Patent ID: 7162453
Filing Date: 2007-01-09
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. An electronic commerce system for watermarking data associated with one or more products, comprising: means for generating an algorithm for creating a particular watermark pattern in data, the data associated with one or more products available from one or more sellers, the data comprising one or more of product attribute values for each of the one or more products, seller attribute values for each of the one or more products, and product descriptions for each of the one or more products, the data being stored in one or more databases accessible to one or more buyer computers for search queries for data associated with certain of the products, the generated algorithm comprising a sifting function for creating the particular watermark pattern in the data for identifying the data and the source of the data, without adversely affecting the use of the data, the sifting function alters printable American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) characters in the data, wherein the particular watermark pattern comprises a plurality of non-printable ASCII characters inserted throughout the data according to a pre-defined arrangement, and the particular watermark pattern facilitates identification of a copy of the data and does not affect authorized use of the data by the one or more buyer computers; and means for applying the sifting function to the data to create the particular watermark pattern in the data.