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UPC - INTERNET IMAGE SERVER SYSTEM
- Patent Pending -

An Invention by William D. Schroeder Sr.
bill@centauri.com or sable@wi.rr.com
(262) 641-9881

ABSTRACT

The system and method described herein are for a centralized and standardized Internet server system for providing (serving) the actual electronic digital image files of products, as standard .JPG or .GIF files (or other present, or future, file formats usable for transferring and displaying images on the Internet), accessed and identified only by their UPC, EAN, JAN or ISBN number (hereafter referred to singly or collectively as a UPC) and a desired width of the image.  Web Site designers, creators and programmers would have a simple and standard method and location (URL) to reliably and quickly obtain quality product images for the Web Sites they work with.  Direct requests from the Web page HTML code (IMG and SCR= tags) could access a product image directly from the UPC Image Server (UPCIS) or the files containing the product images could be downloaded for local storage on the Web Site server itself.  Images would be maintained on a sophisticated, high-speed server system, with multiple redundancies and multiple high bandwidth paths to the Internet.

The idea is extremely simple… but will dramatically improve many facets of the way product images are handled on the Internet.

Almost all products intended for consumers have UPC codes.  Each of these codes is unique and identifies the manufacturer and a specific product from that manufacturer.  We have come to use this identification as a standard way for computer systems to identify products, and thereby access product descriptions, pricing, location, availability, and much more…

With the system proposed here the actual images of products, identified by their UPC number, would be provided from a single, open, server system across the Internet.

Manufactures would provided and maintain images of their products directly on the server system.

Each product image would be available in numerous sizes (at least 15 standard sizes).  Web designers and programmers would only need to know the UPC of a product and the width of the image they would like to have displayed.  This request would be directed at a sophisticated, high-speed server system with multiple redundancies and multiple paths to the Internet.

The benefits of this system are in many areas.  First, the manufacture is able to control the quality and standardization of the images of their products that are presented to consumers.  The images are always current for the product and are easily updated, if the packaging or product itself should change.  A simple update of a product image on the UPCIS system would immediately appear on all of the web pages that use the system to acquire images.

For the Web designer and programmers this system would mean the end of trying to locate, scan, crop, adjust, size and maintain thousands of product images for the Web Sites that they create and maintain.  The savings in man-hours here alone is tremendous, and the design, construction and maintenance of complex E-commerce web sites becomes much less time consuming.

Exact image sizing is possible by simply requesting that the server provide the client with the standard sized image that is the next standard size up from the size required, and then having the browser adjust the size to an exact pixel width by setting the width = "xxx" IMG property.

There is the savings of storage space on the web servers all across the world.  With this system a set of product images only needs to exist on the Image Server System and not on every web site that the image appears on.

There is a great potential for speed gains and reduced bandwidth needs as these standardized images are cached across the Internet, on caching systems, on proxy servers and in individual client computers.

In most cases the .JPG and .GIF images that are sent to a client (user's browser) make up the largest portion of data that is sent to display a given web page.  In most cases the image serving system contemplated here will be able to serve an image to a requesting web page much faster than the server hosting the web site itself.

Image request access to this Image Server System would be open to anyone, for unlimited access, and without charges, fees or memberships of any kind.

One image access system would support the following HTML "IMG" property:

src = http://www.server.com/mmmmmm/pppppp-ddd.jpg

Where:

src                   is the web page programming property which specifies a URL.

server.com      is a domain name of the image file server

mmmmmm      is the manufacturer code portion of the UPC.  The manufacturer code may vary in length, and further this number may be broken down into groups of 2 or 3 digits to create addition sub-directory breakdowns

pppppp            is the product code portion of the UPC. The product code may vary in length.

ddd                  is pixel width of the image requested.

jpg                   is the file extension of the product image file, although the "gif" file type could also be  used within the system.

