Patent ID: 6901304

Claim:
A computer program product, tangibly embodied in an information carrier, for use in a commercial data processing environment where the environment includes multiple enterprises in a supply chain, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to: provide the enterprises with real-time visibility of the disposition of items in the supply chain, by: receiving from a first enterprise multiple instances of tag-read-data, each instance including information read from a tag bound to an item, the information read including a unique tag identifier read automatically from the tag, each instance also including a location of the corresponding tag and its bound item when the tag identifier was read from the tag, the location including a latitude and a longitude, the multiple instances of tag-read-data received from the first enterprise collectively including information read from tags bound to multiple items; using the tag-read-data received from the first enterprise to maintain disposition information for the items; receiving from a second enterprise multiple instances of second tag-read-data, each instance including information read from a tag bound to an item, the item being either the same or not the same as the item for which tan-read-data was received from the first enteprise, the information read including a unique tag identifier read automatically from the tag, each instance also including a location of the corresponding tag and its bound item when the tag identifier was read from the tag, the location including a latitude and a longitude, the multiple instances of tag-read-data received from the second enterprise collectively including information read from tags bound to at least one of the multiple items; using the tag-read-data received from the second enterprise to maintain disposition information for the items, where tag-read-data received from either enterprise for a particular item is used to update the disposition information; and making the disposition information visible to the multiple enterprises in the supply chain, including the first and second enterprises.