RU2254611C2 - Method for providing mobile electronic communication devices users with actual commercial information on alternative basis (variants) and information system for realization of said method (variants) - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: computer science.

SUBSTANCE: system has processing and information server, connected to means of inter-network interface of communications operator and computers of at least two alternative sources of common type goods and/or services with possible receiving of information from each of noted sources. Processing and information server has data input block, block for storing data about goods and/or services and block for indexing and searching for information, and also means for access of users of communication devices to data storage block with data about goods and/or services, connected to means of inter-network interface of communications operator. Also, computers of sources of goods and/or services are made in form of external database servers and are connected to processing and information server with possible automatic transfer of information to processing and information server with its renewal at external server.

EFFECT: operative structuring of information about goods and/or services and providing of this information to users of mobile communication devices with possible navigation across catalogue and full-text search.

7 cl, 17 dwg

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to the field of information technology, in particular, to a method and system for providing users of communication devices with information about goods and / or services from sources of goods and / or services, in particular trade organizations and organizations engaged in the provision of services.

State of the art

Considering the problems of providing information about goods and / or services in general, the well-known possibilities of a full-text search for information about goods and / or services through the search engines of the global Internet. However, such search engines and product categories have a number of significant drawbacks. One of the main drawbacks of systems representing many suppliers at the same time is the complete absence of any systematic approach to providing information about identical products offered by different suppliers. The maximum that can be achieved in such systems is to display in one table all the sentences found as a result of the query when the user entered a certain set of words for the search. The only thing that unites all the entries shown is that all search words are really included in the product description. In fact, the result of a search for a description of the products in such systems is really a collection of records where suppliers decided to include the corresponding characteristics of the goods, but the rest of the records about the offers of exactly the same goods will not be found.

Moreover, the description of the goods is in no way structured, even the name of the product and its characteristics often do not differ when conducting such a search. As a result, a completely heterogeneous product may fall into the search result, and there is no certainty that the set found at least contains all the offers for the really necessary product.

As a consequence of this unstructured description of goods, a search for various numerical characteristics becomes generally impossible, because the same numbers are found in the general text of the description of the goods in completely different contexts and correspond to completely different characteristics of the goods. That is, the result of the search by number will most often be a huge number of product offers, the bulk of which are completely not of interest to the user.

In addition, there is no unification in the descriptions of the same goods by different suppliers: each of them chooses from his list of properties of the goods what, in his own opinion, is the most important. Sometimes there is no description at all, sometimes there is even conflicting information about the same product. As a result, the search for a product by its properties practically does not make sense, since proper reliability and completeness of the results of such a search are not ensured. In addition, part of the records found as a result of the search are hyperlinks to the product description provided again by the supplier. As any user of such product search systems knows, navigating in such descriptions is very difficult. However, it is not clear which of the many descriptions of the same product should be trusted to a greater extent.

One of the most modern systems for searching goods on the Internet, of interest to Russian users, is the Yandex Market system. The disadvantages of this particular system are discussed below.

Yandex Market only works with electronic (virtual) stores. Real stores are not supported. This, of course, greatly simplifies the life of the creators of Yandex Market, as there is no need to support manual input of information about offers and provide the ability to connect completely different internal corporate databases and be prepared to support a variety of adapters to such databases.

However, a system like Yandex Market is completely unsuitable for people who want to see what they are buying, and there are many such people. No online store has retail and exhibition space and does not show anything to anyone before buying.

It is easy to assume that people who prefer to buy goods in real stores are much more among mobile phone users than among Internet users (Yandex Market is available only on the Internet). Thus, any service for providing information on goods and / or services offered only by virtual stores (suppliers) on mobile phones will remain simply unclaimed.

In addition, no uniform approach to customer communication with suppliers is provided. The user of Yandex Market is further forced to act according to the rules of the corresponding online store.

Further, although Yandex Market provides the ability to search within the elements of a product catalog, this system has the same drawback that was noted above: search with division into search entities is impossible.

Finally, it should be emphasized that none of the search engines discussed above is designed to work with mobile phones.

As for existing applications for communication devices, such as mobile phones, the lion's share of such applications are (1) games, (2) an interface for performing one useful non-commercial function, such as receiving / sending messages and faxes, weather, remote use of dictionaries. Recently, software has also begun to appear for sales of a specific type of goods or services by a particular company (for example, railway or airline tickets, books, etc.), as well as highly specialized reference systems.

An example of such a highly specialized help system is the system described in the publication of the international application for invention WO 02/078315 A2, in which the user of a mobile phone about to make a call can receive an SMS message about the current tariff of his telecom operator. No other information can be viewed or searched using such a service.

In the field of systems that work with mobile phones, it is worth highlighting the m-commerce system - "mobile commerce". The only purpose of such systems is the organization of payment for specific goods and services. Such systems do not provide any catalogs, no search, no communication services with suppliers and no information about goods, services, their suppliers and manufacturers. An example of such a system is the CellBucks system of CellBucks Payments Network Inc. (http://www.cellbucks.com). As for the applications of such a system, these include, for example, the sale of food for golfers and visitors to sports matches (the service itself is provided on a non-alternative basis by certain partner companies of CellBucks Payments Network Inc.).

Beeline mobile operator has organized a voice search service for suppliers (trade organizations). But it should be noted that the Beeline service provides for the possibility of exclusively voice communication between the client and the operator, not allowing visualization (even in text form) of the goods and suppliers found. Beeline Voice Service works exclusively with information from the Mobile database. Suppliers of products are very limited in their ability to update information about their offers: they can do this either once or five times a week. Information is updated in the database only once every 36 hours. However, any buyer knows that even in one hour the situation with the availability of goods from a particular supplier can change more than once. Thus, such information is not relevant and reliable enough: you need to ring up the suppliers found and perhaps some of them will say that right now there is no longer the right product, but they could offer something else.

Recently, specialists in the field of information technology are looking for ways to expand the capabilities of the service provided to users of communication devices. The publication of the international application WO 02/05534 A1 considers an information system containing a server connected to a mobile operator and other mobile phone user terminals (a computer connected to the Internet, fax, etc.), a user’s request is sent by the mobile operator to server, and the requested information is sent to another user terminal with which the system server has a connection.

US Pat. No. 5,850,433 proposes the use of a conventional Internet directory, such as those discussed above, for automatically dialing a telephone number, for example, of a provider related to an entered request for a product.

The publication of patent application GB 2378348 A discloses an information system for providing users of mobile electronic communications devices with a wide range of reference and commercial information (from official vacation days to, for example, car repair shops). The information provided is geo-referenced, i.e. the user can determine the region in relation to which he receives this or that information. In the specified information system, the information is cataloged and stored on a database server, which is connected to the gateway of the mobile operator, acting as a communicator of mobile phones with the server. As a technical result of using such a system, the creation of an intuitive and intuitive interface for the user of an Internet-compatible telephone is indicated, which allows access to the catalog of the information system with a minimum of manipulation of the telephone keypad.

However, this system, like any of the above, has a number of serious drawbacks.

The system does not provide solutions that allow the user to make a meaningful choice between alternative sources of goods and / or services at any time based on relevant and objective information. Modern reality is fierce competition, sometimes unfair, and the consumer, as a rule, is faced with the problem of choice and the need to take into account a number of factors before making a final decision regarding (i) what exactly to acquire, (ii) from whom exactly (iii) under what conditions. A consumer who wants to buy, for example, a TV with a 14-inch screen, must decide on the manufacturer of the TV, a specific model that has a fairly wide range of characteristics and additional functions, and the store where he will go for the purchase. To choose a store, in turn, you need to compare the price of a particular TV model with the prices of alternative stores, evaluate the warranty conditions, store location, etc.

Further, the information system server works exclusively with textual information that makes up the catalog itself (names of catalog items (categories and geographical regions), as well as organizations and firms). When you select a particular company in the catalog, it immediately dials its number. That is, the user of the system described in GB 2378348 cannot view the assortment of goods offered by the trading company (supplier) found by him, not to mention the receipt of textual or graphic information about the product itself and its price, the possibility of comparing offers of the same product or service from different suppliers or offers to the supplier to contact the user.

Most users of mobile devices prefer to make serious purchases and use the services sector within the geographic area where they live or work (city, district). Information about the availability of commercial offers in another geographical area is rarely in demand. Therefore, the need for additional indication of the region aggravates the user interface described in GB 2378348 system.

As a consequence of the first of the above drawbacks, the system known from GB 2378348, significantly limits the search, making it possible only to find in the database (directory) that is displayed at the next level of the directory. In principle, GB 2378348 denies the very necessity of organizing a search, leaving the user only the possibility of walking through the catalog. This is done in order to save the user from the need to enter textual information. As a result, for example, the user will not be able to find a product or service in terms of his / her name (and this is a very useful function), because in the approach proposed in GB 2378348, there is only the possibility of reaching the supplier by catalog. However, for this you need to be well-versed in hierarchical dependencies between directory entities. Meanwhile, on modern phones, typing is becoming more convenient: it supports automatic addition of typed words, and in some places a virtual keyboard. Thus, the desire to simplify the life of the user forces him to perform quite a lot of actions for navigating the catalog, which are also not always obvious to the user.

The publication of the application of the United States for invention US 2001/0039517 (the closest analogue of the invention) discloses a method of selling goods and an information system for its implementation. The system, the server of which is managed by the administrator, is connected to users of mobile electronic communication devices, manufacturers and suppliers of goods with their own trading terminals. Mobile electronic communications users, manufacturers, suppliers, and a shopping support server are connected over the Internet.

The provision of information to users in a known analogue system is as follows. Each product is supplied with an individual label with product information. A buyer registered in the system, being in a real store, selects the thing he likes, but does not dare to buy it right away. He enters information about the product from his phone or asks store staff about it, after which, on the shopping site maintained on the system’s server, his personal page is updated for him, which he can access from his phone, reserve the goods if necessary and subsequently initiate the purchase from your phone. In the case of a purchase, information on the balance of the goods in the warehouse is updated automatically.

In contrast to the document GB 2378348 discussed above, the solution disclosed in publication US 2001/0039517 provides for the cataloging of data on similar goods and / or services from alternative sources of goods in databases maintained on a central server of the system.

In addition, US 2001/0039517 allows, on the one hand, users of mobile electronic communication devices to postpone the decision to purchase their favorite product, and on the other hand, it provides automation of the accounting of goods.

However, in a system known from US 2001/0039517, a potential buyer first sees the product he needs in a real store, and then can view information about it on the screen of his phone to make a purchase decision. Thus, in US 2001/0039517 the problem of providing information about goods / services as quickly as possible, which is of interest to users of mobile electronic communication devices, has not been solved, with the minimum participation of manufacturers and suppliers of goods / services, as well as the users themselves and with the maximum use of constantly expanding functionality of mobile electronic communication devices, such as the ability to work with multimedia information.

Given the current development of communication technology and the trends of such development, as well as the above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art, there is a need for information systems for users of mobile electronic communication devices, which:

- would include appropriate technical means of storing and transmitting data from alternative sources of the same type of goods and / or services with the possibility of collecting and centralized storage of unified, detailed and systematized information about goods and / or services, as well as operational automatic updating of such information;

- would work at the regional level, i.e. would cover each of its limited territory with the possibility of integration into a single global information system;

- would support the possibility of full-text search, user queries in the form of graphics,

- they would support modern technologies such as WAP, GPRS, SMS, MMS, Java (deciphered below) and the ability to receive not only text information, but also multimedia elements (audio information, images, video, etc.) on a mobile phone;

- would increase the "interactivity" of the relationship between suppliers and consumers, i.e. would allow the supplier to contact a potential customer, and not only by phone, but using SMS, email, etc.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

To solve the above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art, a method is proposed for providing users of mobile electronic communication devices with information about goods and / or services and their sources using an information system including an information processing and presentation server (OPI) with which at least two alternative a source of the same type of goods and / or services, and from each of these sources, information about the corresponding goods and / or services is being transferred to the server of the OPI, which I catalog and stored on the OPI server, through the gateway of the mobile operator, they accept the user's request for the provision of data of interest to him, in accordance with the user's request, select data from the catalog of information about goods and / or services stored on the OPI server and send this data to the user . The difference of this method lies in the fact that information is transmitted to the server through the external database server through the gateway connecting an external database server, and the transfer of information from the aforementioned external server is carried out automatically as relevant information is updated on it.