Another method that may be preferred in certain operating system environments would be similar to above but would further reduce the number of files in certain directories.  This method would result in a separate folder for each product, and all of the images for that product would reside there:

src = http://www.server.com/mmmmmm/pppppp/ddd.jpg

Where:

src                   is the web page programming property which specifies a URL.

server.com      is a domain name of the image file server

mmmmmm      is the manufacturer code portion of the UPC.  The manufacturer code may vary in length, and further this number may be broken down into groups of 2 or 3 digits to create addition sub-directory breakdowns.

pppppp            is the product code portion of the UPC. The product code may vary in length.

ddd                  is pixel width of the image requested.

jpg                   is the file extension of the product image file, although the "gif" file type could also be  used within the system.

With this system of designating the URL the manufacturer would use an identical hierarchical directory structure for storing the image data within their computer systems.  This would make FTP transfer and synchronization a very simple matter with existing software tools.

Another method would be passing variable values to server software, and having this software resolve the actual URL for the location of the desired image:

scr=http://www.server.com/codepage.asp?MFG=mmmmmm&Item=iiiiii&Width=www

Where:

server.com = the domain name of the server system (UPCIS.COM)

codepage.asp = the webpage that contains the active software that will handle with the request

mmmmmm = the Manufacturer ID digits from the UPC

iiiiii= the Item number digits from the UPC

www = the pixel width of the image requested (i.e. 125)

With this method server side software and databases would determine the image file that is to be transferred to the requesting page, and cause that file to be sent.

Anonymous FTP access would be allowed to the server system to facilitate the downloading (reading) of any images on the system.  Uploading (writing) to any manufacturer's directory would require ID and Password authentication of the authorized party.

Through the UPCIISS Manufacturers would also be able to efficiently distribute high-resolution images for use in advertising, catalog creation, brochures or coupons for use by their distributors, wholesalers and retailers.

REVENUE

Revenue would be obtained from the manufacturers in the form of a nominal monthly administration fee and a very small fee for each image that is stored on the UPC Image Server System.  There are hundreds of thousands of manufacturers and over 50,000,000 products with UPC codes.  Therefore, if just 10 cents per image (remember there are 15 standard files per product), per month were charged, (only $18 per year, per product), plus a $25-$50 dollar monthly account administration fee, and only 50% penetration was achieved... monthly revenues would exceed $40 million.

Establishing the server network and infrastructure would be very capital intensive, but once established the gross margins and net profits would be considerable.

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Possible company name "UPC Images Corporation"

Domains already secured: 

•  UPCIMAGES.com *

•  UPCIMAGE.com *

•  UPCIS.com *

•  UPCIS.net *

Standard Images Widths (in Pixels): 

Note:  The terms .JPG and .GIF refer to standard file formats presently used to send and display still images on the Internet.  But they are intended to imply any file format that is in use now for still images, moving images, or multi-media purposes on the Internet, and any future file formats that become prevalent or common for these uses.

THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE UPC CODE

The basic UPC code, referred to as Type A, is composed of twelve digits. These twelve digits are broken up into the four groups described below:

Number System Character (NSC)

The first digit represents the 'number system' of the UPC code. Most 'normal' products use number system zero (0), but several other number systems are also in use and may indicate a product type.

 

Manufacturer Code

The next five digits usually represent a 'manufacturer's code' Manufacturer codes are given out by the Uniform Code Council (UCC).

 

Product Code

The next five digits correspond to a specific product, and are issued by the manufacturer of the product. The meaning of these numbers are different for the UPC codes used on coupons.

 

Check Digit

The last digit is used to check the integrity of the other digits in the number. The calculation is relatively simple.

 

Calculating the Check Digit

Assume the Number System Character is 'A', the Mfr Code is 'BCDEF', and the Product Code is 'GHIJK'. Calculate A + C + E + G + I + K, multiply that by 3, then add B + D + F + H + J. The check digit is how much you have to add to that number to make it a multiple of ten.

An example: The UPC 04042100192X, where X is the check digit that we don't know. We calculate (0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 2) * 3 + (4 + 4 + 1 + 0 + 9) = 33. The check digit (X) is then 7, since we can add 7 to 33 and get a multiple of ten (40).

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Contact Information: William D. Schroeder
Email: bill@centauri.com or sable@wi.rr.com
Phone: 262-641-9881
Snail Mail: 14240 Heatherwood Ct., Elm Grove, WI  53122