Patent Issued for Systems and methods to analyze product pricing (USPTO 11210731): United Services Automobile Association

2022 JAN 18 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Contreras, Stephen Joseph (Dallas, TX, US), Croak, Michelle Susan (Chicago, IL, US), Guerra, Oscar (San Antonio, TX, US), McEachron, Jon D. (Boerne, TX, US), Rodriguez, Salvador J. (Boerne, TX, US), Webster, Jason Algernon (San Antonio, TX, US), Whitaker, Charise Renee (San Antonio, TX, US), Wiessner, Kimberly (San Antonio, TX, US), Yau, Jo Anne (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on December 18, 2019, was published online on December 28, 2021.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11210731, is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “A person shopping at a physical retail store cannot as easily compare prices to save money as that person can with shopping on the Internet. For instance, a person shopping on the Internet can easily compare prices offered by at least two online sellers to purchase a product from a seller offering the product for the lowest price. However, when a person is shopping at a physical retail store or is about to shop for a product at a physical retail store, the person does not readily have price comparison information. Often, the person may stop shopping and search for the product online to compare the price offered by an online seller to the price offered by the retail store. This search process may include searching for the product with a single online seller who, along with the retail store, may not offer the lowest price for the product. Furthermore, the person may have to perform this tedious process for each product for which the person would like a price comparison. However, such a conventional system does not easily provide a consumer with information to allow the consumer to purchase products at the best prices.

“The techniques introduced here may be better understood by referring to the following Detailed Description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals indicate identical or functionally similar elements. Moreover, while the technology is amenable to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are described in detail below. The intention, however, is not to limit the technology to the particular embodiments described. On the contrary, the technology is intended to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the scope of the technology as defined by the appended claims.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Prior to this technology, a person shopping for a product at a physical retail store compares prices for that product using a familiar process. A person may use his or her mobile device to search an online seller’s website for that product. Next, the person determines whether the physical retail store or the online seller offers the lowest price for that product. In some cases, the person may search multiple websites associated with other physical retail stores or online sellers to determine a lowest price for a product. And, in some cases, the person may perform this process to compare prices for each product that the person wants to purchase. This process is cumbersome and may not provide the person with the lowest price for the product. This is because the person may obtain a price for a product by searching a website from a seller ABC, Inc., which may be lower than the price for the product offered by the physical retail store where the person is located, but the lowest price for the product may be offered by another online seller XYZ, Inc that was not searched by the person. As used in this patent document, the term “product” can include goods (e.g., laptop, breakfast cereal, etc.,) or services (e.g., renting a lawnmower, renting a truck, etc.).

“The embodiments described in this disclosure describe systems and methods to provide a graphical user interface on a mobile device that can provide information about the lowest price offered for one or more products. For instance, when a person at a physical retail store places one or more products in a physical shopping cart, a scanning device may scan the one or more products to obtain information about the one or more products, the scanned information is then sent to a server that provides pricing and store location information to a mobile device based on the scanned information, and the pricing and store location information can be analyzed by the mobile device to display the lowest price and store location for each product.

“The embodiments describe techniques to perform certain operations passively or automatically without requiring a person to take many steps to request a price comparison for the product(s) that the person wants to purchase. In some embodiments, the scanning operation, the providing of the pricing and store information operation, and the analyzing of the pricing and store information operation may be performed on product(s) place in a physical shopping cart without requiring any request from the person to perform price comparison. For instance, the scanning operation (and subsequent operations) may be triggered when a physical shopping cart detects that a product is placed or is about to be placed in the physical shopping cart. Thus, the exemplary embodiment improves current technology at least because the process to obtain information about the product(s) located in a physical shopping cart and the process to analyze the information associated with the product(s) may be done passively, i.e., without requiring much input from a person.

“In this disclosure, example headings for the various sections below are used to facilitate the understanding of the disclosed subject matter and do not limit the scope of the claimed subject matter in any way. Accordingly, one or more features of one example section can be combined with one or more features of another example section. Section I describes embodiments for the price comparison feature that may be performed while a person is shopping at a physical retail store. Section II describes a price matching policy feature that allows a mobile device to display information indicative of whether a store where the user is currently shopping has a price matching policy. Section III describes a budgeting feature that allows a user to be informed of purchases that may affect the user’s budget. Section IV describes a total cost feature that allows a mobile device to display a total cost of the products that the user may want to purchase. The mobile device may display a total cost for each seller that offers the products that the user wants to purchase. Section V describes a price comparison feature that the user may initiate before entering a physical retail store or performing an online search at an online seller’s website. Section VI describes historical prices feature that allows a mobile device to display prices obtained by the remote server over a certain time period (e.g., six months or one year).

