WO2001027837A2 - Universal online shopping list - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a system for e-commerce which provides the user the ability (1) to create a universal online shopping list that is portable so that user may take it to any retailer's site and (2) to make online purchase of items on a universal list from multiple retailers without having to revisit the retailer's sites for placing a buy order or updating merchandise information. The system also allows monitoring and storing the user's navigational and clicking record while acting as a proxy for the user's access of retailers' sites. After opening an account, the user accesses the site of the intermediary to create a universal online shopping list of merchandise for purchase. Through the intermediary's proxy server, the user is presented with a screen that comprises a first frame that displays the retailer's site and a second frame that displays actionable icons and/or buttons in accordance with functions and features offered by the proxy server. The user can navigate the retailer's site much in the same way that she would if she had directly accessed the retailer's site as opposed to accessing it through a proxy server. To execute a purchase from the list, the user visits the intermediary site and selects the desired items, by simply click on a buy icon that initiates and completes the placement of purchase orders with all the merchants involved. In another embodiment, wireless devices may be implemented to interface with the intermediary server via a wireless network.

Description

UNIVERSAL ONLINE SHOPPING LIST

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to electronic commerce ("e-commerce"), and more particularly to the creation of universal online shopping lists and the placement of online purchase orders using a universal online shopping list.

2. Description of Related Art

Widespread availability and use of electronic services has led to a proliferation of online commercial transactions (i.e., e-commerce). Specifically, the Internet has provided users a practical means for accessing a wide range of products and services offered by merchants (which may also herein be referred to as "retailers" or "e-tailers") worldwide.

To initiate an online shopping session on the Internet, the user can directly access the website of the merchant that may carry the products desired by the user, or access a portal (e.g., an online shopping mall or a consumer portal such as American Online (AOL)) that provides links to a number of online merchants. For example, when a user wishes to purchase a book on the Internet, she could access the websites of one or more of her favonte bookstores. Alternatively, she could access the shopping portal, for example America Online. The shopping portal could include links to several bookstores that have business arrangements with America Online, from which the user could select the one or more bookstores. Whether accessing an online retailer's site directly or through a portal, the user has to complete her purchase transactions with each retailer separately. Thus, if a user wants to purchase products from N retailers (where N is an integer greater than one), she must visit N retailers' sites and complete purchase transactions with the N retailers. This involves an iterative process in which the steps of visiting a retailer and completing a purchase transaction are repeated N times. This may be cumbersome to the user particularly if the process of completing the purchase transaction (also herein referred to as the "checkout process") at those retailers is not quick and convenient.

In order to facilitate the online shopping process (not necessarily with respect to the above disadvantages), some intermediary sites allow users to create shopping lists for items that the user may want to purchase online. These shopping lists, however, are not universal as they are limited to items from retailers with which the intermediary site has some type of a business relationship along the lines of a partnerships or alliances. Moreover, these lists often consist of links to the retailers' sites. In some cases, the list may contain the prices and the names of the items on the list. However, with existing systems, the user can only create such a list on a computer that contains a software application for creating-such lists. (These software applications are normally downloaded from the sites that allow users to create the aforementioned lists.) The obtaining (either through a download or otherwise) and loading of such a software application on her computer is often burdensome to the user. Moreover, it means that the creation of the above lists with the existing systems is not entirely Internet based in the sense that it requires the user's computer to contain software specifically for performing the function of creating the list.

The present invention is intended to overcome these and other disadvantages of existing systems.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a system for e-commerce which, among other things, provides the user the ability (1) to create a universal online shoppmg list that is portable so that the user may take it to any retailer's site and (2) to make online purchase of items on a universal list from multiple retailers without having to revisit the retailer's sites for placing a buy order. (It is to be noted that the creation of a universal online shopping list referred to in the preceding sentence is used in a broad sense to include both creation of the list and the filling of the list with a selection of one or more items.)

The system of the present invention also allows monitoring and storing the user's navigational and clicking record while acting as a proxy for the user's access of retailers' sites. This may be used to analyze the user's browsing and online shopping habits or patterns. The result of this analysis may be used to both the benefit of the users and the online retailers.

