Patent ID: 8612309

Claim:
A preference-information gathering system for updating user preference profiles, said preference-information gathering system comprising: a user portable terminal; and a preference-information management server connectable via a communication network to said user portable terminal, the preference-information management server managing said user preference profiles, the user portable terminal including a commodity/service-identifier inputting unit configured to input an identifier identifying a commodity and/or a service independent of a purchasing process for the commodity and/or service, wherein the purchasing process includes a selection of the commodity and/or service for purchase, a commodity/service-identifier storage unit configured to store said commodity/service identifier, and a commodity/service-information sender unit configured to transmit said commodity/service identifier and a user identifier, the user identifier identifying said user to said preference-information management server by associating said commodity/service identifier and said user identifier with each other, said preference-information management server including a preference-information storage unit configured to store said user preference profiles for each of said users, a user preference profile of said user preference profiles including an initial commodity/service identifier, a commodity/service-information receiver unit configured to receive said commodity/service identifier and said user identifier from said user portable terminal, and a preference-information updating unit configured to generate an updated user-preference profile based on said received commodity/service identifier, said received user identifier, and the respective user preference profile previously stored in the preference-information storage unit, said updating unit configured to generate the updated user-preference profile independently of the initial commodity/service identifier stored in the user preference profile, and said updating unit configured to generate the updated user preference profile by determining characteristics corresponding to said received commodity/service identifier and modifying the user preference profile, previously stored in the preference-information storage unit and selected based on the user identifier, based on the determined characteristics.