Methods and apparatus for using the internet domain name system to disseminate product information

A system for disseminating information relating to a plurality of different manufactured products, each given one of said products being designated by a unique universal product code value that includes a numeric company code designating the manufacturer of said given one of said products said system comprising, in combination:

• a plurality of different host computers each of which is operated on behalf of one or more of manufacturers and each of which comprises storage means for accepting and staring information about at least one of said products and each of which has an entry point connection to the Internet tat is uniquely identified by an Internet protocol address for receiving and responding to Internet messages requesting information relating to said at least one of said products,
• registration means for storing cross-references in the Internet Domain Name System, each of said cross-references specifying an association between a company code domain name and a corresponding Internet protocol address wherein said company code domain name comprises an alphanumeric character string comprising one of said numeric company codes designating a particular manufacturer and predetermined characters concatenated with said one said numeric company codes, and wherein said corresponding Internet protocol address identifies the particular entry point connection to a particular one of said host computers operated on behalf of said particular manufacturer that receives and responds to Internet messages requesting information relating to products manufactured by said particular manufacturer,
• means for retrieving information about a selected one of said products that is designated by a selected one of said universal product code values comprising:
• means for deriving a target company code domain name from the numeric company code in a selected one of said universal product code values,
• means for transmitting said target product code domain name to the Internet Domain Name System to obtain the corresponding target Internet protocol address specified by one of said cross-references, and
• means for transmitting an Internet message requesting information relating to said selected one of said products to said corresponding target Internet protocol address.

A system for distributing information via the Internet relating to a manufactured product designated by a specific universal product code value that includes numeric company code characters that designate the manufacturer of said manufactured product, said system comprising, in combination:

• means for storing said information at a computing host accessible via the Internet at a specific Internet protocol address,
• a first source of a specific universal product code value that designates a specific product,
• means coupled to said first source for deriving a domain name character string that includes numeric company code characters that designates the manufacturer of said specific product from said specific universal product code value in accordance with a predetermined translation process,
• means for storing a cross-reference in the Internet Domain Name System, said cross-reference specifying an association between said domain name character string and said specific Internet protocol address, and
• utilization means coupled to the Internet comprising:
• a second source of said specific universal product code value,
• means coupled to said second source for deriving a target domain name character string from said specific universal product code value in accordance with said predetermined translation process,
• means for transmitting said target domain name character string to the Internet Domain Name System to obtain said specific Internet protocol address, and
• means for transmitting a request message via the Internet to said specific Internet protocol address to obtain said information relating to said manufactured product designated by said specific universal product code value.