In a preferred embodiment, the system of the present invention operates as follows for the universal online list creation and checkout processes. Below is a description of the universal online list creation process of the present invention. (In this paragraph, creation of a universal online shopping list is used in a broad sense to include both creation of the list and the filling of the list with a selection of one or more items.)

A user accesses a first site of an intermediary (which for ease of reference will be referred to by the name Snaz in the present application). The user thereafter either opens an account % with Snaz or logs into her existing account, if she already has an account. Having logged in, the user may navigate to a page for creating a list. The user may also navigate to a page that includes a list of online retailers from whose sites the user may select items to add to a universal online shopping list. The page may also include links to those retailers. The user then clicks on the link for the retailer whose site the user wishes to visit.

As a result, through Snaz's proxy server the user is presented with a screen that comprises a first frame that displays the retailer's site and a second frame that among other things displays one or more pull down menus. The second frame may also include one or more icons and buttons. As used herein frame refers to an independently identifiable display area of a viewed page. The user can navigate the retailer's site much in the same way that she would if she had directly accessed the retailer's site as opposed to accessing it through a proxy server. When the user visits a page on the retailer's site that displays one or more items for sale, then the second frame would include a pull down menu that displays a list comprising the name of those one or more items. The pull down menu may also include the price, description, and any other relevant information presented in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) in the retailer's page regarding the one or more items. The user may then select one or more of the items in the pull down menu to add to one of her universal on line shopping lists.

The user may at any point, click on a button or icon on the second frame to be presented with links to retailers. From there, the user may repeat the steps of the preceding paragraph by clicking on the link to the same or other retailers' sites. While the user visits one or more retailers' sites and navigates through them, the Snaz server monitors the users visits and sends the selected data to a database.

Once a user has a universal online shopping list that is filled with one or more items, she may then use the list to purchase one or more of the items on the list. The following is a description of the buying process of the present invention.

To buy one or more items on a universal online shopping list, the user accesses the list by visiting the Snaz site. Thereafter, the user selects the one or more items on the list that she desires to purchase. In a preferred embodiment, having selected the items, the user may then simply click on a buy icon that initiates and completes the placement of purchase orders with all the merchants involved. This is herein referred to as the "one-click checkout" option. The Snaz server uses the data from the list to fill all the appropriate purchase order forms in a process known as form filling. This provides the user the convenience of avoiding filling any purchase forms (which in the case of purchases involving multiple online retailers entails filling out purchase forms with multiple retailers). The Snaz server thereafter receives confirmation numbers for all the completed purchases from the retailers and places the confirmation numbers next to the corresponding items on the list.

In an alternative embodiment, the user may select to fill purchase orders with individual retailers separately. In such an embodiment, the Snaz server may fill part of the purchase forms (again using form filling) and presents the user with the page on the retailer's site on which the user needs to continue filling out the remaining information.

While the user accesses the retailer's page for completing forms for purchase orders, the Snaz proxy server monitors the checkout process in order to capture a confirmation number for the transaction. The confirmation number captured by the Snaz proxy server is then placed next to the item to which it corresponds on the universal online shopping list.

In another embodiment of the present invention, wireless devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA's) may be implemented to interface with the Snaz server via a wireless network that may include the Internet.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Figure 1 is a schematic representation of one embodiment of a computer network in which the present invention may be practiced.

Figure 2 is a schematic representation of one embodiment of a computer system through which a user may obtain access and use the system of the present invention. Figure 3 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the system of the present invention.

Figure 4 is an interaction diagram of one embodiment of the process of adding items to the universal online shopping list of the present invention.

Figure 5 is an interaction diagram of one embodiment of the process of buying items using the universal online shopping list of the present invention. Figure 6 is an interaction diagram of one embodiment of the refresh process of the present invention.

Figure 7a is a screen capture of the home page of the Snaz site.

Figure 7b is a screen capture that provides general information about the features offered by the Snaz site. Figure 7c is a screen capture that provides information on opening an account with Snaz.

Figure 7d is a screen capture that shows the fields that a user fills out for opening an account with Snaz.

Figure 7e is a screen capture that shows the fields that a user fills out for creating a universal shopping list of the present invention. Figure b^*a is tne screen capture showing the fields that a user fills out for logging into her Snaz account.

Figure 8b is a screen capture showing the user's existing online universal shopping lists.