In this variant of the method, minimizing the time of updating information in the database of the system, saving the computing resources of suppliers and ensuring the compatibility of the information system used with a wide range of data formats already used by suppliers are provided. It also simplifies the interaction of technical equipment of manufacturers and suppliers with the information system, as large companies, as a rule, already have their own databases, and the proposed method solves the problem of connecting these databases with the database of the OPI server.

The peculiarity of the second variant of the proposed method is that after receiving the request, the user data and his request are stored on the server of the search engine, they search for the requested data in the information stored on the server of the search server, at each subsequent update and each time you find new offers of goods and / or services send search results to the user.

Conducting a search for the data requested by the user with each update of the information on the IPI server minimizes the time required to find and provide the user with the information requested by him. In addition, in this embodiment, the invention optimizes the operation of the information system by eliminating the obviously unsuccessful data searches, which can occur when the time of the search, carried out at a given time interval, falls on a period of time during which the information on the server .

In the next, third, variant of the proposed method, which implements the advantages of the information system used and the wide possibilities of modern and promising means of communication, the feature is that at least one product image is included in the user’s request, and when analyzing the request, the product image contained in the request is compared with the information stored on the server OPI, on the basis of the specified comparison, at least one product corresponding to the image is determined and the related information is sent ation to the mobile device of the user connection.

In this embodiment, the acceleration of providing the user with information about the product of interest to the user is achieved by including an image in the request, which in some situations provides better information and accuracy of the request and the speed of its formation compared to using button input tools when the user can enter incorrect search conditions. The image can be generated by the built-in camera of a mobile phone or obtained from an external source.

At least one image of the product may be additionally included in the information about the goods offered for sale that is transmitted to the server. In this case, when analyzing the user's request, the image of the goods contained in it can be compared with the images stored on the server of the IPI, with the definition of matching and / or similar images. Identified matching and / or similar images may be directed to the user's mobile electronic communications device.

A feature of the fourth variant of the proposed method is that with each node of the catalog a set of attributes is assigned to the goods and / or services located in this node and its subnodes, at least one of the specified attributes provided for goods and / or services of this type include in the information transmitted from the source of the same type of goods and / or services to the server OPI, and also include in the user’s request as a search condition.

The use of attributes in the formation of a catalog of goods and / or services and in the formation of a user request as a search condition is an effective mechanism for the unified collection, search and provision of information and allows you to automate the operation of the server.

In the fifth embodiment, the proposed method realizes a particular advantage of the proposed information system - almost unlimited expansion options by integrating regional systems into the global one. This option involves the use of at least the first and second information systems interconnected by a global computer network and supporting at least one common language, each of these information systems containing an information processing and presentation server (OPI) associated with the operator’s gateway mobile communications and with computers of alternative sources of the same goods and / or services. Information on goods and / or services from at least two alternative sources of the same goods and / or services included in the first and second information systems in the established data format, the received information about the goods, and / or services are cataloged and stored on the server of the OPI of the corresponding information system, through the gateway means of the mobile operator included in the first information system, receive the request of the user of the mobile electronic communication device included in the first information system to provide data of interest to him about goods and / or services offered by the sources included in the second information system, the user request from the server of the first information system is sent to the server of the second information system, in accordance with the user’s request, data is sampled from the catalog of information on goods and / or services stored on the server of the second information system; and direct this data to the user through the server of the first information system OPI and the gateway means of the mobile operator included in the first information system. The applicant does not know analogues of this method.

In special cases of the implementation of the above variants of the method, information from the source of goods and / or services can be transmitted to the server of the IPI through the terminal for manual data entry or through an external database server related to the source of goods and / or services through the gateway connecting an external database server.

In the preferred case, the sources of goods and / or services include producers of goods and suppliers of goods, the data format established for the manufacturer of the goods includes at least the field of the name of the manufacturer of the goods and the field of the category of goods, and the data format established for the supplier of goods includes at least the name field of the supplier of the goods and the price field of the goods.

The data format established for the manufacturer of the goods may additionally include a field of key characteristics of the goods and the field of the warranty period of the goods, and the data format established for the supplier of the goods is the field of the discount provided for the goods. At the same time, information from the manufacturer of the goods can be used information from its general representative or distributor, as information from the supplier of the goods - information from the organization of the retail sale of goods.

A personal computer can be used as a terminal for manual data input, while information about goods and / or services can be transmitted to the server of the OPI through a computer network, in particular, the global computer network Internet.

In a preferred case, information from an external database server can be transferred to the server OPI automatically, in particular, as the relevant information is updated on an external database server.

As a mobile electronic communication device, any of the following devices can be used: a mobile phone, pager or PDA with access to a computer network that supports the display of information received from a computer network, the input of text information and its transmission to a computer network, and access such a device in a computer network can be implemented in accordance with the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) or GPRS (General Packet Radio Service).

Information about goods and / or services may be provided in the form of text and / or graphic data, and / or voice messages.

The cataloging of information about goods and / or services is preferably done by assigning indexes to stored data.

The catalog of information stored on the server of the OPI preferably contains nodes corresponding to the following entities: categories of goods, characteristics of the same type of goods, intervals or individual values of the specified characteristics, specific goods included in the selected group of goods, specific goods found as a result of search, suppliers of a particular product moreover, the user’s request for data is an indication of an element of the catalog node that is currently displayed by the mobile electronic device th communication and the data sent by the user to represent the contents of his chosen node directory.

The user's request may include the search conditions for goods and / or services relative to a given node of the specified directory, formed by entering text information from a mobile electronic communications device. In this case, the data sent to the user can be presented as a part of the catalog that meets the search conditions, or as a linear list of catalog items that satisfy the search conditions.

In the preferred case, the navigation through the catalog of information stored on the server of the OPI, the formation of a user request and receiving information sent to the user on a mobile electronic communication device is carried out by means of an application loaded or preinstalled on a mobile electronic communication device implemented through the application software interface, in particular Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) or Personal Java.

Another object of the invention is an information system of goods and / or services for communication devices, designed to implement the above methods of providing information and containing a server for processing and providing information (OPI) associated with a means of a gateway of a communication operator. The OPI server is also connected to the computers of at least two alternative sources of the same goods and / or services with the ability to receive information from each of these sources and contains an information input unit connected to a communication channel with these sources, a storage unit for information about goods and / or services associated with the information input unit and the information indexing and retrieval unit associated with the information input unit and the storage unit of information about goods and / or services, as well as a means of access for device users in relation to the storage unit of information about products and / or services related to vehicle operator gateway. The difference between the proposed information system and the closest analogue is that the computers of the indicated sources of goods and / or services are made in the form of external database servers and are connected to the OPI server through at least one gateway connecting an external server with the ability to automatically transfer information to the OPI server via as it is updated on an external server.

The carrier’s gateway means is typically a gateway including a base transceiver station and a signal conversion unit.

In a particular embodiment of the invention, the means of access for users of communication devices to a unit for storing information about goods and / or services includes a unit for working with users of communication devices associated with means of a gateway for a communication operator, and a navigation unit for information associated with a unit for storing information about goods and / or services and a unit for working with users of communication devices, the indexing and information retrieval unit comprising a sub-block for indexing stored information associated with the unit in water information and a unit for storing information about goods and / or services, and a full-text search subunit associated with a unit for storing information about goods and / or services and a unit for working with users.

The server OPI may contain a unit for storing user information associated with the unit for working with users of communication devices. In this case, the user information storage unit preferably comprises a memory area for storing user request conditions of communication devices.

The server OPI may also contain a terminal of the operator of the information system associated with the unit for storing information about goods and / or services and the unit for storing information about users.

One of the OPI server implementation options is a local computer network, which contains the following components: (1) a network switching device connected via network cables to the network adapters of the computers on the local network providing switching between any two network computers, (2) a database server having the first and a second read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), the first and second processors, a network adapter connected by an information bus, and (3) at least one working station.

In such a network, a unit for storing information about goods and / or services can be implemented on the first processor and first ROM and maintained using a relational database management system (DBMS), in particular, Oracle 9i, and a unit for storing information about users can be implemented on the second the processor and the second ROM and supported using the specified DBMS, and part of the second ROM can be allocated as a memory area for storing conditions of requests of users of communication devices.

Such a local area network preferably contains several workstations, for example:

- the first workstation that implements an indexing and information retrieval unit supporting a full-text search system, in particular Oracle Text (Oracle InterMedia Text), and containing ROM, random access memory (RAM), first and second processors, a network adapter and an information bus, a sub-block for indexing stored information is implemented on the first processor and the first ROM, and a full-text search sub-block is implemented on the second processor and the second ROM,

- a second workstation that implements a navigation unit for information and contains a processor, RAM, ROM, network adapter and information bus,

- a third workstation that implements an information input unit containing a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus and connected via an additional network adapter to an external computer network,

- a fourth workstation that implements a unit for working with users of communication devices and contains a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus, and connected via an additional network adapter to an external computer network,

- the fifth workstation that implements the terminal of the information system operator and contains a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus, as well as a display and information input devices.

In a most preferred embodiment of the invention, the external computer network is a global computer network, for example, the Internet, to which computers of sources of goods and / or services and means of a gateway of a communication operator are also connected.

Several information systems of the type described above can be combined into a global information system of goods and / or services for mobile electronic communications devices. To do this, it is enough to have at least two information systems interconnected via a global computer network, where the server for processing and providing information (OPI) of each information system must be designed to support at least one language common to the entire global system.

Information systems included in such a global system can be located on the territory of states with different languages. In this case, the OPI server of at least one of these information systems can be made to support an additional language and contain means for translating and / or transliterating information about goods and / or services and their sources from an additional language into a common language, which is preferably English . The applicant is not aware of analogues of such a global system.

In comparison with analogs, the invention for the first time allows users of mobile electronic communication devices to receive relevant information about the same goods and / or services offered by alternative sources of goods and / or services.

Under alternative sources of goods and / or services are understood sources that are at the same level in the economic hierarchy. Mostly (but not necessarily) alternative sources are suppliers of goods, hierarchically closest to consumers of goods, which are users of mobile electronic communications devices. For example, alternative sources in the context of the invention are competing (i.e., offering similar products) retailers or organizations offering similar services. The producer of the goods and the supplier of the goods are not alternatives to each other.

Due to the connection of the OPI server with computers of the sources of goods and / or services, which implements the transfer of information from sources of goods and / or services in a single format, the invention allows using the same type of mechanisms to provide the user of a mobile electronic communication device with the opportunity to view cataloged information about various types of goods and services with text and multimedia information about them, calculated on the features and capabilities of mobile electronic communication devices (text information, image data, sound information, etc., prepared for display by means of mobile electronic communication devices).

The proposed information system is primarily interested in users of mobile communication devices, but not only them.

The system makes it possible to solve the problem of organizing the search for goods and services and where they can be purchased radically: practically in any conditions and at any time of the day, without a computer and wires, using only the most likely the only electronic device that is always with you (mobile phone or PDA), the user can find the necessary product, knowing only in general terms its characteristics, or by the known part of the name, see all the characteristics of the product, information about its manufacturer and already for him known Ovar find suppliers in the region where he is today. At the same time, he will be able to choose a supplier that suits him, both on the basis of comparing the prices of goods of various suppliers, and, if necessary, according to the descriptions of suppliers.

In addition, in a convenient way for the user, the proposed information system will help to contact the suppliers found without extra time. So, with a single click on the phone button, the system allows you to send SMS messages to all found suppliers informing them of this user's interest in a particular product, indicating the user's contact information. Next, the supplier himself will contact the potential customer, making sure in advance that the goods are in stock. Such a mechanism can significantly reduce the time it takes to search for goods from suppliers, and to eliminate the time-consuming process of forming dozens of suppliers.

