Patent ID: 8046325

Claim:
A method of using a processor to provide product information, comprising: storing a first characteristic value and a second characteristic value associated with respective characteristics of a product, setting one or more distinct update values indicating whether an entity is authorized to receive changes relating to the first or second characteristic values, changing at least one of the characteristic values to produce a changed characteristic value, retrieving the identity of the entity based on the changed characteristic value, determining whether the entity is authorized to be sent the changed characteristic value based on one of the one or more distinct update values, and sending the changed characteristic value to the entity based on the determination, wherein each of the characteristic values is associated with a code, for each characteristic value that the entity is authorized to receive the code associated with the characteristic value is associated with an entity ID and an update value indicating whether the entity is authorized to receive changes relating to the code, retrieving the identity of the entity comprises retrieving the entity ID associated with the code corresponding to characteristic value that has changed, and determining whether the entity is authorized comprises determining the update value that is associated with both the code of the characteristic value that has changed and the entity ID.