Patent ID: 7734506

Claim:
A method to initialize a physical item identification system with one read of a self identifying unique machine readable item identifier, the method being applied to a physical identification system including a first and second catalog connected over a network, the first catalog capable of accepting a query with a catalog identifier for the second catalog, the second catalog capable of accepting a query with an item description identifier for the item description the method comprising: providing a physical item with a self identifying unique machine readable item identifier, the machine readable identifier being unique from other identifiers within the physical identification system, the machine readable item identifier provided by the provider of the second catalog; and, comprising three segments read in a single scan, the segments including: a catalog identifier specifying the second catalog containing the description of the physical item; an item description identifier that is unique within the second catalog specifying the description of the physical item in the second catalog; and a physical item identifier that is unique for each physical item that share the same catalog identifier and item description identifier; reading the machine readable item identifier utilizing a single scan; in response to reading the machine readable item identifier utilizing a single scan: querying the first catalog with the catalog identifier from the machine readable identifier; receiving the identity of the second catalog in response to the query of the first catalog; querying the second catalog with the item description identifier from the machine readable item identifier; receiving the description of the item in response to the query of the second catalog; querying the second catalog with the physical item identifier from the machine readable item identifier; receiving data specific to the physical item in response to the query of the second catalog using the physical item identifier; initializing the physical identification system with the machine readable item identifier, the description of the item and the data specific to the physical item.