The interest of companies producing or selling this or that product or offering certain services is obvious: they get a new effective way to advertise their goods and offers and even organize sales. In addition, companies will be able to adjust their pricing policy using a system based on price comparisons with other suppliers. Moreover, they will be encouraged by the fact that end users of the system are able to compare prices for products of the same type from different suppliers. This means that those suppliers whose prices are unreasonably high, will remain the losers and will be forced to lower prices.

Mobile operators are also very interested in such a system, since such a useful system will push their users to use the entire range of communication services, not limited to telephone conversations. That is, services such as WAP, GPRS, MMS, which are not particularly used at present (due to the lack of really important and useful applications based on them), will be in demand by users of the system and will allow mobile operators to receive additional significant income, which , of course, will serve as an impetus to improve the quality of relevant services from telecom operators.

Mobile phone manufacturers are also very interested in the system, since it is on the basis of this application that the difference between the old and new mobile communication devices is clearly visible to the devices they offer: it is on the latest devices that technologies are used (GPRS, Java, large screen, enhanced input convenience) which will make the use of the system especially convenient. Thus, the functionality of the system can be used by telephone manufacturers to advertise their new capabilities, which will accordingly increase sales, as it will encourage users to change old devices to new ones.

On the other hand, for manufacturers who are not seeking to use new technologies in their mobile communication devices, the system will give an impetus to revising their current policies, as the technical imperfection of their phones will become apparent. In the same way, the application of the system will serve as an impetus for the creation and implementation of new technologies in the field of mobile communication devices, which can further enhance the convenience of its use (the presence of potential in this direction is obvious), that is, it will serve as a kind of engine of progress.

List of figures and other materials

Figure 1 - block diagram of the proposed information system.

Figure 2 is a block diagram of a server for processing and providing information.

Figure 3 is a diagram of the interaction of the software of the information system.

4 is a logical model of the data provided by the manufacturer of the goods.

Figure 5 - types of binary data.

6 is a logical model of data on the goods provided by suppliers.

7 is a logical model of data identifying users of the system.

Fig. 8 is a logical model for storing end-user requests.

Fig.9 is a logical model for storing search conditions.

Figure 10 is a logical model for storing information to alert users.

11 is a logical model for storing information about discounts.

12 is a diagram of database tables with information on a catalog of goods and / or services.

13 is a diagram of database tables with user information.

Fig. 14 is a diagram of database tables with sales information.

FIG. 15 is a diagram of database tables with information about stored requests of end users.

Fig is a diagram of the database tables with information regarding the distribution of messages to users.

Fig. 17 is a schematic diagram of database tables with discount information.

Information confirming the possibility of carrying out the invention

The following describes as an example an embodiment of the proposed information system of goods and / or services that implements a method of providing information, as well as technical means that can be used in such an information system.

The proposed information system is presented in figure 1 in the form of a block diagram and includes a server for processing and providing information 1 (OPI), which connects the means for providing information 2 and the means for using information 3.

The means of providing information 2 include technical means (computers or similar means) of sources of information about goods and / or services with which the server of the OPI 1 is associated with the possibility of receiving information from each of these sources in the established format. In the future, with reference to the considered embodiment of the invention, the term “goods” is used, although it should be understood that all the advantages of the system are also achieved with respect to services or goods and services.

In particular, the means of providing information 2 include external database servers 4 of manufacturers and suppliers of goods that store information about the goods and which are connected with the server of the server 1 with the possibility of transmitting this information to the server server 1 preferably through the gateway 5 connecting an external server, and Manual data entry terminals 6 manufacturers and suppliers of goods.

As shown in FIG. 1, the system may include one or more gateways 5 for connecting an external server.

Each such gateway 5 is associated with one or more of the same external servers 4 of one or more suppliers or manufacturers of products. Gateway 5 for connecting an external server can be made in the form of a computer on which software is installed for presenting data in a single format, for example, importing data into a database format supported by the server OPI 1.

External servers 4 and terminals for manual data input 6 can be removed from the server OPI 1 and the corresponding gateway 5 and connected to them, as shown in figure 1, through a computer network, such as the global Internet or local area network. In a preferred embodiment, the external server connection gateway 5 is integrated with or is part of the external server 4.

As can be seen in figure 1, the terminal for manual data input 6 is connected to the server OPI 1 directly, without using any gateway, while the data entered by the operator of the terminal 6 does not need to be processed before entering the server OPI 1.

The means of using information 3 include, as mandatory elements, a gateway means, in particular a gateway 7 of a mobile operator, and mobile electronic communication devices 8, such as mobile phones, pagers or personal digital assistants (Personal Digital Assistant) with access to a computer network, which are associated with the server OPI 1 through the gateway 7 of the mobile operator. Mobile electronic communication devices 8 are connected to the gateway of the communication operator 7 via a wireless data line and support the display of information received from a computer network (i.e., have a screen (display) for displaying information), input text and / or graphic information, and its transmission to a computer network (i.e., they support the ability to exchange electronic information with at least one mobile operator).

In this embodiment, mobile phones are used as mobile electronic communication devices 8. Currently, most well-known models of manufactured mobile phones of various manufacturers support at least the WAP standard and, thus, are compatible with the proposed information system.

The gateway of the communication operator 7 is connected to the server OPI 1 through a computer network, such as the global Internet, and provides a connection server OPI 1 with mobile devices of users, i.e. the transmission of electronic information in both directions between the server OPI 1 and end users, and thus represents a preferred form of the gateway of the mobile operator. Gateway 7, as a rule, includes a base transceiver station of a mobile network and a signal conversion unit that converts signals in the standards supported by mobile phones into standards supported by the OPI server 1. The standards of the first group include Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), Wireless Markup Language (WML), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), developed by Open Mobile Alliance Ltd. (OMA).

The standards of the second group include, for example, HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

Figure 2 presents a block diagram explaining the device of the server for processing and providing information (OPI) 1. The server OPI 1 is a central element of the system and is a hardware and software package that has the following components at the functional level:

1. Information input unit 9, connected to a communication channel with manufacturers and suppliers with the ability to collect information about goods from their suppliers and manufacturers, classify the received information on goods, process information to further store information in the information storage unit with regard to certain restrictions.

2. A unit for storing information about goods / services 10, associated with an input unit for information 9, with the possibility of storing information about goods (and / or services) in accordance with their types in the areas of memory managed and structured by the system, as well as information about manufacturers and suppliers .

3. An indexing and information retrieval unit 11 associated with an information input unit 9 and a product / service information storage unit 10 with the possibility of maintaining (manufacturing and timely updating when new information arrives, updating and deleting old) special memory structures (indices) to provide quick search and access to information for users of mobile phones 8 (using the mentioned indices).

4. The unit for working with users (communication devices) 12, associated with the gateway of the telecommunications operator 7, providing mobile phone users with access to information stored and managed by the system using special data exchange protocols with gateways of mobile operators.

5. The information navigation unit 13 associated with the storage unit for information on goods / services 10 and the unit for working with users of communication devices 12, providing users with navigation on information about products structured according to their types (ie, catalog navigation )

6. A block for storing information about users 14 associated with a block for working with users of communication devices 12 with the possibility of storing information about users of the system in the areas of memory managed and structured by the system.

7. The terminal of the operator of the information system 15 associated with the unit for storing information about goods / services 10 and the unit for storing information about users 14 with the possibility of administering the system in terms of accounting for users, accounting for suppliers / manufacturers working with the system, and managing the structure of the system’s catalog ( i.e. organization of a hierarchical division of goods into categories).

From the point of view of increasing the efficiency of the system (and, accordingly, to ensure an adequate response of the system to requests from users of mobile phones), the operation of the above components of the OPI server 1 is as parallel as possible, for example, by using a separate computer for each of the components of the OPI server 1 ( workstation).

From this point of view, the indexing and information retrieval unit 11 comprises a subunit for indexing stored information 16 associated with the information input unit 9 and the goods / services information storage unit 10, and a full-text search subunit 17 associated with the goods / services information storage unit 10 and block work with users 12, as shown in figure 2. Such a division is provided, since it is very important to “untie” the indexing of newly received information from suppliers / manufacturers and, in fact, search for information for users using previously prepared indexes: the availability and speed of such a search should not depend on the current processing of input information. Although in low-cost system implementations (for example, serving a small number of customers) these two subunits can be combined.

In addition, it is important to provide effective simultaneous access to disk drives of both subunits that work with indexes — the indexing subunit and the full-text search subunit. For this, a modern autonomous RAID system (a matrix of independent disk drives with redundancy) can be used with parallel connection of workstations corresponding to these components to it. In this case, the server OPI 1 can be implemented as a local computer network containing the following components:

- a network switching device connected via network cables to the network adapters of the computers on the local network, providing switching between any two computers on the network,

a database server having first and second read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), first and second processors, a network adapter connected by an information bus, and

- at least one workstation.

In this case, the unit for storing information about goods / services 10 is implemented on the first processor and the first ROM and is supported using a relational database management system (DBMS), in particular Oracle 9i, and the unit for storing information about users 14 is implemented on the second processor and second ROM and is supported using the specified DBMS, and part of the second ROM is allocated as a memory area for storing the conditions of requests of users of mobile phones.

To ensure high-quality and fast switching between all workstations and the database server, it is advisable to use network cards and cables of at least category 5 (100 Mbit / s).

The local network may contain the following workstations:

- the first workstation that implements the indexing and information retrieval unit 11, supporting a full-text search system, in particular Oracle Text (Oracle InterMedia Text) and containing ROM, random access memory (RAM), the first and second processors, a network adapter and an information bus, the indexing indexing unit of the stored information 16 is implemented on the first processor and the first ROM, and the full-text search subunit 17 is implemented on the second processor and the second ROM,

- a second workstation that implements a navigation unit for information 13 and contains a processor, RAM, ROM, network adapter and information bus,

- a third workstation that implements an information input unit 9, comprising a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus, and connected via an additional network adapter to an external computer network,

- a fourth workstation that implements a unit for working with users of communication devices 12 and contains a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus, and connected via an additional network adapter to an external computer network,

- the fifth workstation that implements the terminal of the operator of the information system 15 and contains a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus, as well as a display and information input devices.

In this case, the external computer network is the global computer network (Internet), to which computers of the sources of goods and / or services and the gateway of the telecom operator 7 are connected using HTTP protocols (for connecting the server of OPI 1 to suppliers and manufacturers of products, as well as to Internet terminals ) and WAP (for communication between the OPI server 1 and the gateway of the mobile operator 7, which further provides information on users' mobile phones). Actually the user interfaces for all these users who work with the system via the Internet are implemented in an obvious way for specialists using such tools as HTML, Java, Java script, WML and SOAP.

The information input unit 9 is connected to the goods source computers via HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) which are W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) standards, the user interface for the manual data input terminal working with the information input unit is implemented using the Java language from SUN Microsystems.

The system operator terminal 15 is connected to the database server via HTTP and SOAP. The operator’s user interface, which allows the system operator to administer the contents of the API server 1, is implemented using the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Java, and Java Script.

The unit for working with users of communication devices 12 is connected to the gateway of the mobile operator 7 via WAP protocol, and the user interface for users of mobile electronic communication devices is made using the Wireless Markup Language (WML).

Logical data model and database schema working in the information system

As shown in figure 3, the logic of data storage and processing is implemented in the form of a set of software components integrated into a single block Application Server. An Application Server using the JDBC protocol (Java Data Base Connectivity - a protocol for running Java applications with a database) works with the relational Database Management System (DBMS) and all higher-level application services are implemented without reference to a specific DBMS. The specified Application Server and DBMS are the software component of the implementation of the previously described block for storing information about goods and services, as well as a block for storing information about users.

All parts of the information system that implement the user interface of the system, such as the WWW (World Wide Web) application serving both mobile phones and PDAs that support WAP (WAP devices), and users connected to the system via Internet terminals (WWW clients), users mobile phones and PDAs that support J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) (J2ME clients), and Graphical User Interface clients (GUI clients) work with the Application Server interface and do not know how a particular data storage scheme is organized. The Application Server is a set of software packages implemented using the Java platform J2SE (Java 2 Standard Edition) 1.4 by SUN Microsystems. The Application Server provides access to its functionality both directly (by calling methods within a single Java application), and through services that use SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) technology implemented as part of a WWW application to communicate with clients.