“I. Price Comparison Feature-Shopping at a Physical Retail Store”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system to analyze products located in a retail store, the system comprising: a scanner device located within a store, the scanner device configured to: scan one or more products placed in a shopping cart; obtain, based on the scan, an identifier associated with each product; and send one or more identifiers for the one or more products to a remote server; the remote server configured to: receive from the scanner device the one or more identifiers; obtain, based on each identifier, a plurality of prices for each product; obtain, for each product, locations of two or more sellers that offer a product for purchase for the plurality of prices, wherein a location of one of the sellers includes a location of the store where the scanner device is located; send to a mobile device the plurality of prices for each product and the locations of the two or more sellers that offer each product for purchase; the mobile device located within the store, the mobile device configured to: receive the plurality of prices for each of the one or more products and the locations of the two or more sellers that offer each of the one or more products for purchase; display, on a graphical user interface of the mobile device, identification information about the one or more products, wherein the identification information is based at least in part on the one or more identifier; determine, for each product, a lowest price from the plurality of prices and a location of a seller that offers a product for the lowest price; obtain a current location of the mobile device; in response to determining, for each product located in the shopping cart, that the location of the seller that offers a product for the lowest price is the same as or within a pre-determined proximity of the current location of the mobile device: display an indication that the product is associated with the lowest price, wherein the indication is proximate to the lowest price; and in response to determining, for each product located in the shopping cart, that the location of the seller that offers the product for the lowest price is different from the current location of the mobile device: display the lowest price, the location of the seller that offers a product for the lowest price, and a price offered by the store where the mobile device is located; and display a plurality of options on the graphical user interface, wherein the plurality of options includes: a first option to remove the product from the shopping cart or return the product, a second option to determine a distance to the seller that offers the product for the lowest price, and a third option to keep the product in the shopping cart.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device is configured to remove the identification information about the product from the graphical user interface in response to receiving a request to remove the product from the shopping cart or to return the product.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device is configured to determine the distance from the current location of the mobile device to the seller that offers the product for the lowest price in response to receiving a request to determine the distance to the seller that offers the product for the lowest price.

“4. The system of claim 1, further comprising: the remote server configured to: determine that the store where the scanner device or the mobile device is located has a price matching policy; send, to the mobile device, information that the store has the price matching policy; the mobile device configured to: in response to determining, for each product located in the shopping cart, that the location of the seller that offers the product for the lowest price is different from the current location of the mobile device: display a second indication that the store has the price matching policy, wherein the second indication is displayed proximate to the third option to keep the product in the shopping cart.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device is configured to: display, for each product, a third indication proximate to the identification information of a product in response to determining that the lowest price for the product exceeds a first pre-determined value for a category associated with the product.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device is configured to: display a fourth indication in response to determining that a total cost for the one or more products offered for purchase by at least one seller exceeds a second pre-determined value for total spending by a user.

“7. The system of claim 1, further comprising: the mobile device configured to: determine, for each seller, a total cost associated with the one or more products offered for purchase by each seller; display on the mobile device a table that includes the identification information of the one or more products in a first row and a plurality of rows associated with the two or more sellers, wherein each of the plurality of rows includes one or more prices for the one or more products offered for purchase by each seller, and wherein each of the plurality of rows includes the total cost associated with the one or more products offered for purchase by each seller.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the scanner device includes an optical reader, a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader, a near-field communication (NFC) device, or a camera.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the scanner device sends the one or more identifiers to the remote server via the mobile device.

“10. The system of claim 1, wherein the scanner device is included in the mobile device or in the shopping cart.

“11. The system of claim 1, wherein the scanner device is configured to: determine a weight of at least one product, wherein the plurality of prices for the at least one product is based on the weight of the at least one product.

“12. A method for analyzing products located in a retail store, the method comprising: receiving, by a mobile device, a plurality of prices for each of one or more products and locations of two or more sellers that offer each of the one or more products for purchase, wherein the one or more products are located in a shopping cart and to be purchased by a user of the mobile device; displaying, by the mobile device, on a graphical user interface of the mobile device, identification information about the one or more products, wherein the identification information is based at least in part on the one or more identifier associated with the one or more products; determining, by the mobile device, for each product, a lowest price from the plurality of prices and a location of a seller that offers a product for the lowest price; obtaining, by the mobile device, a current location of the mobile device; in response to determining, for each product located in the shopping cart, that the location of the seller that offers a product for the lowest price is the same as or within a pre-determined proximity of the current location of the mobile device: displaying an indication that the product is associated with the lowest price, wherein the indication is proximate to the lowest price; and in response to determining, for each product located in the shopping cart, that the location of the seller that offers the product for the lowest price is different from the current location of the mobile device: displaying the lowest price, the location of the seller that offers a product for the lowest price, and a price offered by the store where the mobile device is located; displaying a plurality of options on the graphical user interface, wherein the plurality of options includes: a first option to remove the product from the shopping cart or return the product, wherein the mobile device is configured to remove the identification information about the product from the graphical user interface in response to receiving a request to remove the product from the shopping cart or to return the product, a second option to determine a distance to the seller that offers the product for the lowest price, and a third option to keep the product in the shopping cart.

“13. The method of claim 12, wherein the mobile device is configured to determine the distance from the current location of the mobile device to the seller that offers the product for the lowest price in response to receiving a request to determine the distance to the seller that offers the product for the lowest price.

“14. The method of claim 12, wherein in response to determining, for each product located in the shopping cart, that the location of the seller that offers the product for the lowest price is different from the current location of the mobile device, the method further comprises: displaying a second indication that the store has a price matching policy, wherein the second indication is displayed proximate to the third option to keep the product in the shopping cart.

“15. The method of claim 12, further comprising displaying, for each product, a third indication proximate to the identification information of a product in response to determining that the lowest price for the product exceeds a first pre-determined value for a category associated with the product.

“16. The method of claim 12, further comprising displaying a fourth indication in response to determining that a total cost for the one or more products offered for purchase by at least one seller exceeds a second pre-determined value for total spending by the user.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

For more information, see this patent: Contreras, Stephen Joseph. Systems and methods to analyze product pricing. U.S. Patent Number 11210731, filed December 18, 2019, and published online on December 28, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11210731.PN.&OS=PN/11210731RS=PN/11210731

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