System and method of providing electronic and interactive replications of publications

Abstract

The present invention provides systems and methods for enabling viewers of static publications to obtain additional information regarding products therein from electronic and interactive representations of the products on a computer network.

What we claim is: 
     
         1 . A method for providing to a user an electronic and interactive replication of at least a portion of a corresponding static publication, comprising:
 associating an tag with an electronic and interactive replication of at least a portion of a static publication;   wherein the tag conveys information associated with the at least a portion of the static publication, wherein the information is selected from the group consisting of publication information, region information, issue information, date information, page number information, promotion information, and discount information;   the at least a portion of the static publication having at least two different products appearing in the at least a portion of the static publication;   the two different products being visible in the at least a portion of the static publication;   receiving by a host computer comprising at least one computer processor an input representing the tag;   providing from the host computer the electronic and interactive replication in response to receiving the input representing the tag;   wherein the electronic and interactive replication contains duplications of the appearances of the at least two different products appearing in the at least a portion of the static publication;   wherein the electronic and interactive replication enables a user to obtain additional information about the at least two different products contained within the electronic and interactive replication; and   wherein a user is able to see the duplications of the appearances of at least two different products contained within the electronic and interactive replication and can obtain the additional information about the at least two different products contained within the at least a portion of the static publication by interacting with the electronic and interactive replication.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the additional information about the at least two different products includes the location of an online retailer for a first product of the at least two different products determined by the host computer by consulting a product availability database, wherein the product availability database is stored on a non-transitory storage medium communicatively coupled to the host computer. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , further comprising collecting by the host computer purchase information of a user comprising payment and delivery information from a purchase request for the first product of the at least two different products. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising sending by the host computer to an online retailer collected user purchase information for the first product of the at least two different products. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising processing by the host computer a user's online purchase request of a product of the at least two different products received in response to a user's interaction with the electronic and interactive replication. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 storing by the host computer a link to the additional information for a product of the at least two different products appearing in the electronic and interactive replication as part of a user's account on a remote database in response to a request by the user; and   retrieving by the host computer the additional information for the product associated with the link from the remote database, and presenting the additional information for the product associated with the link to the user in response to the user selecting the stored link from the user's account.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , further comprising:
 enabling by the host computer a retailer of the product associated with the link to provide the user communications for the product associated with the link the user requested to be stored; and   wherein the communications include at least one of status information, discount information, award points information, promotional information and incentive information.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 6 ,
 wherein the links stored in the user's account are organized into categories,   wherein the categories include at least one of an arts and entertainment category, an automotive category, a books category, a brand category, a clothes and accessories category, a computing, home and office category, a consumer electronics category, a gift certificates and gift ideas category, a home and garden category, a kids' stuff category, a services category, a sports and fitness category and a travel and leisure category.   wherein the link to the additional information for a product of the at least two different products appearing in the electronic and interactive replication stored by the host computer is stored in at least one category related to the product of the at least two different products appearing in the electronic and interactive replication.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 storing by the host computer a link to the additional information for a product of the at least two different products appearing in the electronic and interactive replication as part of a user's account on a remote database in response to the user interacting with the electronic and interactive replication; and   retrieving by the host computer the additional information for the product associated with the link from the remote database, and presenting the additional information for the product associated with the link to the user in response to the user selecting the stored link from the user's account.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , further comprising
 enabling by the host computer a retailer of the product associated with the link to provide the user communications for the product associated with the link the user requested to be stored; and   wherein the communications include at least one of status information, discount information, award points information, promotional information and incentive information.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 9 ,
 wherein the links stored in the user's account are organized into categories,   wherein the categories include at least one of an arts and entertainment category, an automotive category, a books category, a brand category, a clothes and accessories category, a computing, home and office category, a consumer electronics category, a gift certificates and gift ideas category, a home and garden category, a kids' stuff category, a services category, a sports and fitness category and a travel and leisure category.   wherein the link to the additional information for a product of the at least two different products appearing in the electronic and interactive replication stored by the host computer is stored in at least one category related to the product of the at least two different products appearing in the electronic and interactive replication.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising storing a user profile and information obtained from a user's interaction with the electronic and interactive replication on a non-transitory storage medium. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the additional information for a product of the at least two different products includes display of an additional graphic object associated with the product. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the additional information a product of the at least two different products includes presentation of a multimedia object associated with the product. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the additional information for a product of the at least two different products includes display of text associated with the product. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising receiving by the host computer the user's interaction with a plurality of electronic and interactive replications from a plurality of portions of a plurality of static publications. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein said plurality of static publications include static publications from different publishers. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein
 the electronic and interactive replication includes a first selectable portion corresponding with a first product of the at least two different products and wherein interaction with the first selectable portion provides additional product information about the first product and enables a user to initiate an online purchase of the first product; and   wherein the electronic and interactive replication includes a second selectable portion corresponding with a second product of the at least two different products and wherein interaction with the second selectable portion provides additional product information about the second product and enables a user to initiate online purchase of the second product.   
     