The WWW application uses the Jakarta Tomcat WWW application server, which is now the industry standard for developing WWW applications.

Client GUI applications implemented using Java technology using the standard Java Swing library interact with the server using the SOAP protocol.

SOAP is an XML-based communication protocol (extended Markup Language) that allows software components and applications to communicate using the standard Internet Protocol Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). To implement the approach, for example, the Sun Microsystems SOAP implementation of the Java Web Services Development Pack can be used.

Thanks to the use of SOAP technology, it is possible to work with the server remotely, and not necessarily directly, but also through an HTTP intermediary (proxy).

However, it is important to note that the work of J2ME applications with the Application Server using the SOAP protocol is currently impossible, because Processing SOAP requests requires heavy components such as an XML parser and an XML validator. These components cannot be placed in the device’s small J2ME memory. For this reason, to work specifically with J2ME devices, our own lightweight remote procedure call (RPC) service is implemented, which, according to the description of the program interface, creates objects that make method calls to this interface using the HTTP protocol. The implementation of this service is framed as a shell application, as indicated in FIG. 3. So, it is through such a shell application J2ME that the application has the ability to work with the Application Server.

Note that the above WWW application and GUI applications are a software component of the implementation of the following system components described above: an information input unit, a user interaction unit, an information navigation unit, and a system operator terminal. The J2ME application and the wrapper application are part of the implementation of the user unit.

Further, the main entities (objects) of the database (DB) of the system are considered without regard to such details as a complete set of attributes of a particular entity, identifiers and other technical details. On all the figures referenced below, describing the logical model of information storage, the indication of each entity consists of three elements: the name of the entity, the set of the most significant fields and the set of selected operations on this entity.

It should be noted that all the descriptions of objects, tables, fields (columns) and operations on objects (tables) below are oriented to work with the generally accepted SQL language of relational databases (Structured Query Language) and the most common programming languages, such as Java, C, C ++ and so on. All of these programming languages are English-speaking and allow you to specify the entities of interest to us exclusively using the Latin alphabet. In this regard, the names of all entities are given in English.

The end user of the system (such as both mobile phone users and manufacturers with suppliers) works with a catalog, which is a tree of categories that contain products. To store and represent the tree, the Node entity (tree node) is used.

Directory nodes have a set of NodeInfo structures (node information) associated with them that store information intended for display to the user, such as name (name) and description (description). This is done in order to support multi-language versions of the system.

Clients receive the values of the name and description fields by calling the getName () and getDescription () methods on the Node object and passing as an argument information about which language to return the result in.

Each node of the catalog can be associated with a set of attributes (Attribute), which receive products located in this node, as well as in its subnodes. The result is a design similar to the type system in traditional programming languages. By creating a node inside another node of the hierarchy, we automatically get the opportunity to determine the values for the attributes of the node itself and all its parent nodes on products created inside this node.

A set of standard attributes, such as "name", "warranty", etc., is placed on the root node of the catalog so that manufacturers can identify it on any of their products.

As shown in figure 4, the products (Product) have a link to the manufacturer (Manufacturer), as well as a set of attribute values. Attributes can be of the following types:

String (ValueString)

Number (ValueNumber)

Date (ValueDate)

Enumerated type (ValueEnum)

BLOB (binary large object) - (ValueBlob)

String type attributes store attribute values for different languages, which allows supporting multilingual interfaces. The value of the string attribute for a particular language is obtained by calling the getValue () method, specifying the required language (locale) as an argument.

An enumerated type (ValueEnum) is intended to store values that are selected from a list of valid values.

A similar type is constructed as follows: with each of the Node attributes that are of type Enum, a set of values is stored that are stored in the dictionary. The value of a product attribute can be one of the values listed in the dictionary of the corresponding type.

Types of binary data are presented in FIG. Attributes of type ValueBlob allow you to store arbitrary arrays of binary data, i.e. arbitrary files. Thanks to this, it is possible to use libraries for working with multimedia (sound, images, video) and work with binary data in a more "intelligent" way. Thanks to standard libraries, such types of multimedia data are supported as image (Valuelmage), sound (ValueSound). It is also possible to support ValueMovie (for storing video in AVI or MOV formats) and ValueFlashMovie for storing videos in Flash format. This will allow product manufacturers to publish in the catalog the most complete information about their products.

It should be noted that the presence of the contentType field on the attribute (Attribute is meta-information for Value) allows you to store almost any data in the catalog, such as PDF documents (containing a user manual for the product or a detailed specification) or Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

The directory structure does not impose any special restrictions on the types of data stored in it, and it is possible to implement any mechanism that will be supported on the client side.

Presentation in the database of trade offers from suppliers is reflected in Fig.6. One of the categories of users of the system are suppliers. Suppliers do not have the right to edit the catalog itself (products and their attributes), but can place offers on the system for selling products from the catalog.

Attributes of the offer are price, number of products sold. In addition, an offer is associated with an array of objects of type Salelnfo, in which, for different languages used in the system, a description of the supplier’s offer (description) and a description of the warranty obligations of the supplier are stored.

The system supports 3 types of users (Fig. 7):

End user (EndUser) - accesses the system’s website via a mobile phone or PDA or Internet browser and can look at the catalog, search for goods and offers for the sale of goods and / or services. Depending on how the user interacts with the system, he can be either an Internet user (WebUser) (i.e., work with the system using an Internet browser), or a mobile user (MobileUser) (i.e. use one or another mobile device connected to the cellular network).

Manufacturer - works with the product catalog, can create product descriptions, edit and delete previously created descriptions. It is assumed that the role of the manufacturer can be either the product manufacturer itself, or its official representative or dealer.

Supplier (seller, Supplier) - may formulate offers for the sale of goods. It does not have the right to edit the products themselves (their attributes).

Session mechanism is used to identify Internet users (WebUser). Each such user who is currently working in the system is identified by the session number (sessionid).

Users logging into the system from mobile devices (MobileUser) can be identified using a unique SIM card number, which is issued to a person by his mobile operator.

The user of the mobile phone has the ability to create "interest" (Interest) to the product of interest to him (Product) or a group of products (Fig.8). "Interest" is a kind of "pending" search request, which the user places in the database and then receives an alert when a product or offer appears in the database that matches the request.

In order to create interest in a specific product, the connection between Interest and Product is used. At the same time, the amount (price) and price (price) fields of Interest contain information about what requirements for the price and quantity of goods the buyer has.

In order to create interest not in a specific product, but in a group of products, a SearchContext object (search context) is used that contains a set of conditions for attributes (Condition). In addition, the SeachContext object has a fullTextPattern field (full-text template), which is used to specify a query not to a specific attribute, but to search by substring inside all attributes.

A search term is a set of conditions that apply to attributes. Work with the search conditions is shown in Fig.9. Also, the search condition can be limited by the set of manufacturers (the relationship between Manufacturer and SearchContext), the set of suppliers (the relationship between Supplier and SearchContext) and the set of catalog nodes in which (recursively) you should search for products.

The Condition condition may, depending on the type of attribute, be a condition on the string attribute ConditionString, a condition on the numerical attribute ConditionNumber, and a condition on the date of the ConditionDate.

ConditionString is a string to compare with the attribute value. In addition, it allows the locale field to indicate which language version of the directory to search.

ConditionNumber specifies the maximum and minimum acceptable values for an attribute that will satisfy the search conditions.

ConditionDate defines the maximum and minimum dates.

User notification is reflected in figure 10. The system allows you to notify users in the event of an event. For example, in the case when one of the end users of the system expresses an interest in a certain product, organizations - suppliers of this product may receive a special message from the system with information about who, in what quantities and at what price wants to buy the specified product.

When sending messages, the user uses the Message type, which in turn can be either MessageSMS, or MessageMail, or MessageOnSite.

MessageSMS - a message sent to a mobile phone.

MessageMail - a message sent by e-mail (email). May contain an additional attribute Subject - the subject of the letter.

MessageOnSite - the system server has the ability to read and send messages through the WAP or J2ME interface.

The way in which the system user can receive messages is determined by the values of the corresponding flags included in the NotificationType structure (notification type) associated with the user:

acceptEmail, if defined, sets the email address to which the user receives emails;

acceptSMS sets the phone number of the mobile device to which the user receives SMS messages;

acceptOnSite determines whether the user receives messages that he can view through the system’s WAP interface.

The system supports a mechanism for providing customers with discounts (Fig. 11). The subject of a discount can be either a set of offers for sale (Sale), or a set of products (Product), or a set of catalog nodes (Node).

Discounts are of the following types:

DiscountPeriod - a time-oriented discount. It is provided to all end users who buy goods in a certain period of time. Defines additional attributes start (start) and stop (end) that specify that time interval;

DiscountCard - discount on a discount card - a discount is provided if the buyer presents a discount card upon purchase;

DiscountSysUser - discount for users of the system - provided if the product was purchased using the System.

Each of the Discount objects has a getDiscount () method, which, based on the arguments passed, decides how much the discount is provided to the client. For example, at a DiscountCard, the amount of the discount may vary depending on the type of credit card.

On Fig presents a physical database diagram that implements the above logical model for storing data catalog of goods and / or services.

Hereinafter, in all referenced figures describing the physical layout of the database, the designation of each database table consists of three elements: the name of the table, the set of its key fields (columns), and the rest of the table fields.

Directory nodes are stored in the TNode table. The relationship of the TNode table with itself between the fields (columns) of nodeld and parentld is made to store catalog nodes as a hierarchical structure.

The TNodelnfo table contains information about the directory nodes that are displayed to users. This information such as name (name) and description (description) for each of the languages supported by the system (locale).

The TAttribute table contains information about the attributes associated with the catalog nodes. The value of the type field determines what type this attribute is (numeric, string, date, enumerated, or BLOB - blob). The contentType field is used for attributes of type BLOB and specifies in more detail what kind of binary data this attribute represents.

The TDictionary table stores the sets of values that are valid for attribute values of an enumerated type.

The TManufacturer table contains vendor information. Data such as login name, password and other information specific to any user of the system are stored in another table - this will be described below.

TProduct table contains products. The product has features such as the manufacturer (manufacturerld) and the catalog node that contains the product (nodeld).

The TAttrValue table stores the product attribute values. Values, depending on their type, are stored in the fields valueString, valueNumeric, etc. The locale field of the TAttrValue table allows you to specify what language the attribute value is specified for (used with string attributes).

Example: In order to create an “electronics” catalog node in the system, you need to put an entry in the TNode table whose nodeld field value is, for example, 23, and then put an entry with the following field values in the TNodelnfo table for the Russian version of the system: nodeld = 23, locale = "RU", name = "Electronics", description = "Description of the Electronics section", and for the English version of the system put an entry that has nodeld = 23, locale = "EN", name = "Electronics" , description = "Electronics description".

Example: in order to bind the string attribute "power consumption" to the node of the "electronics" catalog, you need to create an entry in the table TAttribute with nodeld = 23, name = "wattage", type = <constant value corresponding to the numerical type>.

Example: in order to create the product “RX-CT-800 tape recorder” manufactured by Panasonic in the catalog in the electronics node, you must first create in the manufacturer’s database, which, for example, will have manufacturerld = 115, and then to the TProduct table put an entry with manufacturerld = 115, nodeld = 23 (the identifier of the electronics catalog node). After that, in the table TAttrValue it is necessary to place records containing information on the model name and other characteristics of the product.

As already mentioned in the description of the logical data model, there are 3 types of system users: end users, suppliers and manufacturers.

Information about all users of the system is contained in the table TGenericClient (Fig.13). It stores the login name (login), password (password), user name (name), his email address (email), phone number, type of notification received by the user.

Information about what type of specific user is stored in one of the tables TEndUser, TSupplier, T Manufacturer.

Example: when registering in the Panasonic manufacturer’s system, an entry with login = Panasonic, rassword = <password value>, name = "Matsushita Inc." appears in the TGenericClient table, and an entry appears in the TManufacturer table whose clientid is equal to the clientid field value of the corresponding record from the TGenericClient table.

