Digitization of a catalog of retail products

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017308939-A1
Application number	US-201715409579-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 19, 2017
Priority date	Apr 21, 2016
Publication date	Oct 26, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method, computer program product, and system for catalog digitization. A method including receiving observed information including physical attributes of a plurality of products, assigning an importance to each physical attribute, organizing the products into product categories based on the physical attributes and their corresponding importance, determining a product profile for of the products based on the product category of each of the products and a likelihood of any two attributes being observed together with respect to each of the products, identifying a match between two products based on a similarity between the physical attributes of the two products and their corresponding importance, and a comparison between the product profiles of the two products, preparing a product description based on a combination of the physical attributes of the two matching products, and creating a digital product catalog comprising the product description.

First claim

1 . A method for catalog digitization of a plurality of products in a shop, the method comprising:
mounting a camera in the shop; mounting a video camera in the shop; capturing photographs of the plurality of products with the camera; capturing video of the plurality of products with the video camera, wherein the captured video comprises photographs and audio; generating a description of each product of the plurality of products by extracting physical attributes from the captured photographs and the captured video using image recognition technology, and from the captured audio from the captured video using voice recognition software, wherein the physical attributes are selected from a group consisting of a dimension, a shape, a weight, a color, a price, a location in the store, and words spoken when someone is holding or pointing to each product of the plurality of products; assigning an importance value to each physical attribute based on a likelihood of each physical attribute positively identifying a product, wherein the importance value is selected from a group consisting of high, medium, and low; organizing the plurality of products into product categories based on the physical attributes and their corresponding importance value wherein the product categories comprise grocery, pharmacy, clothing, and household; determining a product profile for each of the plurality of products based on the product category of each of the plurality of products and a likelihood of any two attributes being observed together with respect to each of the plurality of products; identifying a match between two products of the plurality of products based on a similarity between one or more physical attributes of the two products and the corresponding importance value of the one or more physical attributes, and a comparison between the product profiles of the two products, wherein identifying a match between two products of the plurality of products comprises calculating a confidence score of the match between the two products, wherein the confidence score is based on both the physical attributes of each of the two products and their corresponding importance value, and comparing the confidence score to a predetermined confidence threshold, wherein the predetermined confidence threshold is determined by an administrator; generating a product description based on a combination of the physical attributes of the two matching products; creating a digital product catalog comprising the product description; and publishing the digital catalog on-line.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Krishnan Nagesha Rao
• Ponniah Anbumunee
• Prasada Soumya
• Sar Sudhanshu S

Classifications

• G06Q30/0643

  graphically representing goods, e.g. 3D product representation · CPC title

• G06Q30/0629

  by pre-processing results, e.g. ranking or ordering results · CPC title

• G06Q30/0603 Primary

  Catalogue creation or management · CPC title