Patent ID: 7870039

Claim:
A method for automatically categorizing a product offering comprising the machine-implemented steps of: obtaining data associated with the product offering of a product; wherein the data includes a plurality of fields, wherein the plurality of fields include text of the product offering and one or more values associated with the product offering; automatically determining a particular product category, of a plurality of product categories, to which to first assign the product offering, responsive to a determination of an existence of a particular field within the plurality of fields without regard to the value of the particular field; and responsive to a determination that the particular product category belongs to a set of co-refinable product categories, performing a second product category assignment, wherein the second product category assignment is performed by determining which product category, of the set of co-refinable product categories, to assign to the product offering; wherein each category in the set of co-refinable product categories is also one of the plurality of product categories and wherein one or more categories of the plurality of product categories is not in the set of co-refinable product categories; and wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices comprising one or more processors.