Patent ID: 7783506

Claim:
A method for processing reservation requests for one or more inventory items, the method comprising: obtaining, by a computing device, a user request for reservation of one or more inventory items; obtaining, by the computing device, inventory data corresponding to inventory items, wherein the inventory data is organized in accordance with a three-level hierarchy and wherein the three level hierarchy includes: at least one group record defining a first level of detail for inventory information, wherein the first level of detail of each group record comprises information common to all item category records and inventory records below the group record in the hierarchy; a set of item category records defining a second level of detail that is associated to a referenced group record and corresponds to types of inventory items for the referenced group, wherein the second level of detail of each item category record comprises information common to all inventory records below the item category record in the hierarchy; and inventory records defining a third level of detail corresponding to instances of inventory item types referenced by the set of item category records, wherein the third level of detail of each inventory record in the hierarchy describes distinct inventory instances of item types than that of another inventory record; matching, by the computing device, the user request for reservation of one or more inventory items with the inventory data, wherein matching includes selecting two or more instances of inventory data from the three-level inventory information to correspond to the reservation request; generating, by the computing device, the results of matching the reservation request with inventory data, wherein the results include: a reservation transaction record corresponding to the user request for reservation; one or more reservation item records based on the reservation transaction record and the matched inventory data; and one or more reservation inventory records corresponding to instances of data of the matched inventory data; and transmitting, by the computing device, results of the matching, which results are presented on a display.