Figures 9a-f are screen captures which show categories of online retailers as well as specific online retailers in each category whose sites may be accessed and viewed from the Snaz website with the Snaz server acting as proxy.

Figure 10a is a screen capture showing the screen that the user browser is presented with as a result of the user's clicking on link 900 in Figure 9f.

Figure 10b is a screen capture showing the screen presented to the user browser as a result of clicking on link 1020 in Figure 10a.

Figure 10c is a screen capture showing the screen capture of Figure 10b with menu bar 1120 expanded.

Figures 1 la-c are screen captures relevant in the buy process using the universal online shopping list of the present invention. Figure 12a-e are screen captures illustrating additional features of the present invention.

Figures 13a-d are screen captures illustrating an alternative embodiment of the present invention for adding items to a universal online shopping list.

Figure 14 is an interaction diagram of another embodiment of the process of adding items to the universal online shopping list of the present invention. Figure 15 is a schematic representation of a wireless network platform in which the present invention may be practiced in accordance with another embodiment.

Figure 16 depicts a wireless mobile device for user interface with the Snaz server.

Figure 17 depicts the transaction flow of the wireless embodiment.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATED EMBODIMENTS

The present description is of the best presently contemplated mode of carrying out the invention. This description is made for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention and should not be taken in a limiting sense. The scope of the invention is best determined by reference to the appended claims. The detailed descriptions that follow are presented in reference to examples relating to information handling devices in terms of methods and symbolic representations of operations within information handling devices. These method descriptions and representations are the means used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. L A method is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. These steps require physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like. It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities.

Useful devices for performing the operations of the present invention include, but is not limited to, general or specific purpose digital processing and/or computing devices, which devices may be standalone devices or part of a larger system. The devices may be selectively activated or reconfigured by a program, routine and/or a sequence of instructions and/or logic stored in the devices. In short, use of the methods described and suggested herein is not limited to a particular processing configuration. To facilitate an understanding of the principles and features of the present invention, they are explained herein below with reference to its deployments and implementations in illustrative embodiments. In particular, the present invention is described in reference to examples of deployments and implementations for online shopping on the Internet. The present invention can find utility in a variety of implementations without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention, as will be apparent from an understanding of the principles that underlie the invention. It is understood that the present invention may be applied to e- commerce of other natures, for a wide range of product offerings (including without limitation products, services and contents) that may be offered at retail, wholesale or free to users, including without limitation products and services that are tangible, intangible products, physical, non-physical, and content based. For example, the e-commerce scheme of the present invention may be applied to product offerings such as financial services, banking services, subscriptions, entertainment, insurance, news, informational databases, informational services, brokerage services, personal services, health services, food, electronics, etc., which a user may wish to shop for, transact or otherwise access such product offerings online. As used in the context of the present invention, the terms "shop" and "shopping" relate to transactions or access to sites involving all conceivable product offerings including without limitations products, services and contents, whether they are tangible or intangible, offered at retail, wholesale or free to users. For example, a user may "shop" for a product such as a book, a service such as auction, or content such as news. The terms "merchant", "retailer", and "e- tailer" include any entity that is indirectly or directly presenting product offerings, such as a shopping portal or a direct provider of products and services.

The e-commerce platform may involve, without limitation, distributed information exchange networks, such as computer networks (e.g., Internet, Intranet, WAN, LAN, etc.), communications networks (e.g., wired or wireless networks) and broadcast networks.

Prior to discussing details of the inventive aspects of the present invention, it is helpful to discuss one example of a network environment in which the present invention may be implemented and one example of a computer system through which access may be obtained to the system of the present invention. The Internet is an example of a distributed computer network in which the present invention may be implemented, as illustrated schematically in Fig. 1. Many servers 10 are connected to many clients 12 via Internet network 14, which comprises a large number of connected information networks that act as a coordinated whole. Details of various hardware and software components comprising the Internet network 14 are not shown (such as servers, routers, gateways, etc.), as they are well known in the art. Further, it is understood that access to the Internet by the servers 10 and clients 12 may be via suitable transmission medium, such as coaxial cable, telephone wire, wireless RF links, or the like. Communication between the servers 10 and the clients 12 takes place by means of an established protocol. Merchants offering products for sale online maintain websites at the servers 10 that provide access by customers using the clients 12. As will be noted below, the back-end system of the present invention may be configured in the servers 10.