To store information about offers for the sale of products from the catalog, the tables TSale and TSalelnfo are used (Fig. 14). The TSale table contains information on the price and quantity (if indicated) of goods available from the supplier. The TSale table contains lines displayed by users with a description of the offer (description) and a description of the warranty obligations that the seller assumes. Descriptions in TSalelnfo are stored for each locale supported by the system.

Example: if there is a supplier in the system with an identifier, for example, 121, as well as a product with an identifier of 715, then in order for the system to offer to sell this product, in the TSale table, put an entry with supplierld = 121, productld = 715, and the values of the fields amount (quantity) and price (price) correspond to the quantity and price in the proposal.

The interests of clients are stored in the table TInterest (Fig.15). If interest is an interest in a product, then the productid field is used, which reflects the relationship between products and interests. If interest is a “pending search query,” then the relationship between the TInterest and TSearchContext tables in the searchContextld field is used.

The fields amount (quantity) and price (price) of the TInterest table store information on how much and at what price the customer wants to buy something.

The TSearchContext table stores information about search terms. The fullTextPattern field contains a string that will be compared with the text attributes of products determined by the value of the fullTextTarget field. A product will satisfy the search conditions if at least one of its specified attributes matches (includes) a string in fullTextPattern. Thus, it is possible to search both in all textual information describing products and in its specific elements (for example, only by name or only by characteristics, or only by description, etc.)

Attribute conditions are stored in the TSearchCondition table. It stores the attribute identifier (attributeld) to which the condition applies, as well as restrictions on the values that are used depending on what type of attribute. In the case of numerical attributes, the conditions numberMax and numberMin are used, which specify the upper and lower bounds for the attribute values. For attributes that store dates, dateMax and dateMin are used. To set the restriction on attributes that store strings, the textPattern field is used.

The list of catalog nodes that are searched is stored in the TSearchNodes table.

The list of manufacturers whose products are of interest to the user is stored in the TSearchManufacturers table.

The list of suppliers whose proposals will be reviewed by the user is stored in the TSearchManufacturers table.

Example: to create a user with ld = 45 interest in a product with identifier 715, the table TInterest will contain an entry with productld = 715, endUserld = 45, and the fields amount and price will contain the number of products and the maximum price that interest the user.

Example: to create a user with endUserld = 45 interest, which is a query for the word "TV" and at a price not exceeding $ 100, you need to put an entry with fullTextPattern = "TV" in the TSearchContext table. Suppose this entry has scontextld = 123. Then in TInterest you need to put an entry with endUserld = 45, searchContextld = 123 and price = 100.

Example: In order to add such a restriction to the request from the previous example, the value of the diagonal attribute must be more than 14 inches. To do this, find the entry in the TAttribute table corresponding to the diagonal attribute. Let's say this entry with attributeld = 68. After that, you need to find in the TSearchContext table the record corresponding to our search query (remember that it has the identifier 123). Now, in the TSearchCondition table, you need to place an entry with contextld = 123, attributeld = 68, numberMin = 14 (this is if the attribute is numeric and the diagonal size is measured in inches).

Example: in order to narrow the search area to a specific directory area in the previous example, for example, a node with nodeld = 17, you need to put an entry with nodeld = 17, contextld = 123 in the TSearchNodes table.

Example: in order to narrow the search area in the previous examples to a specific manufacturer of products, which, for example, has manufacturerld = 53, you need to put an entry with manufacturerld = 53, contextld = 123 in the TSearchManufacturers table.

Example: in order to narrow the search area in the previous examples to a specific supplier, which, for example, has supplierld = 37, you need to put an entry with supplierld = 37, contextld = 123 in the TSearchSuppliers table.

To store messages that the system sends to users, the TMessage table is used (Fig. 16).

The recepientld and senderld fields of the specified table store the identifiers of the recipient and sender of the message (if the message is sent by the system, the senderld field remains empty).

The messageSMS field contains the texts of SMS messages.

The messageMailSubj field contains the subject lines of e-mail messages.

The messageMailText field contains the texts of messages sent by e-mail.

The messageSys field contains message texts that the user can read on the "system site" using an Internet terminal, WAP device, or J2ME device.

The isSent field determines whether a message has been sent to the user.

The isRead field determines whether the message was read by the user (in the case of an SMS message, the value of this field can become “true” when a message was received from the carrier’s gateway that the SMS message was delivered to the recipient).

Example: in order to create a message that a user with an identifier, for example, recepientld = 193 will receive by e-mail, you need to create an entry in the TMessage table with recepientld = 193, messageMailSubj and messageMailText will contain the subject and text of the message. First, isSent must be false ("false"). After sending the letter, the system will automatically make isSent = true ("true").

Example: in order to create a message that a user with an identifier, for example, recepientld = 217 will receive via SMS, you need to create an entry in the TMessage table with recepientld = 217, messageSMS, equal to the text of the message.

Example: in order to create a message that a user with an identifier, for example, recepientld = 153 can read through the interface provided by the system, you need to create an entry in the TMessage table with recepientld = 217, messageSys, equal to the text of the message.

The database stores only the most general discount information. Determination of a specific discount amount can be realized, for example, in the form of calling an external software module or executing a query on an external database (for example, in the case when you need to check the number of the discount card, if the manufacturer or supplier issues license plate cards).

The TDiscount table (FIG. 17) stores records corresponding to discounts.

The percent field determines the percentage discount.

The discountType field determines the type of discount (by date, by discount card, or by the fact that the customer orders the goods through the system).

In the event that the discount is provided only for a certain period of time (the so-called temporary discount), the start and end dates of such a discount season are stored in the fields dateStart and dateStop.

The tables TDiscountSale, TDiscountProduct, TDiscountNode are used to store the relationship between the discount itself and the entity to which the discount is attached.

Discounts can be tied to products (TDiscountProduct) - for example, "buy a Siemens C25 phone now! 30% cheaper!".

Discounts can be tied to entire catalog nodes (TDiscountNode), for example, "buying a TV through our system, you get a 20% discount."

Discounts can be tied to specific offers of goods (TDiscountSale), for example, "Byron Khoronyuk provides a discount on Panasonic RX-CT800 radio tape recorders".

Example: In order to indicate a temporary discount of 20%, which will be valid from December 15, 2003 to January 20, 2004 and relating to a certain group of products with identifiers N1 ... Nm, you need to put an entry in the TDiscount table with percent = 20, discountType corresponds to a temporary discount, dateStart = "December 15, 2003", dateStop = "January 20, 2004". Let's say discountld = 31 for this record. After that, for each of the product identifiers N1 ... Nm, in the TDiscountProduct table, insert an entry with discountld = 31, productld = Ni.

Example: In order to indicate a 5% discount, which will be a discount on a discount card that applies to all products within a certain group of catalog nodes with identifiers N1 ... Nm, you must put in the TDiscount table an entry with percent = 20 , discountType corresponds to a discount on a discount card. Suppose this entry has discountld = 43. After that, for each of the identifiers of the catalog nodes N1 ... Nm, in the TDiscountNode table, insert an entry with discounted = 43, productld = Ni.

Description of the proposed information system

1. The formation of the catalog of goods / services

In the considered embodiment of the system, sources of information about goods and / or services are: producer of goods and alternative suppliers of these goods. A prerequisite is the presence of at least two alternative sources of information in the system, and, for example, the manufacturer’s official representative office or the selected supplier of goods of the real manufacturer, who is better than others in the real properties of the goods and considers it important to provide reliable information to the information system product information.

In the proposed information system, there are two main options for providing information to the server OPI 1:

Option 1 - through an external database server 4 and gateway 5 to connect an external database server (DB). As sources of information, the information system can use any servers for storing and processing information about products used internally by the respective companies wishing to provide information to the information system. Such servers are called external in the application.

Data on goods and / or services are preferably stored in the storage device of the external server 4 of the supplier or manufacturer database and are updated as necessary. Preferably, each time the database is updated, the external server 4 automatically forwards the changes grouped into the data file to the external server connection gateway 5, processing the data and converting it into a format that can be cataloged by the server OPI 1. An alternative is to transmit information at certain intervals , regardless of its update.

Gateway 5 for connecting an external database server is provided due to the fact that the information system is focused on arbitrary companies - information providers with an arbitrary structure and format for their database, to provide a unified scheme for working with information within the information system itself, for connecting such external database servers to the central server of the information system, i.e. OPI server 1. After connecting your own database using such a gateway to the OPI server, the supplier or manufacturer will no longer need to take any further actions to provide information to the information system, because All information will be automatically provided through the gateway.

2nd option - through the terminal for manual data entry. For small companies that manufacture or supply some products, it may be more convenient to manually maintain their own information on the server. For this, a manual data input terminal 6 is used, for example, a computer equipped with data input means (keyboard) and connected to a computer network via a network adapter or modem. With the help of such a terminal, all the above information from suppliers and manufacturers is maintained manually by the relevant persons responsible for this from the companies and transferred directly to the server of OPI 1.

It should also be noted that each supplier / manufacturer can be connected to the information system using one of these options or using both.

The data format established for the producer of the goods includes at least the field of the name of the producer of the goods and the field of the category of the goods, and for the supplier of the goods - at least the field of the name of the supplier of the goods and the price field of the goods. Additionally, the data format established for the manufacturer of the product includes a field of key characteristics of the product and the field of the warranty period of the product, and the data format established for the supplier of the product additionally includes a field of discounts on the product. In addition, the data format established for the supplier of the goods includes a special discount provided only to users of mobile phones included in the information system, and this discount is realized upon presentation of a mobile phone to the supplier of the goods, which displays information about the discount.

On the server of the OPI 1, the data enters the information input unit 9, which refers to the indexing subunit of the stored information 16, which generates indexes to provide quick access to the data and stores them in its own ROM and at the same time also transfers them to the full-text search subunit 17, where they are stored in the corresponding ROM (as indicated above, the data indexing and search functions are implemented by independent processors and ROMs of the first workstation). In the unit for storing information about goods / services 10, all incoming information is stored in a form convenient for further display on the displays of mobile electronic communication devices 8 (in particular, the fact that the possibilities for displaying visual information on the displays of such devices is significantly limited).

Indexed data is transmitted by the information input unit 9 to the information / product information storage unit 10.

2. Catalog navigation

As a function common to all options, the system supports viewing information about goods and / or services, that is, a mobile phone user can sort and scroll through the contents of the catalog node that he selects (alphabetically, ascending or descending average price, if applicable). At the same time, it is often necessary to work with the list in parts (with the first and last special elements such as “continue” and “return”) due to restrictions on the phone length of the lists (or the amount of information in the lists).

For this, the user of the mobile electronic communication device 8 enters the server OPI 1 through the gateway of the telecom operator 7. If the user is not yet registered in the information system, the user interface 12 transfers the user identification information to the user information storage unit 14. In the directory navigation mode the information navigation unit 13 provides access to the database of goods / services of the storage unit for information on goods / services 10 with the possibility of displaying electronic communication on the display of the mobile device 8 information, structured by commands entered, for example, using the buttons of a mobile electronic communication device 8.

The user of the mobile electronic communication device 8 with the server OPI 1 can be provided by a loadable Java 2ME application that the user can download to his communication device from the WAP server (implemented by the unit for working with users of communication devices 12).

The connection of the gateway of the telecom operator 7 with the mobile electronic communication devices of 8 (telephones) of users can be achieved using well-known means of wirelessly connecting mobile telephones to the Internet, such as WAP and all major mobile operators, both in Russia and abroad GPRS Telecommunications operators have already implemented special gateways for pairing mobile phones with WAP sites on the Internet. At the same time, WML (a well-known variation of HTML, specially designed for working with mobile phones) can be used as a means (language) of data transmission over such a connection.

Thus, in practice, to ensure communication between the OPI server 1 and users of mobile electronic communication devices 8 (telephones), it is only necessary to implement the corresponding WAP site that provides access to the functionality of the proposed information system (navigation through the product catalog, search for goods, manufacturers or suppliers, direction SMS messages to suppliers, registration in the information system of interest in certain products, etc.) using the WML language. In this case, the end user only needs to connect on his mobile electronic communication device 8 (telephone) to a similar site through the gateway 7 of his telecom operator. It is important to note that the participation of the telecom operator itself is not required in this process.