     
         19 . A method for providing an electronic and interactive replication of product images appearing in a corresponding static publication image comprising:
 associating an tag with an electronic and interactive replication of a static publication image;   wherein the tag conveys information associated with the static publication image, wherein the information is selected from the group consisting of publication information, region information, issue information, date information, page number information, promotion information, and discount information;   the static publication image including at least two different products appearing in the static publication image;   the two different products being visible in the static publication image;   receiving input representing the tag to a web server executed by a host computer comprising at least one computer processor;   providing from the web server the electronic and interactive replication of the static publication image in response to receiving the input representing the tag;   wherein the electronic and interactive replication includes a first selectable portion corresponding with a first product of the at least two different products and wherein interaction with the first selectable portion provides additional product information about the first product and enables a user to initiate an online purchase of the first product; and   wherein the electronic and interactive replication includes a second selectable portion corresponding with a second product of the at least two different products and wherein interaction with of the second selectable portion provides additional product information about the second product and enables a user to initiate online purchase of the second product.   
     
     
         20 . A method for displaying to a user an electronic and interactive replication of images appearing in a corresponding static publication, comprising:
 creating, by a host computer comprising at least one computer processor, an association between an tag and an electronic and interactive replication of an image in a static publication;   wherein the tag conveys information associated with the image in the static publication, wherein the information is selected from the group consisting of publication information, region information, issue information, date information, page number information, promotion information, and discount information;   the image in the static publication having at least two different products appearing in the image in the static publication and forming part of the image;   the two different products being visible to the user in the image in the static publication;   receiving an input representing the tag at a web server executed by the host computer comprising at least one computer processor; and   providing, from the web server an electronic and interactive replication of the image in the static publication in response to receiving the input representing the tag;   wherein the electronic and interactive replication has a duplicate image of the image in the static publication;   wherein the electronic and interactive replication enables a user to obtain additional information on the at least two different products contained within interactive replication; and   wherein a user is able to see the image of the at least two different products in the interactive replication and can obtain the additional information on the at least two different products contained within image in the static publication by interacting with the electronic and interactive replication.   
     
     
         21 . A system for providing an electronic and interactive replication of at least a portion of a corresponding static publication comprising:
 a host computer comprising at least one computer processor that associates an tag with an electronic and interactive replication of at least a portion of a static publication, wherein the tag conveys information associated with the at least a portion of the static publication, wherein the information is selected from the group consisting of publication information, region information, issue information, date information, page number information, promotion information, and discount information, wherein the at least a portion of the static publication has at least two different products appearing in the at least a portion of the static publication, wherein the electronic and interactive replication contains duplications of the appearances of the at least two different products appearing in the at least a portion of the static publication, wherein the electronic and interactive replication enables a user to obtain additional information about the at least two different products contained within the electronic and interactive replication; wherein a user is able to see the duplications of the appearances of at least two different products contained within the electronic and interactive replication and can obtain the additional information about the at least two different products contained within the at least a portion of the static publication by interacting with the electronic and interactive replication; and   a web server application executed by the host computer that provides the electronic and interactive replication to a computing device of a user in response to receiving input representing the tag.   
     
     
         22 . The system of  claim 21 , wherein the computing device of a user is a mobile computing device. 
     
     
         23 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon which when executed cause a data processing system to perform the following:
 associate an tag with an electronic and interactive replication of at least a portion of a static publication;   wherein the tag conveys information associated with the at least a portion of the static publication, wherein the information is selected from the group consisting of publication information, region information, issue information, date information, page number information, promotion information, and discount information;   wherein the at least a portion of the static publication has at least two different products appearing in the at least a portion of the static publication; and   wherein the two different products are visible in the at least a portion of static publication;   process a received input representing the tag; and   provide the electronic and interactive replication of the at least a portion of the static publication in response to receiving the input representing the tag;   wherein the electronic and interactive replication contains duplications of the appearances of the at least two different products appearing in the at least a portion of the static publication;   wherein the electronic and interactive replication enables the user to obtain additional information beyond information from the at least a portion of static publication on the at least two different products contained within the electronic and interactive replication; and   wherein a user is able to see the electronic and interactive replication and the at least two different products in the electronic and interactive replication and can obtain the additional information on the at least two different products contained within the at least a portion of the static publication by interacting with the electronic and interactive replication.   
     
     
         24 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 23 , further comprising instructions that provide the location of an online retailer as part of the additional information about a product of the at least two different products. 
     
     
         25 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 23 , further comprising instructions that collect user purchase information comprising payment and delivery information from a purchase request for a product of the at least two different products. 
     
     
         26 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 23 , further comprising instructions that process a user's online purchase request of a product of the at least two different products received in response to a user's interaction with the electronic and interactive replication. 
     
     
         27 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of  claim 24 , further comprising instructions that send collected user purchase information for a product of the at least two different products to an online retailer.