Turning now to Fig. 2, there is schematically illustrated one embodiment of a computer system 20 which may be configured as the client 12 for navigating the Internet. The computer system 20 communicates with the Internet network 14. The computer system 20 includes a processor 22, internal random-access memory ("RAM") 23 and read-only memory ("ROM") 25, and a data bus architecture for coupling the processor 22 to various internal and external components. The computer system 20 further includes a communication device 36, which in turn is coupled to a communication channel 38 for effecting communication with the Internet network 14. A mass storage device 34, such as a hard disk drive or floppy disk drive or CD- ROM drive, is coupled to the processor 22 for storing utility and application software

(including a suitable web browser for navigating the Internet) and other data. The application software is executed or performed by the processor 22.

User actuatable input devices are also coupled to the processor 22, including a cursor positioning device 30 and a keyboard 32. The cursor-positioning device 30 is representative of any number of input devices that produce signals corresponding to a cursor location on the display 24, and may include by way of example, a mouse, a trackball, an electronic pen, or a touch-pad, which may be an integral part of the keyboard 32. A display 24 is coupled to the processor 22 through a video controller 28. The video controller 28 coordinates the presentation of information on the display 24 in one or more windows 26. Generally, the windows 26 are scalable, thus permitting a user to define the size and location of a particular window 26 on the display 24.

While the client 12 is described with reference to computer system 20, which resembles the architecture of a personal computer or workstation, it is within the scope and spirit of the present invention to include other types of computer systems for the client 12, including without limitation main frame computer, mini-computer, micro-computer, notebook computer, portable computer, personal digital assistants (PDA's), mobile devices, wireless devices, etc.

The server 10 could also have similar components as the computer system 20 depicted in Fig. 2, or other types of computer systems. The program configuration of the client 12 and server 10 would be apparent given the disclosure of the desired functions of the client 12 and server 10 disclosed below.

Figure 3 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the system of the present invention. In Figure 3, the system 300 of the present invention is coupled to user browser 305 and retailer's Internet site 310. The system is shown as being coupled to only one user browser 305 and one retailer's Internet site 310 for ease of illustration. However, it will be appreciated that the system 300 is coupled to many browsers and retailers' Internet sites by virtue of the Internet. The user browser 305 is located on a user computer (such as computer 20 shown in Figure 2).

System 300 comprises Snaz server 350, Windows NT server 352, Sun Solaris server 354, and database server 356. Snaz server 350 is the server on which the Snaz's Internet site is located. Windows NT server 352 is named as such herein so as to indicate that it preferably runs on the Windows NT operating system, which is available from Microsoft Corp. In addition to the Windows NT operating system, Windows NT server 352 also includes (1) Internet Information Server (IIS), a Web server software package which includes Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), utilizes Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to deliver Web documents, and is available from Microsoft Corp., (2) monitoring software for monitoring the user's navigation of retailer's Internet site, and (3) proxy software for allowing the Snaz server to act as a proxy for the user's access to the retailer's Internet site 310. Solaris server 354 is named as such herein so as to indicate that it preferably runs on Solaris, which is widely used as a server operating system and is available from Sun Microsystems, Inc. The Solaris server 354 also includes the webMethods B2B software, which is a software tool that is used for converting HTML data streams into Exchange Markup Language (XML) data streams and is available from webMethods, Inc. Database server 356 includes Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) software that is available from Sybase, Inc., under the name JConnect. Figure 4 is an interaction diagram of one embodiment of the process of adding items to the universal online list of the present invention. Interaction diagrams are known by those skilled in the art. However, in the interest of minimizing misunderstandings, a brief explanation of the interaction diagrams illustrated herein is provided below. In the interaction diagrams, each vertical line represents an agent involved in the overall process. Each arrow from one agent to the other represents flow of control signal(s) and/or data from one agent to the other. An arrow from an agent back to itself represents a step that is performed by the agent and which does not include transfer of information from that agent to another agent. Each arrow and its corresponding description are referenced by the same reference number.

