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US 6,606,604 B1Granted
Incremental updates of items and prices on a customer's computer to reduce download times for frequently purchased items in e-commerce transactions in a method, system and program
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorRabindranath Dutta
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Ordering information required for recurring purchase of frequently purchased items, such as an HTML order form and item and pricing information, is cached within a customer's data processing system separately from the browser cache. The item and pricing information includes an associated validity period and is incrementally updated as necessary. Orders may thus be assembled on the customer's data processing system with little or no communication with the retailer's server, then transmitted to the retailer's server for processing when complete, reducing network traffic and server loading for the recurring transactions.
Claims31
A method of efficiently effecting recurring e-commerce sales transactions between a customer system and a remote ordering server, said method comprising:
- generating at a disconnected customer system an electronic order for a desired e-commerce transaction, wherein said order conforms with ordering requirements of said remote ordering server, and said order comprises locally stored ordering information including a particular set of recurring items that are desired to be ordered on a recurring basis from a larger group of items offered for electronic purchase from the remote ordering server and further including variable ordering information and an associated validity period for respective ones of the recurring items, wherein the corresponding variable ordering information is dynamically updatable responsive to whether said validity period indicates that an associated variable ordering information should be updated when said customer system is connected to said remote ordering server;
- connecting to the remote ordering server to submit the order;
- and
- dynamically receiving updates of the variable ordering information within the order if the variable ordering information within the order is no longer valid at the time of connection to the remote ordering server based on said validity period.
1 more element
A method of supporting efficient transaction of recurring e-commerce sales at a remote ordering server, said method comprising:
- responsive to a customer registering for recurring purchases transacted via an e-commerce medium, transmitting to a customer data processing system ordering information, wherein said ordering information includes an electronic order form, item identifications and associated prices along with respective validity periods for items selected by the customer for recurring purchase, wherein the respective validity periods indicates a dated time period after which the associated price of an item should be updated and which triggers the update of associated price whenever an order is submitted to the remote ordering server from the customer data processing system after the dated time period;
- responsive to receiving a request for incremental updates of prices for the items selected by the customer for recurring purchase, transmitting current values for prices of the items for which incremental updates were requested;
- and
- responsive to receiving an order generated on the customer data processing system utilizing said electronic order form and item identifications and associated prices stored on the customer data processing system:
- comparing prices within the order to current values for corresponding prices;
- and
- automatically transmitting updated prices to the customer data processing system prior to processing the order, or
- automatically processing the order with the submitted prices when no updates to prices within the order are required.
5 more elements
A system for efficiently effecting recurring e-commerce sales transactions between a customer system and a remote ordering server, comprising:
- means for downloading constant data associated with an electronic order form to a fist storage location of said customer system;
- means for downloading product data for selected items from a group of available items on said remote ordering server, said selected items being items subject to future recurring purchases, wherein said product data is stored in a second storage location of said customer system and comprises identification data and variable data that is subject to updates on said remote ordering server and to dynamic updates on said customer system from said remote ordering server, said variable data having an associated invalidity period that indicates a time after which the variable data should be updated and which triggers the update of the variable data from said remote ordering server when said time is reached;
- means for generating a completed electronic order form for a desired e-commerce transaction by assembling on said customer system said constant data and selected ones of said product data including their respective variable data, wherein said completed electronic order form conforms to ordering requirements of the remote ordering server;
- means for submitting said completed electronic order form to said remote ordering system;
- and
- means for dynamically updating said variable data within said completed electronic order form to accurately reflect current values of corresponding variable data on the remote ordering server prior to said order being submitted by said server for processing.
3 more elements
A system for supporting efficient transaction of recurring e-commerce sales, comprising:
- means, responsive to a customer registering for recurring purchases transacted via an e-commerce medium, for transmitting to a customer data processing system ordering information, wherein said ordering information includes an electronic order form, item identifications and associated prices along with respective validity periods for items selected by the customer for recurring purchase, wherein the respective validity periods indicates a dated time period after which the associated price of an item should be updated and which triggers the update of associated price whenever an order is submitted to the remote ordering server from the customer data processing system after the dated time period;
- means, responsive to receiving a request for incremental updates of prices for the items selected by the customer for recurring purchase, for transmitting current values for prices of the items for which incremental updates were requested;
- and
- means, responsive to receiving an order generated on the customer data processing system utilizing said electronic order form and item identifications and associated prices stored on the customer data processing system:
- for comparing prices within the order to current values for corresponding prices;
- and
- for automatically transmitting updated prices to the customer data processing system prior to processing the order;
- or
- automatically processing the order with the submitted prices when no updates to prices within the order are required.
