Patent ID: 7130865

Claim:
A method for characterizing market distribution of a business, the method comprising: determining a location of each of a plurality of business representatives comprised by the business and situated at different geographical locations to provide sales of the business's products; determining a location of each of a plurality of competitor representatives comprised by one or more competitors and situated at different geographical locations to provide sales of competitor products, wherein each of the one or more competitors competes for sales of products with the business; populating at least one database with the locations of the business representatives and the locations of the competitor representatives; from location information in the at least one populated database, calculating a probability that quantifies a level of competition to the business for sales of the business's products, the competition being provided by the one or more competitors providing sales of the competitor products, and the level of competition being quantified in terms of a distance measure between the business and competitor representatives; correlating the quantified level of competition with demographic data corresponding to the location information in the at least one populated database; and outputting the quantified level of competition.