Figure 4 illustrates the interaction of the user browser 305, Snaz shopping agent 402, Snaz WIDL (Web Interface Definition Language) engine 403, and online retailer's Intemet site 310. It is noted that user browser actions are in some cases below described as being performed by the user. This is because the user prompts the browser to perform the action and it is at times more convenient and accurate to describe the action as a user action. User browser 305 and online retailer's Internet site 310 are shown in Figure 3. Snaz shopping agent 402 includes the Snaz server 350, Windows NT server 352, Solaris Server 354, and database server 356 and the software therein (with the exception of the WIDL engine 403 which is stored on the Solaris server but is shown separately from the Snaz shopping agent 402.) WTDL engine 403 comprises the webMethods B2B tools and its WIDL control files corresponding to all the retailers' sites which a user may view and navigate via the Snaz site with the Snaz server acting as proxy to such viewing and navigation. A WIDL control file for each web page (or screen) contains information regarding the structure of the web page, including information regarding the location of items of interest on the screen (or web page). The items of interest are items for sale presented on the screen. The WIDL control file also includes information regarding the location, on the screen, of attributes corresponding to the item of interest. The attributes include, but are not limited to, the name, description, quantity, price, size, stock number, and color of the item of interest. Also included in the WIDL control files are the URL's for the pages on which the items and their attributes appear. (The attributes and URL's may be used by the Snaz shopping agent to locate the items of interest during the Refresh Price and Buy processes.) The information in the WTDL control file regarding a web page is used by the webMethods B2B tool to convert HTML stream into XML stream. The WTDL engine 403 also analyzes the data that is converted from HTML to XML and renders the bottom frame (which has been referred to above as the second frame, is shown in Figures 10a- c, and is further described below). In Figure 4, the process of adding items to a umversal online shopping list starts with step

406, which involves the user browser 305 submitting Snaz's site URL to the Snaz shopping agent 402. In step 408, the Snaz shopping agent 402 serves the Snaz site to user browser 305. In step 410, the user browser submits the user login information (i.e., account name and password) to the Snaz shopping agent. The Snaz shopping agent processes the login information and provides the user access to her account if the login information presented to it is valid. (It is to be noted that the login does not limit the user to only add items to her lists. While logged-in, the user may also buy items from her lists, refresh her lists, and use other features of the invention, without having to login again for using any of those features. Moreover, login may occur at multiple points in the process of navigating through the pages on the Snaz site.)

In step 412, the user selects an online retailer's site for viewing by clicking on a link corresponding to the selected online retailer's site. Also in step 412, the Snaz shopping agent begins the process of monitoring the user's navigation of the retailer's site. In step 414, the Snaz shopping agent requests the online retailer's page using the retailer's URL via an HTTP call. In step 416, the online retailer's page in HTML code is downloaded to the Snaz shopping agent. In step 418, the Snaz shopping agent presents the online retailer's page to the user browser as a proxy. In other words, the user browser is not linked to the online retailer's site. Instead, it continues to be linked to the Snaz site. In order to act as a proxy for the online retailer's site, the Snaz shopping agent substitutes its URL for that of the retailer's URL. It also appends the retailer's URL as an argument to its own URL. For example, if the URL of the retailer is "http://www.retailer.com" and Snaz's URL is "http://www.snaz.com", then the Snaz shopping agent would substitute "http://www.retailer.com" by

"http://www.snaz.conVproxy.asp ? VarPage=http://www.retailer.com". The user's browser is downloaded with the site at this new URL instead of the site at the retailer's URL. This substitution allows the Snaz site to act as a proxy for the retailer's site. It also allows the Snaz shopping agent to monitor the user's navigation of the retailer's online pages. As a result of the proxying, the user's browser is not directly presented with the online retailer's site. Instead, it continues to be presented with the online retailer's site through the Snaz agent. Nonetheless the user browser is presented with a web page in which the retailer's web page appears in substantially the same format as it would appear if the user were directly accessing the online retailer's web page. The user is presented with the retailer's site in a first frame (which is also herein referred to as the top frame and is shown in Figures lOa-c). The user is also presented with a second frame (which is also herein referred to as the bottom frame or the control panel and is shown in Figures lOa-c). The second frame, among other things, provides the user the option of navigating back to the Snaz site, performing selected operations at the Snaz site, and providing the user with a list containing the name and related data regarding the items which appear on the retailer's web screen that is presented to the user browser.

