Automated single-point shopping cart system and method
First Claim
1. A method for creating and managing an electronic shopping cart enabling a user to shop at a plurality of merchant web sites via a proxy web site, comprising the operations:
- accessing the plurality of merchant web sites and, for each selected web site of the plurality of web sites;
identifying merchandise and purchase related fields in said selected web site;
creating a fields database on said proxy web site for said selected web site;
creating a hyperlink on said proxy site linking to the selected web site.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus creating and managing an electronic shopping cart enabling a user to shop at various merchants'"'"' web sites are described. The apparatus and method enable the creation of a central shopping cart without the need for a pre-arrangement with the merchants. Rather, the shopping cart accesses the various merchants'"'"' sites, searches for specific purchase-related fields, creates a database of those fields, and creates a hyperlink to that merchant'"'"'s site. When a user wishes to access the merchant'"'"'s site, the shopping cart acts as a proxy for the user, but also monitors the communication for specific requests. If a specific request, such as add to cart, has been identified, the shopping cart doesn'"'"'t relay this request to the merchant'"'"'s shopping cart, but rather fetches relevant shopping data from the fields database and composes a purchase order which is sent to the merchant'"'"'s site.
146 Citations
19 Claims
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1. A method for creating and managing an electronic shopping cart enabling a user to shop at a plurality of merchant web sites via a proxy web site, comprising the operations:
accessing the plurality of merchant web sites and, for each selected web site of the plurality of web sites;
identifying merchandise and purchase related fields in said selected web site;
creating a fields database on said proxy web site for said selected web site;
creating a hyperlink on said proxy site linking to the selected web site. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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7. A method for creating and managing an electronic shopping cart enabling a user to shop at a plurality of merchant web sites via a proxy web site, comprising the operations:
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accessing the plurality of merchant web sites and, for each selected web site of the plurality of web sites;
identifying merchandise and purchase related fields in said selected web site;
creating a fields database on said proxy web site for said selected web site;
creating a hyperlink on said proxy site linking to the selected web site creating a user account having a specified spending limit;
using said proxy web site to serve user requests to shop in said selected web site; and
,applying funds from said user account towards purchases made by said user for merchants selected in said selected web site.
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12. A method for operating a proxy web site comprising:
monitoring web requests received from a user'"'"'s computer and;
when one of said web requests is for a web page from a selected web site, relaying the request to said selected site via said proxy web site;
when one of said requests is for an object data belonging to a web site from said selected web site, sending the request directly to said selected web site—
bypassing said proxy web site.- View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A system for operating a single-point shopping cart, comprising:
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a screen scrapping engine for surveying target web sites and obtaining fields data from each of said target web sites;
a fields database for storing said fields data;
address links to each of said target web sites;
a monitor operable to monitor web requests from a user'"'"'s computer and;
when one of said web requests is for data from a selected web site of said target web sites, relay the request to said selected web site;
when one of said web requests is for a purchase of a product from the selected web site, intercept the request and compose a purchase order using said fields database. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19)
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Specification