6 more elements
A computer program product within a computer usable medium for efficiently effecting recurring e-commerce sales transactions between a customer system and a remote ordering server, comprising:
- instructions for downloading constant data associated with an electronic order form to a first storage location of said customer system;
- instructions for downloading product data for selected items from a group of available items on said remote ordering server, said selected items being items subject to future recurring purchases, wherein said product data is stored in a second storage location of said customer system and comprises identification data and variable data that is subject to updates on said remote ordering server and to dynamic updates on said customer system from said remote ordering server, said variable data having an associated invalidity period that indicates a time after which the variable data should be updated and which triggers the update of the variable data from said remote ordering server when said time is reached;
- instructions for generating an a completed electronic order form for a desired e-commerce transaction by assembling on said customer system said constant data and selected ones of said product data including their respective variable data, wherein said completed electronic order form conforms to ordering requirements of a the remote ordering server;
- instructions for submitting said completed electronic order form to said remote ordering system;
- and
- instructions for updating said variable data within said completed electronic order form to accurately reflect current values of corresponding variable data on the remote ordering server.
3 more elements
A computer program product within a computer usable medium for supporting efficient transaction of recurring e-commerce sales, said program product comprising:
- instructions, responsive to a customer registering for recurring purchases transacted via an e-commerce medium, for transmitting to a customer data processing system ordering information, wherein said ordering information includes an electronic order form, item identifications and associated prices along with respective validity periods for items selected by the customer for recurring purchase, wherein the respective validity periods indicates a dated time period after which the associated price of an item should be updated and which triggers the update of associated price whenever an order is submitted to the remote ordering server from the customer data processing system after the dated time period;
- instructions, responsive to receiving a request for incremental updates of prices for the items selected by the customer for recurring purchase, for transmitting current values for prices of the items for which incremental updates were requested;
- and
- instructions, responsive to receiving an order generated on the customer data processing system utilizing said electronic order form and item identifications and associated prices stored on the customer data processing system:
- for comparing prices within the order to current values for corresponding prices;
- and
- for automatically transmitting updated prices to the customer data processing system prior to processing the order;
- or
- automatically processing the order with the submitted prices when no updates to prices within the order are required.
6 more elements
A method of supporting efficient transaction of recurring e-commerce sales, comprising:
- storing, locally on a customer's system, information from a server relating to an electronic order form and items available for purchase through the server and selected by a customer for recurring electronic ordering, wherein said information includes a validity period that indicates when a variable data related to an item expires and should be updated from the server;
- periodically updating at least individual items of information stored locally on the customer's system, wherein said individual items of information includes the variable data and the periodic updates are triggered by an expiration of the associated validity period, which messages the server to provide an update for said variable data;
- generating an order for purchase utilizing the information stored locally on the customer's system including said individual items of information that is periodically updated;
- and
- submitting the order to the server to purchase selected items.
2 more elements
A method for efficiently effecting recurring e-commerce sales transactions between a customer system and a remote ordering server, comprising:
- downloading constant data associated with an electronic order form to a first storage location of said customer system;
- downloading product data for selected items from a group of available items on said remote ordering server, said selected items being items subject to future recurring purchases, wherein said product data is stored in a second storage location of said customer system and comprises identification data and variable data that is subject to updates on said remote ordering server and to dynamic updates on said customer system from said remote ordering server, said variable data having an associated tag that indicates a time after which the variable data should be updated and which triggers the update of the variable data from said server when said time is reached;
- generating a completed electronic order form for a desired e-commerce transaction by assembling on said customer system said constant data and selected ones of said product data including their respective variable data, wherein said completed electronic order form conforms to ordering requirements of the remote ordering server;
- submitting said completed electronic order form to said remote ordering system;
- and
- when said tag indicates that the associated variable data should be updated, automatically updating said variable data in the completed electronic order form to accurately reflect current values of corresponding variable data on the remote ordering server.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.