For example, in Russia this is possible, at least for such operators as MTS, Beeline and Megafon, their users only need to have a mobile phone with WAP support. At present, at least 80% of phone models sold in Russia and abroad have such functionality (only the most low-cost phones deprive their users of the ability to access the Internet using WAP).

Thus, a significant part of mobile phone users in Russia and abroad already have the opportunity to directly work with the proposed system from their mobile phones.

With the support of new technologies, such as GPRS, MMS, Java, the emergence of new features, such as displaying information on a larger screen, simplified input of information (both using automatic word completion systems, and using the virtual keyboard), etc., modern mobile phones are becoming more convenient for working with an information system directly from a mobile phone (without the help of an operator, in particular a voice service operator).

Among such mobile phones on which the electronic version of the system will be most convenient for users, it is worth highlighting the following:

Sony Ericsson P800 (GPRS, MMS, Java, Personal Java, screen 208 × 320);

Nokia 3650 (GPRS, MMS, Java, Personal Java, screen 176 × 208);

Nokia 3595 (GPRS, MMS, Java);

Nokia 7650 (GPRS, Java, screen 176 × 208);

Samsung SGH-S100 (GPRS, Java, 128 × 160 screen);

Motorola V600 (GPRS, MMS, Java, 120 × 160 screen);

Sharp GX1, GX10 (GPRS, MMS, Java, 120 × 160 screen);

Panasonic GD87 (GPRS, MMS, Java, screen 120 × 160);

LG G8000 (GPRS, MMS, Java, screen 176 × 220);

NEC e525, N8 (GPRS, MMS, 162 × 216 screen).

In phones that support J2ME, in accordance with the specification of the latter, there must be some memory available for Java applets (Java applications). This memory should be used for the needs of storing information about the user and his preferences (settings) in the system and caching information (both the directory structure and product descriptions previously received in the system by the telephone user).

At the same time, depending on the configuration values set by the user (or by default), caching can be either completely implicit (with deletion of the most unused information for a shortage of memory) or explicit. The latter implies that on the page of any product, manufacturer or supplier (or on a separate page of options for them) the option “save” can be provided. At the same time, for structured information about the above entities, there should be a choice of which specific part of the information should be stored. Obviously, when explicitly saving data, the user should also be able to explicitly delete part of the previously saved information when the available space for the system is not enough to save new data (of course, first of all, you need to check if there is enough space available for the system to save the current selected data; if not, an error and please select a part of the information.) It is also important to provide the ability to view previously saved information through the system itself even when the telephone ligature is not available (metro, plane, etc.).

Of the above phone models, the P800 SonyEricsson model is currently particularly promising for use in the system: it has a touch screen, stylus (pen), large memory capacity with expandable memory cards, good computing capabilities, and the largest color screen for mobile phones , supports WAP, GPRS, J2ME, PersonalJava and has a built-in digital camera.

As for handheld computers (PDAs), any of them with a communicator function is very well suited to work directly with the system from the very beginning. This is due to the fact that on such devices the screen is large enough and user input is very convenient. Although, it is important to note that due to the much larger size, such devices are much less popular compared to mobile phones. Therefore, the main potential users of the system should be mobile phone users.

Among the devices of handheld computers (PDA with communicator functions), with which users can work with the system, it should be noted:

Nokia 9210, 9210i, 9290 (Java, Personal Java, 640 × 200 screen);

Motorola Accompli 008 (GPRS, Java, 240 × 320 screen);

Motorola Accompli 008 (GPRS, Java, 240 × 160 screen);

Motorola A388 (GPRS, Java, 240 × 320 screen);

Blackberry 5810, 5820 (GPRS, Java, 160 × 160 screen).

When navigating the catalog within a specific type of goods (for example, “computers”, “cars”, “household appliances”), it should be possible to go to the suppliers of such products and the products themselves. The same goes for any of the following levels. For example, in the “TVs” section, you can specify the transition to work with suppliers of any TVs (search by the name of the TV suppliers or view all of them), the same for brands (manufacturers), as well as the criteria for classifying TVs at the next level catalog: screen size (at the next level there will be options up to 21 ", 21" -30 ", more than 30"), format (with a square (3 × 4) or wide screen), type of device (picture tube, plasma, projection, etc.) d.).

It is advisable to place links to suppliers and manufacturers at the end of the list of options for each node in the catalog, since it is very likely that the mobile phone user knows what type of product he is interested in, that is, he most likely will use the criteria.

For suppliers and manufacturers (in the software of the terminal for manual data entry of the system), the current catalog structure can be displayed both for making suggestions on the structure (forwarded to the system operator) and for entering product data into the corresponding catalog nodes.

It should be noted that in the above example with TVs, information about TVs should be presented and edited in the “TVs” node, but for each of them the manufacturer should specify certain properties from the list (plus, possibly, other properties by which there is no classification in the catalog - at the discretion of the manufacturer; all such additional properties will be available for search in the "other properties" section of the "TVs" node of the catalog).

3. Search and maintenance of user interests

An additional and very useful functionality of the proposed information system is the search for goods by entering search conditions from a mobile phone and remembering the search conditions on the server OPI 1, in particular in its user information storage unit 14.

The user information storage unit 14 may additionally store the user's personal information (for communication with the supplier), information about the priorities of each user in the system (for example, which elements of the system’s catalog are most interesting), registered interest in certain products (for automatic receipt notifications when they become available or cheaper than a certain value), etc.

A mobile phone user can create and memorize in the system a certain wording (“interest”) of which product the user is interested in, however, at the moment it cannot be found, or there are currently no product offers with properties of interest to the user (for example, all offers are too high for user price or wrong color, or insufficient warranty, etc.).

As part of this method of providing information through the gateway of the mobile operator 7, a user request is received to search for the data of interest to him, and the search conditions must contain at least the category of goods. The search terms may also include: product model, product price limit, product property, product manufacturer, warranty period, discounts, etc. Accordingly, the request is searched for the requested data by comparing the information stored on the server OPI 1, with the search conditions, and the search results are sent to the user. The specified search is carried out by a sub-block of full-text search 17, referring to the storage unit of information about goods / services 10 based on indices for quick search of relevant data.

A similar mechanism will be in demand by users usually in cases where either the corresponding product costs a little more than we would like, or if the product is not yet sold, but information about it has already been provided by the manufacturer (new product), or when the product with the interest has not yet appeared user properties, or the user simply wants to quickly track the appearance of all new products with the specified properties.

If it is impossible to immediately satisfy the search conditions, as described above, the user data and search conditions are stored by the server OPI 1 in the user information storage unit 14 and by means of the user interface 12 generate a message to the user about the impossibility of satisfying the search conditions and from time to time repeat the search for the requested data to satisfy the search conditions, after which they send the corresponding message to the user, and user data and search conditions are deleted from the xp block the word about the user 14.

The search for the requested data can be repeated at a given frequency or at each subsequent update of information from sources of goods and / or services.

Alternatively, user data and search conditions can be automatically stored in the user information storage unit 14 after receiving the request, that is, regardless of the possibility or impossibility of immediately satisfying the request conditions. In this case, the unit for working with users 12 from time to time searches for the requested data for a predetermined period of time or until the request is canceled by the user, and each time new products and / or services are found, the user is sent a corresponding message, in particular, in accordance with the SMS standard (Short Messaging Service) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) (OMA standards - Open Mobile Alliance Ltd.).

As indicated above, the request may include an offer to the supplier to contact the user. In addition, the mobile phone user is given the opportunity to view and edit previously created "interests".

An information terminal may be provided with an Internet terminal accessible for suppliers (which may be combined with a terminal for manual data entry of the system), which supports working with the "interests" of end users in the products sold by this supplier. The supplier has the ability to view all current "interests" in the goods available to him, indicating the difference between the price of the supplier and the price specified by the user in interest. Moreover, "interests" are sorted by the magnitude of this difference. A separate list shows interests where the desired price is not indicated at all. At the same time, the supplier has the opportunity to send a message to the appropriate user, remove the “interest” as absurd or processed (naturally, this means that this “interest” will no longer be shown to this supplier); specify where (email address, mobile phone number for sending SMS messages) to automatically forward all new "interests" related to the goods of this supplier. It is worth noting here that the goods related to the supplier are even those that are listed in their catalog, but with information that the goods are not available.

Further, the supplier may be given the opportunity to create a special list of goods that he does not currently have on sale (i.e. even with zero quantity). Such products interest him in terms of future possible business expansion. So, according to this list, the supplier should also be able to see statistics on the "interests" of users and view those "interests".

4. Product Search by Image

A user of a mobile phone with a built-in digital camera (the preferred option) takes a certain object (for example, a machine he or she likes) with this camera and sends the image to the server OPI 1. In this embodiment, the server OPI 1 is additionally connected with a terminal for processing user requests (such a terminal may also be included in the structure of the server OPI 1, for example, may be implemented in whole or in part by the terminal of the operator of the system 15). In addition, in this embodiment of the system, the information received by the server OPI 1 from the sources of the goods (suppliers) contains at least information about the source of the goods, the name of the goods and at least one image of the goods in the established format. The user request in this case contains, respectively, at least one image of a fragment or a full view of the product of interest to the user. This request is sent through the gateway of the mobile operator 7 for analysis to the terminal for processing user requests, where the product image contained in the request is compared with the images stored on the server OPI 1, matching and / or similar images are determined, and their and / or related information are sent to the user's mobile phone.

Comparison of images and determination of matching and / or similar images can be performed by software and / or manually.

Preferably, the transfer of images between the mobile electronic communication device of the user and the terminal for processing user requests is carried out in accordance with the MMS standard.

In this version of the system, as a rule, the operator of the above terminal is needed - a specialist who decides what is presented on the image received from the user on the basis of his own knowledge about the goods of the corresponding type, as well as on the basis of the system’s functionality (where he can see the cataloged descriptions and images goods). The result of the comparison of images is either one specific product, or a certain set of products ordered in accordance with the subjective assessment of a specialist of the likelihood of a product matching an image. It is not excluded the use of software tools for image analysis and comparison.

The product or list of goods found is sent by the specialist to the user's mobile phone in the form of an internal product identifier in the system or a list of such identifiers (an index used when cataloging and searching for goods). As a result, on the basis of the message received, the user can receive directly in the system detailed information about each product found, presented by its manufacturer, as well as current prices of its suppliers and, if desired, take advantage of the system to organize the purchase of the most suitable product. It should be specially noted that not only the whole image of an object can be transmitted, but also its part. In addition, a collection of subject pictures can be transmitted, rather than one. For example, when looking at a car somewhere on the street, a person can photograph an unknown car emblem separately, as well as the general view of the car, separately.

5. Voice service of information retrieval of goods, services, their suppliers and manufacturers

In this case, use an information system in which the server OPI 1 is connected, as usual, with at least two alternative sources of the same goods and / or services and the terminal of the voice information search service, which, as in the previous case, can be combined with the terminal system operator 15. In this case, a user’s request to search for data of interest is transmitted in voice form through a communication device to the voice service terminal, in accordance with the user's request, data is sampled from the information stored on the server OPI 1, in particular, in the storage unit of information about goods / services 10, and send this data to the user.

In this case, the communication of the server OPI 1 with the carrier is not mandatory, although preferably the terminal of the voice information search service is the terminal of the carrier (not necessarily mobile). The proposed information system thereby provides users, especially those related to the environment of use of information, a variety of options for accessing information about goods and / or services.

This service may be useful for those people who have:

there is no mobile phone or there is an outdated model of a mobile phone that does not provide sufficient convenience for a given person to directly work with the system (for example, due to a very small screen or lack of support for Java applications);

who simply do not want (or have no time) to learn the functions of their phone, but it is easier and more pleasant to talk with the operator.

To provide such a service, an Internet terminal can be implemented within the system, within which the telecom operator simulates the ability to work with the system on behalf of the users registered in it, which are the telecommunication service users of this operator. In particular, the operator should be able to work with "interests" on behalf of the relevant users of the system, as provided for by the phone (however, with somewhat greater convenience for entering information).

