Patent ID: 7324987
Filing Date: 2008-01-29
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A system for managing a product distribution channel having a plurality of channel participants, comprising: one or more reference record databases; one or more reference records within the reference record databases, each reference record providing an association between business information and spatial data for a specific channel participant, wherein each reference record includes a reference record spatial identifier determined by geo-coding said spatial data; transaction data related to at least one channel participant wherein said transaction data includes a transaction data spatial identifier determined by geo-coding spatial data associate with said transaction data; a candidate identification mechanism for determining more than one candidate reference record from one of the reference record databases using both spatial and business data derived from the transaction data; responsive to determining more than one candidate reference records, a matching mechanism for matching at least one candidate reference record from the determined more than one candidate reference records to the transaction data, wherein said matching mechanism includes a lexical matching process; and storing in the reference record databases a match identifier associated with the match between the at least one candidate reference record from the determined more than one candidate reference records and the transaction data.