Graphical retail item identification with point-of-sale terminals

US8126195B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• International Business Machines Corporation · US

Inventors

• John David Landers, Jr. · Raleigh, US
• David John Steiner · Wilmington, US
• Paul M. Wilson · Cary, US
• Kimberly Wood · Raleigh, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jul 1, 2008
• Grant date: Feb 28, 2012
• Expiry date: Dec 28, 2030

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G07G3/006
• WIPO field: Control
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

Graphical retail item identification including receiving, from a digital camera, an image of a retail item to be identified; decoding, by an image decoding module, the image into one or more image processing tasks; assigning, by a task assignment engine, the one or more image processing tasks to one or more of the POS terminals, the one or more POS terminals characterized as image processing terminals; executing the image processing tasks by the image processing terminals, including reporting results of the image processing tasks to an item identification engine; and identifying, by the item identification engine upon completion of the image processing tasks by the image processing terminals, the retail item.