In step 420, the Snaz shopping agent passes the online retailer's HTML text stream (which appears on the web screen presented to the user browser) to the WTDL engine via HTTP call. In step 422, the WEDL engine converts the HTML text stream into XML text stream and analyzes the XML text stream. The analysis involves selecting text within the XML text stream that correspond to items on sale on the retailer's web screen. This may include the name of the item, a description of the item, its price, etc. Collecting the HTML stream in conjunction with the analysis used for selecting information of interest from the screen is commonly referred to as "screen scraping" in the art. In step 424, the WIDL engine renders the bottom frame based upon the aforementioned analysis such that at least part of the attributes corresponding to each of the items presented on the online retailer's page is displayed in the bottom frame. In one embodiment, all the attributes corresponding to items of interest are presented in the bottom frame. In step 426, the WTDL engine presents the bottom frame rendering to the Snaz shopping agent via HTTP. In step 428, the Snaz shopping agent presents the bottom frame to the user browser and the monitoring session ends.

In its capacity as a proxy, the Snaz shopping agent receives the entire HTML stream corresponding to the retailer's page that the user is viewing. When the user changes the page that he views, the HTML stream corresponding to the new page is received by the Snaz shopping agent. As a result, during browsing sessions by the user in which the Snaz shopping agent acts a proxy, the Snaz shopping agent receives a complete record of the browsing. The WTDL agent helps select the data of interest, such as items for sale and their attributes, from the HTML stream. The receipt of the entire HTML stream allows the Snaz shopping agent to perform its monitoring function. Monitoring encompasses (1) checking the entire HTML stream for pages that contain item(s) that can be purchased with the system and (2) detailed examination of these pages to determine specific items and their corresponding attributes. The entire HTML stream is temporarily stored on the Snaz server 350. The data from the HTML stream regarding the items and their attributes are stored on the database server 356. 41.

In step 430, the user, through the user browser, clicks on the proxied online retailer's page to change the view (i.e., presents a request to navigate to another page on the retailer's site). This is effectively the same as step 412 and causes steps 414 to 428 to repeat.

When the user sees an item she would like to add to her list, she selects the item to add to the list using the bottom frame. Also using the bottom frame, the user specifies the list to which she would like the item to be added. In response, in step 432, the user browser presents these user selections to the Snaz shopping agent. In one embodiment, the data from the bottom frame control panel is sent via an HTTP request initiated by the user selecting an item, and the request is processed by a Java Server Pages (JSP). In step 434, the Snaz shopping agent opens the user account and the selected list. In step 436, the Snaz shopping agent copies the item data for the selected item, adds the item data to the selected list, and updates the database. In step 438, the Snaz shopping agent presents the updated list page to the user browser.

The user may then by navigating through the Snaz site view the web screen in the Snaz site that allows her to select another or the same retailer's site to add more items to its list(s). This would repeat steps 412 to 438. The user may continue this addition process until she is done with adding items to her lists.

Figure 5 is an interaction diagram of one embodiment of the process of buying items using the universal online shopping list of the present invention. In Figure 5, steps 502 to 506 are identical to steps 406 to 410 in Figure 4. In step 508, the user selects the list containing item(s) she intends to purchase. Also in step 508, the Snaz shopping agent presents the user browser with the selected list. In step 510, the user selects the item(s) she intends to buy and enters a buy command. In step 512, the Snaz shopping agent queries the user account for the user profile data. The user profile data is stored in the Snaz shopping agent and is submitted to the online retailer as part of the checkout process. The user profile data is reused by the Snaz shopping agent in future "buy sessions" of the user so as to facilitate the checkout process for the user.

In step 514, the Snaz shopping agent uses the URL(s) of the online retailer(s) to whose site(s) the buy order relates to request the online retailer(s) item page(s), i.e., the pages on which the items to be bought are located. It is to be noted that in the case of "one-click checkout" the Snaz shopping agent does not monitor the page(s) requested. In the multiple click checkout, i.e., the non-one-click checkout, the Snaz shopping agent monitors the online retailer's site to capture a confirmation number for transactions completed by the online retailer. ^<il

In step 516, the online retailer(s) item pages are downloaded to the Snaz shopping agent in sequence for checkout. In step 518, the Snaz shopping agent passes HTML data stream received from the online retailer(s) site(s) to the WTDL engine. In step 520, the WIDL engine converts the HTML data stream to XML data stream for processing. The processing involves extracting the relevant information fields from the XML data stream for later use. In step 522, the WIDL engine returns specific fields of information that will be used for subsequent page submissions to the online retailer. These fields vary according to the retailer's checking sequence.

