Patent ID: 7672877

Claim:
A method for associating data with product abstractions comprising the steps of: maintaining a repository of previously-generated product abstractions; maintaining data that identifies a plurality of pre-established product categories; inspecting a first data set that includes data that corresponds to an offer to sell a particular product by a particular party, wherein the first data set is not currently matched to any product abstraction and the particular product is not currently assigned to any product category; based on the first data set, determining whether the particular product matches any of said pre-established product categories; in response to determining that the particular product does not match any of said pre-established product categories, determining whether to create a new product category based, at least in part, on whether similar uncategorized products have been previously encountered; responsive to determining that a new product category should be created, (a) creating the new product category, (b) storing data that indicates that said particular product belongs to said new product category, and (c) establishing the new product category as one of said pre-established product categories; matching said first data set with a product abstraction from said repository of previously-generated product abstractions based, at least in part, on the pre-established product category to which said particular product corresponds; wherein the product abstraction is an electronic representation of a product and wherein the method is performed by a computer programmed to be a special purpose machine pursuant to instructions from program software.