodiments, the purchased goods are sent to the shopper by a shipping method such as the U.S. Post Office, UPS, FEDEX, etc. In other embodiments, the purchased goods are downloaded to the user. In the later embodiment, the purchased goods are soft goods such as music, movies, software, forms, contracts, etc.
In some embodiments, the server 30 obtains a geographic location of the user 20/22/24/26 using an IP address map 31. In some embodiments, the IP address map 31 is a database or table indexed by IP address. A Search for an IP address in the IP address map 31 results in matching records containing the address of the desired IP address. The IP address map 31 translates the IP address of the user computer 20/22/24/26 into a geographic location (e.g., latitude/longitude, street address, etc.). If the IP address map 31 fails or if the server 30 cannot obtain a valid IP address of the user computer 20/22/24/26, the geographic location is set to a default location that is the lowest common denominator (no objectionable material is provided).
In other embodiments, the server 30 obtains a geographic location of the user 20/22/24/26 using an external service shown as the Demographic Service 33. In such, the server 30 sends a transaction to the Demographic Service 33 through the Internet 10 and the Demographic Service 33 returns the geographic location of the IP address.
Translation of an IP address into a geographic location
is known in the industry as evidenced by companies such as LiveIPMap (http://www.liveipmap.com/) and GeoBytes (http://www.geobytes.cm/ipLocator.htm).
In this example, the catalog 32 is administered by a person from an administration terminal 34 as known in the industry. This person is responsible for, among other things, setting up the overall geographic strategy and tables, and assigning geographic regions to products in the catalog 32.
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
The method begins with the shopper browsing to the catalog web site 70. Upon access of the catalog web site, the server providing the catalog (or surrogate) obtains the shopper's geographic location 72. The geographic location is determined in a manner that is not easily forged. In one embodiment, the shopper provides their address when accessing the catalog or in a profile that is maintained for the customer. This method is not as fool proof in that it depends upon the truthful entry by the customer. It is also not effective for a shopper that has recently moved from one geographic location with one set of laws/norms to another that has a different set of laws/norms. In another embodiment, the shopper provides an address, preferably in a profile, that is confirmed by various means such as credit card verification. Still, this means of verification is not foolproof since the credit card billing address is sometimes different than the location of the shopper such as a shopper that lives in the USA and is traveling to a foreign country and shopping from that country.
In another embodiment, the geographic location is obtained 72 through a query of the shopper's Internet Protocol Address using, for example, a map internet address function. In such, the server 30 reads the IP address of the shopper's computer and provides it to the IP Address Map service 31 or a local IP address map function as known in the industry. The IP Address Map service 31 or a local IP address map function returns a geographic address (e.g., latitude/longitude, street address, etc.)
In most instances, the shopper's IP address is fixed and relates to a physical location is a specific geographic region. As previously stated, translating of an IP address into a geographic location is known in the industry. In some instances, the shopper is using a mobile device such as a PDA, Blackberry, etc. and such device is capable of being used on boundaries between geographic locations. For example, a mobile cell phone used to access a catalog of the present embodiment is used in northern Kentucky but serviced by a cell site in Cincinnati Ohio. In such instances, the present embodiment restricts the catalog based upon a union of the two (multiple) geographic possibilities, thereby prohibiting view of items restricted in either geographic location. Is some circumstances, the IP address map function cannot translate the IP address into a geographic location or the server 30 cannot obtain a valid IP address of the shopper's computer. In such, the geographic location is set to a default location that includes all restrictions possible (e.g., no objectionable material is presented).
Once the location is obtained, the shopper enters search terms for items of interest 74 in the catalog 32. The search terms are processed by the server 30, which searches the catalog 32 for matching items 80. There are many ways to perform such a search known in the industry including adding the geographic location to the search terms, thereby the search engine will not return items having such geographic restriction codes matching the geographic location, etc. The example shown in
The server 30 accesses the first matching item 82. (a) Next, the server 30 determines if the shopper's geographic location is contained within the geographic restriction field 84. For example, in the tables of
The next item in the search results is accessed 88 and if there are more items 90, the previous steps starting with (a) are repeated to determine if that item should be added to the output record and, if so, added. If no more items are left in the search results 90, the output record is sent to the shopper 94.
Referring to
In some embodiments, there are multiple geographic restriction fields in the catalog 32. For example, one geographic restriction field for the description, one geographic restriction field for the images/pictures and one geographic restriction field for the offer for sale. In such, some items may be described, but not offered for sale, etc.
Referring now to
has entered a search term “vibrator” 102. Since residents of Wyoming are restricted from viewing item 0134, only the massage vibrator (items 106) is displayed. An offer for sale 107 is also made for both the massage vibrator 107.
Referring to
any way to any particular computer system. The present invention works well utilizing a single processor system as shown in
multiple server system where several independent servers operate in parallel (perhaps having shared access to the data or any combination. In this, a processor 210 is provided to execute stored programs that are generally stored for execution within a memory 215. The processor 210 can be any
processor or a group of processors, for example an Intel Pentium-4® CPU or the like. The memory 215 is connected to the processor and can be any memory suitable for connection with the selected processor 210, such as SRAM, DRAM, SDRAM, RDRAM, DDR, DDR-2, etc.
Also connected to the processor 210 is a system bus 220 for connecting to peripheral subsystems such as a network interface 270 with an IP Address 270, a hard disk 240, a CDROM 250, a graphics adapter 260 and a keyboard/mouse 230. The graphics adapter 260 receives commands and display information
from the system bus 230 and generates a display image that is displayed on the display 265.
In general, the hard disk 240 may be used to store programs, executable code and data persistently, while the CDROM 250 may be used to load said programs, executable code and data from removable media onto the hard disk 240. These peripherals are meant to be examples of input/output devices, persistent storage and removable media storage. Other examples of persistent storage include core memory, FRAM, flash memory, etc. Other examples of removable media storage include CDRW, DVD, DVD writeable, compact flash, other removable flash media, floppy disk, etc. In some embodiments, other devices are connected to the system through the system bus 230 or with other input-output connections. Examples of these devices include printers; graphics tablets; joysticks; and communications adapters such as modems.
The network interface 270 connects the computer-based system to the Internet 10 through a link which is, preferably, a high speed link such as a cable broadband connection, a Digital Subscriber Loop (DSL) broadband connection, a T1 line or a T3 line.
Equivalent elements can be substituted for the ones set forth above such that they perform in substantially the same manner in substantially the same way for achieving substantially the same result.
It is believed that the system and method of the present invention and many of its attendant advantages will be understood by the foregoing description. It is also believed that it will be apparent that various changes may be made in the form, construction and arrangement of the components thereof without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention or without sacrificing all of its material advantages. The form herein before described being merely exemplary and explanatory embodiment thereof. It is the intention of the following claims to encompass and include such changes.