In step 524, the Snaz shopping agent creates a new page using the user profile data and online retailer's HTML. More specifically, the user profile data is used by the Snaz shopping agent to construct an HTTP request for the next page in the checkout process. In step 526, the Snaz shopping agent sends the HTTP request to the online retailer and requests the next page in the checkout sequence. In step 528, steps 516 to 526 are repeated until final page(s) in the sequence have been populated and returned to the online retailer(s). In step 530, the Snaz shopping agent downloads the final page(s) from the online retailers. The final page(s) are confirmation pages that are captured in HTML to display a confirmation message to the user. In step 532, the Snaz shopping agent copies the confirmation data to the user list and updates the Snaz database to reflect the update to the user list. In step 534, the Snaz shopping agent presents the updated list that includes confirmation numbers to the user browser. It is to be noted that, in one embodiment, the user's browser is presented with the filled out forms of the checkout process so that the user can check the information in the forms before she confirms the buy order. It is to be noted that from the online retailer's perspective, the buy process is the same whether the user fills out the checkout forms directly with the online retailer or indirectly through the Snaz site with its one-click checkout. Figure 6 is an interaction diagram of one embodiment of the process of refreshing the price of items from the universal online shopping list of the present invention. In Figure 6, steps 602 to 608 are identical to steps 502 to 508 in Figure 5. In step 610, the user selects intended item(s) whose price(s) she wishes to be refreshed and inputs a price refresh command. In step 612, the Snaz shopping agent queries the user's account for the user profile data. In step 614, the Snaz shopping agent uses URL(s) for the online retailer's page(s) on which the intended item is located (also herein referred to as the "item page(s)") to request the item page(s). In step 616, the online retailer's item page(s) are downloaded to the Snaz shopping agent. In step 618, the Snaz shopping agent passes the HTML stream for the item page(s) to the WIDL engine via HTTP. In step 620, the WTDL engine converts the HTML stream to an XML 4 . stream for processing. The processing involves selecting the price of the item from the XML stream. In step 622, the WIDL engine returns the updated price to the Snaz shopping agent. In step 624, the Snaz shopping agent copies the updated price data to the user list and updates its database to reflect the updated price data. In step 626, steps 614 to 624 are repeated until all selected items have updated prices in the Snaz's database. In step 628, the Snaz shopping agent presents the updated list with updates prices to the user browser.

Although the process illustrated in Figure 6 is described in relation to price, it will be appreciated that the process may be used to refresh a list containing any other type of information the update of which may be located on one or more sites. The ability to create and add items to a universal list (of any kind) and refresh that list as in the processes of the present invention, can allow one to create a centralized list that comprises data from one or more sites and that one may wish to conveniently update without having to revisit multiple sites. An example may be a list containing estimates by many stock analysts whose estimates are located on different sites. The following are a number of screen captures of web pages from the Snaz website to help further illustrate the present invention. Figure 7a is a screen capture of the home page of the Snaz site (which is referred to as Shopnlist in this and other capture screens). Figure 7b is a screen capture that provides information about the general features offered by the Snaz site. Figure 7c is a screen capture that provides information on opening an account with Snaz. Figure 7d is a screen capture that shows the fields that a user fills out for opening an account with Snaz. Figure 7e is a screen capture that shows the fields that a user fills out for creating a universal shopping list of the present invention. As indicated by the fields on the screen capture in Figure 7e, the user may specify a name for the list, an occasion associated with the list, the date of the occasion, whether others may access the list and names and other identifying information regarding persons who are intended recipients of the list.

Figure 8a is the screen capture showing the fields that a user fills out for logging into her Snaz account. Figure 8b is a screen capture showing the user's existing online universal shopping lists. The screen capture in Figure 8b is presented to the user after a successful log in. The web page in the screen capture shown in Figure 8b may also be accessed at many other points in the process of browsing the Snaz website.

