Dec 18 2007
1st Pricing, a Southern California-based eCommerce and Technology Company, has announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued the Company a "Notice of Allowance" based on their automated pricing technology application for Computer Aided Drawing (CAD) programs. A "Notice of Allowance" is the immediate precursor to the issuance of a patent where the application is approved but not yet issued.
"Being awarded this patent is an important step in 1st Pricing's plan to streamline the building material supply chain for the entire building industry," said Douglas Lopez, Founder of 1st Pricing. "Imagine passing an automatically generated bill of materials, complete with comparative, line-item pricing for real-world products through the entire supply chain process without ever having to re-type the data and virtually eliminating errors. At its core, it is a search engine specifically designed for CAD that is a closed-loop supply chain solution that searches for specified building materials originating from the architect's desktop."
With the click of a button, the 1st Pricing technology accesses an internet portal and pulls comparison pricing of multiple brands to fill out a detailed bill of materials with all related content on demand. At the same time, an online shopping cart is created for easy fulfillment from a local material distributor based on the project zip code. Changes and updates are made within seconds so that everyone is on the same page. Today, the Company is focused on building materials for residential construction but plans to add commercial building products in the future. In the CAD industry, the supply chain component is often referred to as the "fifth dimension of CAD" or 5D.
"Our technology transforms a set of plans from an interpretive document to a declarative statement," adds Thomas Kemp of 1st Pricing. "By adding multiple brand solutions from local suppliers to precise architectural specifications, we are empowering the homeowner and their contractor with a number of fulfillment choices complete with delivered-to-the-jobsite pricing."