ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,354,114, issued on July 8, was assigned to TOSHIBA GLOBAL COMMERCE SOLUTIONS INC. (Durham, N.C.).
"Shelf input/output device sharing system" was invented by Susan W. Brosnan (Raleigh, N.C.), Brad M. Johnson (Raleigh, N.C.) and Stacy Arrington (Morrisville, N.C.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Embodiments herein describe connecting a customer in a retail store with an expert. In one example, this connection is made using a shelf IO device. Using a product ID provided by the shelf IO device, a computing system can identify an expert and determine whether they are available to help the customer. For example, the system may identify an expert ...