Virtual product hierarchies

US9785910B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Information Resources, Inc. · US

Inventors

• Prakash Tilwani · Commerce City, US
• Robert E. Potter, II · Elmhurst, US
• Sheila J. Noojibail · Evanston, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 2, 2013
• Grant date: Oct 10, 2017
• Expiry date: Dec 2, 2033

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06Q10/087
• WIPO field: IT methods for management
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A base hierarchy of products or the like can be user-modified into a virtual hierarchy that is represented as a collection of changes to the base hierarchy rather than a new hierarchy stored in memory. The collection of changes can be used to enable user interactions such as queries, displays, and writes using the virtual hierarchy as thought it were an actual hierarchy stored in memory, with aspects of the virtual hierarchy dynamically created using a collection of procedures based on the changes and corresponding inverses. The representation of the modified hierarchy can be dynamically displayed to a user or otherwise processed in the same manner as other hierarchies and hierarchical data.