Fujitsu Ltd of Japan has been awarded US patent protection for its invention designed to facilitate home shopping for groceries, including via TV-based shopping networks. The application programme includes the means for categorising an electronic order according to environmental storage metric, such that individual items comprising the order are each segregated into common environmental storage groupings, thus streamlining the picking and storing of complex orders.
Protected under US patent number 6,246,998, the abstract reads:
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A system for organizing and categorizing purchases made through an Internet based home shopping system is disclosed. Products offered for sale over the Internet are contained in a server’s PLU table and are each associated with weights and measures metrics, environmental storage metrics and nutritional content indicia. As items are selected for purchase, and placed in a virtual shopping basket, a user may evaluate the contents of a virtual shopping basket in accordance with any of the physical property, environmental storage, or nutritional content indicia. Goods designated for either pickup or delivery are packaged in accordance with their size and weight criteria and are stored in an appropriate environmental storage facility in accordance with their environmental storage indicia.
The first claim (of 21) is for:
An Internet based home grocery shopping system including a personal computer system configured for Internet access, the system comprising:
a store server configured to host an Internet access application program and including an Internet communication interface and a control processor;
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By GlobalDataa mass storage device coupled to the store server;
a master PLU database stored in the mass storage unit, the PLU database including data representing item identification, price and weights and measures metrics, each said metric associated with an item of merchandise, the PLU database further including an environmental storage metric identifying an environment suitable for storing said item of merchandise; and
means for summing the merchandise item information metrics, including the weights and measures metrics, the means for summing further including means for displaying the summed metrics on a display screen of a personal computer system, thereby allowing a consumer to visually inspect a size and weight characteristic of an electronic order.
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http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ft00&s1=food&OS=food&RS=food
