Patent ID: 7540417

Claim:
An apparatus for processing electronic tag information, the apparatus receiving product identification codes read from electronic tags, each product identification code having a product class identifying code, the apparatus comprising: a processor; and a storage device, coupled to the processor, having a computer program stored therein; wherein product information is provided, or stored in the storage device, and wherein the product information comprises first and second information, the first information of each product class having a product class identifying code, a flag indicating whether the product class is a set product class or not, a product name, and a price, the second information of each set product class having a product class identifying code of the set product class, a product class identifying code of individual product class contained in the set product class, and a number of the individual products contained in the set product, wherein both of the product class identifying codes of the set product class and the individual product class are included in the first information, and the computer program causes the processor to perform the steps of: (a) for each product identification code read from an electronic tag and provided, incrementing a corresponding product cumulative count for a corresponding product class identification code; (b) determining whether the product identification code read from the electronic tag and provided is for a set product or not by referring to a corresponding flag of the second information, (c) if it is determined that the product identification code is for a set product, subtracting the number of the individual products in the set product by referring to the second information from a corresponding product cumulative count for a corresponding individual product class identification code; (d) calculating the mathematical product of a product price in the first information and a product cumulative count for each product class identification code; and (e) outputting a receipt to a printer based on the product cumulative count and the calculated mathematical product.