System and method for finding product and service related information on the internet

Abstract

A system for finding information about a particular consumer product on the Internet, comprising a relational database for storing information elements representative of universal product numbers (UPNs) assigned to consumer products and registered with the relational database, and a trademark (TM), a product description (PD), and a plurality of uniform resource locators (URLs) symbolically linked to each UPN, specifying the location of information resources on the Internet related to a product. When a request is made by an Internet-enabled client for information about a product registered with the relational database, the UPN, TM and / or PD contained in the request is automatically recovered by an Internet information server and is used to automatically access the URLs symbolically linked to the UPN, TM, and / or PD and stored in the relational database, thereby allowing a consumer to select one or more of the URLs and display the information resources specified thereby.

Description

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a system and method for finding product and service related information on the National Information Infrastructure (e.g. the Internet). [0003] 2. Brief Description of the Prior Art [0004] Presently, an enormous amount of time, money and effort is being expended by companies in order to advertise and sell their products and services, and after product purchase has taken place, to provide product related information, product warranty service and the like. For decades, various types of media have been used to realize such fundamental business functions. [0005] In recent times, there has been a number of significant developments in connection with the global information network called the “Internet”, which has greatly influenced many companies to create multi-media Internet Websites in order to advertise, sell and maintain their products and services. Examples of such developments include, for e...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012] Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a novel system and method for finding product and service related information on the Internet, while avoiding the shortcomings and drawbacks of prior art systems and methodologies.

[0023] Another object of the present invention is to provide a novel system and method of automatically soliciting companies to register their products and services within the databases of such IPSD Servers in order that product and service related information of a multimedia nature (e.g. Websites) registered therewith can be easy found on the Internet by anyone using the system and method of the present invention.

Problems solved by technology

Presently, an enormous amount of time, money and effort is being expended by companies in order to advertise and sell their products and services, and after product purchase has taken place, to provide product related information, product warranty service and the like.

This can be a very time consuming process and sometimes lead to a dead end.

This search process can be both time consuming and expensive (in terms of Internet time) and may not turn up information on the product or service of interest.

In particular, when a company improves, changes or modifies an existing Website which publishes product and / or service advertisements and related information, it is difficult (if not impossible) not to change the Internet locations (i.e. Web addresses) at which such product and / or service advertisements and related information appear.

This can result in pointing a consumer to erroneous or vacant Web sites, that present either old or otherwise outdated product and / or service information, possibly adversely influencing the consumers purchasing decision.

Moreover, when a company launches a new Website as part of a new advertising and marketing campaign for a particular product or service, any preprinted advertising or marketing material relating to such products and services will not reflect the new Website addresses which the campaign is attempting to get consumers to visit.

This fact about preprinted advertising media renders it difficult to unify new and old advertising media currently in circulation into an advertising and marketing campaign having a coherent theme.

In short, the inherently static nature of the “preprinted Web address” pointing technique described above is wholly incapable of adjusting to the dynamic needs of advertising, marketing and public relations alike.

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