ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,493,853, issued on Dec. 9, was assigned to WALMART APOLLO LLC (Bentonville, Ark.).

"Systems and methods for arranging merchandise at shelving locations" was invented by Jeremy L. Velten (Bella Vista, Ark.), Leigh Ann Marie Scobey (Bentonville, Ark.) and William Mark Propes (Bentonville, Ark.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "There are provided systems and methods for use in arranging merchandise at shelving locations of retailer facilities. In one form, the system may include: a retailer facility with shelving locations for merchandise; a planogram or merchandise database indicating the correspondence of shelving locations to categories of m...