Patent ID: 7866543

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for managing security and privacy associations between an electronic product code value and an address of a repository containing information about an item represented by the electronic product code, the method comprising: providing a service interface to the repository, the service interface providing access to the repository for one or more parties authorized to use the repository, with respect to the item; issuing, by an authoritative party and prior to accessing the repository, a security certificate to each of the one or more parties that are authorized to use the repository in conducting a supply chain transaction; in response to a party among the one or more parties sensing the electronic product code, creating a record in the repository, the record representing the sensing of the electronic product code and including the security certificate belonging to the party that sensed the electronic product code; and storing a data sharing attribute with each record in the repository, the data sharing attribute being defined by an owner of the electronic product code information in the repository, the data sharing attribute specifying a subset of parties among the one or more parties that has permission to access the record.