Apparel shopping method
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorVictoria B. Platt
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A marketing method for apparel shopping that provides a potential customer via a wireless device, the ability to choose a desired piece of clothing for purchase. The piece of clothing is embedded with a unique infrared thread. The thread, when read by a wireless device, provides a unique brand like SKU. This information is compared with data in a cloud databases. This provides data containing images, specifications, pricing, and retail distribution areas to the potential customer.
Claims22
A marketing method, comprising the steps of:
- reading, by a portable handheld device, an infrared coded thread that is woven into a fabric that comprises the majority of an article of manufacture, the infrared coded thread including a plurality of banded regions that respectively include infrared dyes that reflect or absorb a specific selection of infrared light wavelengths such that a stock keeping unit (SKU) for that article of manufacture can be determined using the wavelengths of reflected infrared light that result from the reading;
- determining, by the portable handheld device and using a first database, a stock keeping unit (SKU) based on the wavelengths of reflected infrared light that resulted from the reading;
- retrieving, based on the determined SKU, images, specifications, pricing, and retail distribution areas for the article of manufacture from a second database;
- and
- displaying, based on the determined SKU, said retrieved images, or said retrieved specifications, or said retrieved pricing, or said retrieved retail distribution areas.
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A system for marketing an article of manufacture, comprising:
- a portable infrared reader that is programmed to read an infrared coded thread that is woven into a fabric that comprises the majority of an article of manufacture, the infrared coded thread including a plurality of banded regions of infrared dye that reflect or absorb a specific selection of infrared light wavelengths such that a stock keeping unit (SKU) for that article of manufacture can be determined using the wavelengths of reflected infrared light that result from the reading;
- a first database residing on a remote server in communication with the portable infrared reader, having a plurality of SKUs and specific selections of infrared light wavelengths that identify those SKUs respectively;
- a second database having images, pricing, specifications, and retail distribution areas for an article of manufacture associated with an identified SKU included in the plurality of SKUs;
- and
- a portable handheld device for accessing the first database to match a specific selection of infrared light wavelengths to a specific SKU, the matched SKU being subsequently used by the portable handheld device to access the second database to retrieve images, pricing, specifications, and retail distribution areas for the article of manufacture, and for displaying the retrieved images, or specifications, or pricing, or retail distribution areas.
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A computer program product for marketing an article of manufacture, said computer program product comprising program instructions stored on a computer readable storage medium;
- said program instructions comprising:
- program instructions to read, by a portable handheld device, an infrared coded thread that is woven into a fabric that comprises the majority of an article of manufacture, the infrared coded thread including a plurality of banded regions of infrared dye that reflect or absorb a specific selection of infrared light wavelengths such that a stock keeping unit (SKU) for that article of manufacture can be determined using the wavelengths of reflected infrared light that result from the reading a machine readable infrared identifier, embedded in an article of clothing, while said article of clothing is being worn by an individual, wherein the reading is initiated by a potential customer;
- program instructions to determine, by the handheld device and using a first database, a stock keeping unit (SKU) based on the wavelengths of reflected infrared light that resulted from the reading;
- program instructions to retrieve, based on the determined SKU, images, specifications, pricing, and retail distribution areas for the article of manufacture from a second database;
- and
- program instructions to display, by the portable device, based on the determined SKU, the retrieved images, or the retrieved specifications, or the retrieved pricing, or the retail distribution areas.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.