It is possible to send SMS messages containing intra-system numerical identifiers of products / suppliers found for the user by the operator. In addition, it should be possible to configure, at the time of receipt of the answer to the "interest", both sending an SMS to the end-user’s phone and a message to the operator that he should phone the client if the client asked about it.

The proposed system provides the highest possible information efficiency, limited only by the capabilities and desires of the suppliers themselves.

As in previous versions of the system, in this case, the user also has the opportunity to send electronic notifications (SMS, email) about the interest in purchasing this or that product to an interested group of suppliers. At the same time, the composition of the message texts and their actual sending to the addresses of the known system is carried out by the system itself after confirmation by the user with one click of a telephone button (or by an operator when using the voice service). All that remains for the user after this is to wait from the suppliers who actually have the goods, calls to his phone or SMS messages about the acceptance of the order.

6. Global information system of goods and services for mobile electronic communications

Regional information systems can be combined into a global one, where individual systems are interconnected through a global computer network. Moreover, the server OPI 1 of each information system must support at least one language common to the entire global system.

The system can be used in different cities of different countries. In this case, it is possible for the end user to switch the context to another city in another country. This is useful when a person comes to another city, it can also be important when he is preparing for a trip and wants to know in advance what he can get in a foreign city.

In the server part of the system, it is possible to access the remote OPI 1 server serving another city via the Internet.

When the city is temporarily changed, the user will automatically receive a message about what his "interests" are fulfilled in this city. In this state, new "interests" will still be transferred to the server of the end user’s hometown 1.

The possibility of “moving” to another city should also be provided. At the same time, all "interests" and other information about the user must be transferred from the server of OPI 1 of one city to the server of OPI 1 of another.

As a common language, it is preferable to use English. That is, information on products and companies should be provided in the system in at least two languages - national and English.

7. Providing discounts through the system

Discounts can be either a percentage of the price of a product or service (for specific goods and services and for groups), or a reduced part of the price (only for specific goods and services).

It is important to note that if the supplier indicates discounts, then he should not change the price of the goods (the system itself makes the appropriate calculations) so that it does not happen that the discount is deducted twice.

The system may include the possibility of indicating discounts of various types, in particular:

- temporary discounts for all buyers (such discounts are usually associated with holidays, such as the company's birthday, seasonal sales, etc.), while the period of validity of the discount - the start and end dates;

- special discounts for users of the system (with or without an indication of the validity period);

- discounts on discount cards (with or without an expiration date).

Moreover, for all types of discounts, the supplier has the ability to specify both specific goods or services, as well as whole categories of goods sold by him for which this discount applies.

To work with the latter type of discounts, the system must provide for the possibility for the user to indicate for any trading company working with discount cards that he (the user) has a discount card in such a trading company.

For all possible types of discounts, the corresponding reduction in the price of goods from this supplier for this user will be carried out automatically by the system itself. As a result, when displaying a price-ordered list of suppliers of a given product or service, the supplier who indicated significant discounts can move significantly in the list and, as a result, his offer will obviously look better than competitors.

For example, a supplier of goods or services indicates special discounts for some or all of its goods or services specifically for users of the system.

When purchasing the relevant goods or services, the user must demonstrate on his mobile phone the corresponding message issued by the system about the availability of the specified special discount from this supplier to users of the system. As a result of this, the user receives an additional discount.

In this approach to the sale of goods, both suppliers of goods (increasing the level of sales) and end users of the System (getting an additional discount when buying goods or services) and a mobile operator (both when searching and when displaying a discount record are interested, the user should use Internet access service from a mobile phone) and a company supporting the system (a system with such a service is more in demand by both suppliers and users).

Claims (87)

1. A method for providing users of mobile electronic communications devices with information about goods and / or services and their sources using an information system that includes an information processing and presentation server (OPI) with which at least two alternative sources of the same goods and / or are associated services, moreover, from each of the indicated sources information on the corresponding goods and / or services is transmitted to the server of the OPI, which is cataloged and stored on the server of the OPI, through the gateway the mobile operator accepts the user’s request for the provision of data of interest to him, in accordance with the user’s request, selects data from the catalog of information about goods and / or services stored on the server, and sends this data to the user, characterized in that the information is transmitted to the server through an external database server through the gateway connecting an external database server, and the transfer of information from the aforementioned external server is carried out automatically as updates It relevant information. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the sources of goods and / or services include producers of goods and suppliers of goods, and the data format established for the manufacturer of the goods includes at least the field of the name of the manufacturer of the goods and the field of the category of goods and the data format established for the supplier of the goods includes at least the name field of the supplier of the goods and the price field of the goods. 3. The method according to p. 2, characterized in that the data format established for the manufacturer of the goods further includes a field of key characteristics of the goods and the warranty period of the goods, and the data format established for the supplier of goods additionally includes a field provided for commodity discounts. 4. The method according to p. 3, characterized in that the data format established for the supplier of the goods includes a special discount provided only to users of mobile electronic communication devices included in the information system, and this discount is realized either when purchasing goods using functionality system, or upon presentation of a mobile electronic communications device that displays information about the discount, the supplier of the goods. 5. The method according to p. 2 or 3, characterized in that as information from the manufacturer of the goods use information from its general representative or distributor, as information from the supplier of the goods use information from the organization of retail trade in goods. 6. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1 to 4, characterized in that information about goods and / or services is transmitted to the server of the IPI through a computer network, in particular the global computer network Internet. 7. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1 to 4, characterized in that as a mobile electronic communication device using any of the following devices: a mobile phone, pager or PDA with access to a computer network that supports the display of information received from the computer network, input text information and its transmission to a computer network. 8. The method according to p. 7, characterized in that the access of the mobile electronic communications device to the computer network is carried out in accordance with the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) or GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) protocol. 9. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1 to 4, characterized in that information about the goods and / or services is provided in the form of text and / or graphic data and / or voice messages. 10. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1 to 4, characterized in that the cataloging of information about goods and / or services is carried out by assigning indexes to stored data. 11. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1 - 4, characterized in that the catalog of information stored on the server OPI, contains nodes that correspond to the following entities and attributes: categories of goods, characteristics of the same type of goods, intervals or individual values of these characteristics, specific goods included in the selected group of goods, specific goods the suppliers of a particular product found as a result of the search, and the user’s request for data is an indication of an element of the catalog node that is currently displayed by the mobile device electronic communication system, and the data sent to the user is the content of the catalog node selected by him. 12. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1 to 4, characterized in that the user’s request includes the search terms for goods and / or services relative to a given node of the specified directory, generated by entering text information from a mobile electronic communications device. 13. The method according to p. 12, characterized in that the data sent to the user is presented as a part of a catalog satisfying the search conditions, or as a linear list of catalog elements satisfying the search conditions. 14. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1 to 4, characterized in that the navigation through the catalog of information stored on the server OPI, the formation of a user request and receiving information sent to the user on a mobile electronic communication device is carried out by means of an application loaded or preinstalled on a mobile electronic communication device implemented through the application program interface , in particular Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) or Personal Java. 15. A method for providing users of electronic communications mobile devices with information about goods and / or services and their sources using an information system that includes an information processing and presentation server (OPI) with which at least two alternative sources of the same goods and / or are associated services, moreover, from each of the indicated sources, information about the corresponding goods and / or services is transmitted to the OPI server; the information received from these sources is cataloged and stored on the OPI server , through the gateway of the mobile operator, a user request is received for providing the data of interest to him, characterized in that after receiving the request, the user data and his request are stored on the server of the server, search for the requested data in the information stored on the server of the server, with each subsequent updating and each time when finding new offers of goods and / or services send the search results to the user. 16. The method according to p. 15, characterized in that the information from the source of goods and / or services is transmitted to the server OPI through the terminal for manual data entry. 17. The method according to p. 15, characterized in that the information from the source of goods and / or services is transmitted to the server through the external database server related to the source of goods and / or services, through the gateway connecting the specified external database server. 18. The method according to p. 15, characterized in that the sources of goods and / or services include producers of goods and suppliers of goods, and the data format established for the manufacturer of the goods includes at least the name field of the manufacturer of the goods and the field of the category of goods and the data format established for the supplier of the goods includes at least the name field of the supplier of the goods and the price field of the goods. 19. The method according to p. 18, characterized in that the data format established for the manufacturer of the goods further includes a field of key characteristics of the goods and the warranty period of the goods, and the data format established for the supplier of goods additionally includes a field provided for commodity discounts. 20. The method according to p. 19, characterized in that the data format established for the supplier of the goods includes a special discount provided only to users of mobile electronic communication devices included in the information system, and this discount is realized either when purchasing goods using functionality system, or upon presentation of a mobile electronic communication device that displays information about the provision of discounts to the supplier of the goods. 21. The method according to p. 18 or 19, characterized in that as information from the manufacturer of the goods use information from its general representative or distributor, as information from the supplier of the goods use information from the organization of retail trade in goods. 22. The method according to p. 16, characterized in that a personal computer is used as the terminal for manual data entry, while information about goods and / or services is transmitted to the server of the OPI via a computer network, in particular, the global computer network Internet. 23. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 - 20 and 22, characterized in that the information from the external database server is transferred to the server of the IPI automatically, in particular, as the relevant information is updated on the external database server. 24. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 to 20 and 22, characterized in that as a mobile electronic communication device using any of the following devices: a mobile phone, pager or PDA with access to a computer network that supports the display of information received from the computer network, the input of text information and its transmission to the computer network. 25. The method according to p. 24, characterized in that the access of the mobile electronic communications device to the computer network is carried out in accordance with the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) or GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) protocol. 26. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 to 20 and 22, characterized in that information about the goods and / or services is provided in the form of text and / or graphic data and / or voice messages. 27. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 - 20 and 22, characterized in that the cataloging of information about goods and / or services is carried out by assigning indexes to stored data. 28. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 to 20 and 22, characterized in that the user's request includes search terms containing at least a category of goods and / or services. 29. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 18 - 20 and 22, characterized in that the request contains an offer to the supplier to contact the user, and the search terms also contain one or more of the following attributes: product model, product price limit, product property, product manufacturer, warranty period, discounts. 30. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 - 20 and 22, characterized in that the user data and his request are deleted from the memory of the server after the first finding of the offer of goods and / or services corresponding to the request, and sending the user a corresponding message. 31. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 - 20 and 22, characterized in that the search for the requested data is repeated at a given frequency. 32. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 - 20 and 22, characterized in that the search for the requested data is carried out for a specified period of time or until the request is canceled by the user. 33. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 - 20 and 22, characterized in that the data is sent and messages are sent to the user in accordance with the SMS (Short Messaging Service) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) standard. 34. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 - 20 and 22, characterized in that the user is provided with access to the server of the IPI to correct the request data. 35. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 15 to 20 and 22, characterized in that the formation of a user request and receiving information sent to the user on a mobile electronic communication device is carried out by means of an application loaded or preinstalled on a mobile electronic communication device, implemented through the application software interface, in particular Java 2 Micro Edition ( J2ME) or Personal Java. 36. The method of providing users of mobile electronic communications devices with information about goods and their sources using an information system that includes an information processing and presentation server (OPI) with which at least two alternative sources of the same goods are associated, which consists in of each of the indicated sources, information on the goods offered for sale, containing at least information on the source of the goods and the name of the goods received from the indicated ones, is transmitted to the server information sources are cataloged and stored on the server OPI, form a user request and send it through the gateway of the mobile operator to the server OPI for analysis, characterized in that the user request includes at least one image of the product, and when analyzing the request contained in it the image of the goods is compared with the information stored on the server OPI, on the basis of this comparison, at least one product corresponding to the image is determined and sent related to him information to the user's mobile electronic communications device. 37. The method according to p. 36, characterized in that in the information transmitted to the OPI server about the goods offered for sale additionally include at least one image of the product, and when analyzing the user’s request, the image of the goods contained therein is compared with the image stored on the OPI server , with the definition of matching and / or similar images. 38. The method according to p. 37, characterized in that the identified matching and / or similar images are sent to a mobile electronic communication device of the user. 39. The method according to p. 36, characterized in that the image contained in the user request is obtained by means of a digital camera, in particular, an electronic communication device integrated into a mobile device. 40. The method according to p. 37, characterized in that the operations of comparing images and determining matching and / or similar images are performed by software and / or manually. 41. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 37 - 40, characterized in that the cataloging of information about the goods is carried out by assigning indices to the stored images of the goods, while the information related to the found images and sent to the mobile electronic communication device of the user includes the specified index of goods. 42. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 36 - 40, characterized in that as a mobile electronic communication device using any of the following devices: a mobile phone, pager or PDA with access to a computer network that supports the display of information received from the computer network, the input of text and graphic information and its transmission to the computer network. 43. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 36 - 40, characterized in that the source of the goods is the supplier of the goods, and the information transmitted to them further includes the price of the goods and at least one characteristic of the goods. 44. The method according to p. 43, characterized in that the product is a car, and its characteristics are the year of manufacture and mileage. 45. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 36 - 40, characterized in that the transmission of images between the mobile electronic communication device of the user and the terminal for processing user requests is carried out in accordance with the MMS standard (Multimedia Messaging Service). 46. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 36 - 40, characterized in that the messages are transmitted to the user in voice form, and / or in accordance with the SMS standard (Short Messaging Service), and / or in accordance with the MMS standard (Multimedia Messaging Service). 47. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 36 - 40, characterized in that the formation of a user request and receiving information sent to the user on a mobile electronic communication device is carried out by means of an application loaded or preinstalled on a mobile electronic communication device, implemented through the application software interface, in particular Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) or Personal Java. 48. A method for providing users of mobile electronic communication devices with information about goods and / or services and their sources using an information system including an information processing and presentation server (OPI) with which at least two alternative sources of the same goods and / or are associated services, consisting in the fact that the information stored on the server of the OPI is presented in the form of a catalog, from each of the sources of the same goods and / or services, information about the corresponding goods is transmitted to the server of the OPI and / or services and store it on the OPI server, through the gateway of the mobile operator they accept the user’s request for the provision of data of interest to him, in accordance with the user's request, select data from the catalog of information about goods and / or services stored on the OPI server, and send this data to the user, characterized in that with each node of the catalog is associated a set of attributes assigned to the goods and / or services located in this node and its subnodes, at least one of which The attributes specified for goods and / or services of this type are included in the information transmitted from the source of the same type of goods and / or services to the server and are included in the user’s request as a search condition. 49. The method according to p. 48, characterized in that the standard attributes, such as "name" and "warranty obligations", which are taken out to the root node of the catalog, are extracted from the set of attributes. 50. The method according to p. 48 or 49, characterized in that at least the following types of attributes are provided: String, Number, Date, Enumerated type, blob (BLOB). 51. The method according to p. 50, characterized in that the string type attributes store attribute values for different languages with support for several language versions of the directory and the corresponding multilingual interfaces. 52. The method according to p. 48 or 49, characterized in that the user’s request for the provision of data of interest to him includes search terms containing at least the category of goods and / or services, as well as one or more attributes of the goods. 53. The method according to p. 52, characterized in that as a search condition for the attribute of the string type indicate the string for comparison with the attribute value, as well as the language version of the directory to perform the search. 54. The method according to p. 52, characterized in that the maximum and minimum allowable values for the attribute that will satisfy the search conditions are indicated as a search condition for a numeric type attribute. 55. The method according to p. 52, characterized in that the maximum and minimum dates are indicated as a search condition for an attribute of the "date" type. 56. The method according to p. 48 or 49, characterized in that the sources of goods and / or services include producers of goods and suppliers of goods. 57. The method according to p. 56, characterized in that for suppliers and manufacturers provide for the display of the current directory structure for making proposals on the structure of the system operator, and for entering product data in the corresponding nodes of the catalog. 58. The method according to p. 48 or 49, characterized in that the data is transmitted to the user on a mobile electronic communication device through the gateway of the mobile operator in accordance with the standard SMS (Short Messaging Service) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) and / or in the form of voice messages. 59. The method according to p. 48 or 49, characterized in that the information from the source of goods and / or services is transmitted to the server OPI through the terminal for manual data entry. 60. The method according to p. 48 or 49, characterized in that the information from the source of goods and / or services is transmitted to the server through the external database server related to the source of goods and / or services through the gateway connecting the specified external database server. 61. The method according to p. 56, characterized in that the data format established for the manufacturer of the goods includes at least the name field of the manufacturer of the goods and the field of the category of goods, and the data format established for the supplier of the goods includes at least the name field of the supplier of goods and the price field of goods. 62. The method according to p. 61, characterized in that the data format established for the manufacturer of the goods further includes a field of key characteristics of the goods and the warranty period of the goods, and the data format established for the supplier of goods additionally includes a field provided for commodity discounts. 63. The method according to p. 59, characterized in that a personal computer is used as the terminal for manual data input, while information about goods and / or services is transmitted to the server of the IPI through the computer network, in particular the global computer network Internet. 64. The method according to p. 60, characterized in that the information from the external database server is transferred to the server OPI automatically, in particular, as the relevant information is updated on the external database server. 65. An information system of goods and / or services for communication devices, comprising a server for processing and providing information (OPI), connected to a means of a gateway of a communication operator and computers of at least two alternative sources of the same goods and / or services with the possibility of receiving information from each from these sources and containing an information input unit connected to a communication channel with the indicated sources, a storage unit for information about goods and / or services associated with the information input unit, and an inde coding and retrieval of information associated with the information input unit and the storage unit of information about goods and / or services, as well as the means of access for users of communication devices to the storage unit of information about goods and / or services associated with the means of the gateway of the communication operator, characterized in that the computers of the indicated sources of goods and / or services are made in the form of external database servers and are connected to the server of IPI through at least one gateway connecting an external server with the ability to automatically transfer rmatsii server PGI as it is updated on an external server. 66. The information system according to p. 65, characterized in that the means of access for users of communication devices to a unit for storing information about goods and / or services includes a unit for working with users of communication devices associated with a means of a gateway of a communication operator, and a navigation unit for information associated with a unit for storing information about goods and / or services and a unit for working with users of communication devices, and the unit for indexing and searching for information contains a subunit for indexing stored information associated with an information input unit and a unit for storing information about goods and / or services, and a full-text search subunit associated with a unit for storing information about goods and / or services and a unit for working with users. 67. The information system according to p. 65 or 66, characterized in that the server OPI contains a unit for storing user information associated with the unit for working with users of communication devices. 68. The information system of claim 67, wherein the user information storage unit comprises a memory area for storing user request conditions of communication devices. 69. The information system according to p. 65 or 66, characterized in that the server includes a terminal operator information system operator associated with a storage unit for information about goods and / or services and a storage unit for user information. 70. The information system according to p. 65 or 66, characterized in that the server IPI is implemented in the form of a local computer network containing the following components: a network switching device connected via network cables to the network adapters of the computers on the local network with the provision of switching between any two computers on the network , a database server having first and second read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), the first and second processors, a network adapter connected by an information bus, and at least one workstation. 71. The information system according to claim 70, wherein the storage unit for information about goods and / or services is implemented on the first processor and the first ROM and is supported by a relational database management system (DBMS), in particular Oracle 9i, and the storage unit information about users is implemented on the second processor and the second ROM and is supported using the specified DBMS, and part of the second ROM is allocated as a memory area for storing the conditions of requests of users of communication devices. 72. The information system according to claim 70, characterized in that it comprises a first workstation that implements an indexing and information retrieval unit supporting a full-text search system, in particular, Oracle Text (Oracle InterMedia Text) and containing ROM, random access memory (RAM) , the first and second processors, a network adapter and an information bus, with the indexing sub-block of the stored information being implemented on the first processor and the first ROM, and the full-text search subunit being implemented on the second processor and the second ROM, the second a workstation that implements an information navigation unit containing a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus, a third workstation that implements an information input unit containing a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus, and connected via an additional network adapter to the external computer network, a fourth workstation that implements a unit for working with users of communication devices and contains a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus, and connected by means of a network adapter to an external computer network, a fifth workstation that implements an information system operator terminal and contains a processor, RAM, ROM, a network adapter and an information bus, as well as a display and information input devices. 73. The information system according to claim 72, wherein the external computer network is a global computer network to which computers of sources of goods and / or services are connected, a means of a gateway interface of a communication operator. 74. The information system according to p. 65 or 66, characterized in that the communication device is a mobile phone, pager or PDA with access to a computer network, supporting the display of information received from the computer network, input text and / or graphic information and its transmission to the computer network. 75. The information system according to p. 65 or 66, characterized in that the mobile electronic communication device is configured to work with a loadable or preinstalled application implemented through a software interface, in particular Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) or Personal Java. 76. The information system according to claim 65 or 66, characterized in that the communication operator's gateway means is a gateway including a base transceiver station and a signal conversion unit. 77. The global information system of goods and / or services for mobile electronic communications devices, including at least two information systems according to claim 65, interconnected via a global computer network, the server processing and providing information (OPI) of each information system made with support for at least one language common to the entire global system. 78. The global information system according to Claim 77, wherein at least two of the information systems included therein are located on the territory of states with different languages, wherein the server of the OPI of at least one of said information systems is designed to support an additional language and contains translation tools and / or transliteration of information about goods and / or services and their sources from an additional language into a common language and / or vice versa. 79. The global information system according to paragraph 77 or 78, in which the common language is English. 80. A method of providing users of mobile electronic communication devices information about goods and / or services and their sources through at least the first and second information systems interconnected by a global computer network and supporting at least one common language, each of which information systems contains a server for processing and providing information (OPI) associated with the means of the gateway of the mobile operator and with computers of alternative sources of the same type ditch and / or services, consisting in the fact that information about goods and / or services from at least two alternative sources of the same goods and / or services included in the first and second information respectively is transmitted to the server of the OPI of each of the first and second information systems systems, in the established data format, the received information about goods and / or services is cataloged and stored on the server of the corresponding information system through the gateway of the mobile operator included in the first information system, a user’s request for a mobile electronic communication device included in the first information system is received to provide data of interest to him about goods and / or services offered by sources included in the second information system; a user’s request from the server of the first information system is sent to the server The OPI of the second information system, in accordance with the user's request, selects data from the catalog of information about goods and / or services stored on the server e PGI second information system and send the data to the user via the server SVI the first information system and means of gateway mobile operator included in the first information system. 81. The method according to p. 80, in which the cataloging of information about goods and / or services is carried out by assigning indexes to stored data. 82. The method according to p. 80 or 81, in which the catalog of information stored on the server OPI, contains nodes corresponding to the following entities: categories of goods, characteristics of the same type of goods, intervals or individual values of these characteristics, specific goods included in the selected group of goods, specific goods found as a result of the search, suppliers of a particular product, and the user’s request for data is an indication of the catalog node element that is currently displayed by the mobile device tion of electronic communication, and the data sent by the user to represent the contents of his chosen node directory. 83. The method according to p. 80 or 81, in which the user’s request includes search terms for goods and / or services relative to a given node of the specified directory, generated by entering text information from a mobile electronic communications device. 84. The method according to p. 83, in which the data sent to the user is presented as part of a catalog that meets the search conditions, or as a linear list of catalog items that satisfy the search conditions. 85. The method according to p. 83, in which if it is impossible to immediately satisfy the search conditions, the user data and the search conditions are stored by the first information system OPI server, a message is generated to the user about the impossibility to satisfy the search conditions, and from time to time the search for the requested data is repeated until the search conditions are satisfied then they send the corresponding message to the user, and user data and search conditions are deleted from the memory of the server of the first information system. 86. The method according to p. 83, in which user data and search conditions are stored on the server of the first information system after receiving the request and from time to time they search for the requested data for a specified period of time or until the user cancels the request, each time when new ones are found goods and / or services the user is sent a corresponding message. 87. The method according to p. 85, in which when the mobile electronic communication device of the user is connected to the second information system, the user data and search conditions are stored on the server of the second information system and deleted from the memory of the server of the first information system.

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