Figures 9a-f are screen captures which show categories of online retailers, as well as specific online retailers in each category, whose sites may be accessed and viewed from the Snaz website with the Snaz server acting as proxy. The list of categories as well as the list of retailers in each category may be expanded to include other categories and retailers. This ^■Vό expansion may be accomplished without altering the retailer's website as the features described herein do not rely on altering the retailer's website. The names of the online retailers on the screen captures are HTML links for viewing the online retailers' sites. When a user clicks one of these links, the Snaz proxy server, acting as a proxy for the retailer's site, presents the user's browser with a screen that comprises a top frame which display's the retailer's site and a bottom frame which, among other things, acts as a control panel and displays one or more pull down menus. For example, when a user clicks on the e-Toys.com link 900 in Figure 9f, the Snaz proxy server, acting as a proxy for the e-Toys.com site, presents the user's browser with a screen that comprises a top frame which display's the e- Toys.com site and a bottom frame which, among other things, displays one or more pull down menus.

Figure 10a is a screen capture showing the screen that the user browser is presented with as a result of the user's clicking on link 900 in Figure 9f. The screen capture in Figure 10a illustrates the screen of the present invention that the user browser is presented by the Snaz proxy server. In Figure 10a, the screen capture comprises top frame 1005 and bottom frame 1010. Top frame 1005 shows e-Toys.com' s site while bottom frame 1010, which among other things, acts as a control panel shows a pull down menu 1015. Pull down menu 1015 includes options, such as, (1) Add Item to SnazList, (2) See My SnazList, (3) Pick a Merchant, (4) Help, and (5) Logout. In the top frame 1005, the user can navigate through the e-Toys.com site as if she had directly accessed the e-Toys.com site rather than through the Snaz site acting as a proxy. For example, if user clicks on link 1020, which is the link for toys on the site for kids whose age falls in the range of 0-12 months, the user browser is presented with a top frame that shows the page to which link 1020 points. Figure 10b is a screen capture showing the screen presented to the user browser as a result of clicking on link 1020 in Figure 10a. In Figure 10b, the top frame 1105 shows the page on the e-Toys.com site associated with (or pointed to by) link 1020 in Figure 10a. The bottom frame 1110 shows menu bars 1115 and 1120. Menu bar 1115, like menu bar 1015 in Figure 10a, provides the user with a list of options that she has for navigating through the Snaz site and entering commands. Menu bar 1120 presents the user with a list of items for sale on the page in top frame 1105.

This list is shown in Figure 10c in the menu 1120. Although the screen capture in Figure 10c shows only the name of the items on the page in top frame 1105, the system of the present invention can include in menu 1120 other attributes of the items for sale. These attributes include the price, color, size, quantity, stock number, and any other attributes that the retailer may provide regarding the items it has for sale. The process by which the Snaz shopping agent monitors the HTML stream corresponding to the page presented in the top frame, extracts the item name and other attributes, and renders the bottom frame with the extracted information has been explained in detail above.

If a user wishes to add an item from the page in top frame 1105 to her list, then she may do so as follows. She may click on that item's name in menu 1120 to highlight that item and thereafter double-click on Add Item to SnazList in menu 1115. This would add that item to a user's selected list in a manner described above. Figures 1 la-c are screen captures relevant in the buy process using the universal online shopping list of the present invention. Figure 1 la is a screen capture showing a user's universal online shopping list named My Shopping List from which the user may wish to purchase one or more items. The user selects the one or more items she wishes to buy from this list, named My Shopping List, by clicking in the select box or boxes 1150 corresponding to those one or more items. Once the user has completed the selection, she may click on Buy icon 1190 to send a buy order. After the user clicks on the Buy icon 1190, she is presented with the screen shown in Figure 1 lb.

Figure 1 lb is a screen capture of the page presented to the viewer in response to her buy order. The page in Figure 1 lb is a filled out form page which is presented to the user so that she can check the information in the form before she confirms her buy order. Figure 1 lc is a screen capture showing a scrolled down version of the page shown in the screen capture of Figure l ib. Details of the buy process are described above, particularly in relation to the interaction diagram of Figure 5.

Figure 12a-e are screen captures illustrating additional features of the present invention. Figure 12a, 12b, and 12c are screen capture illustrating the features of moving an item from one list to another, copying an item from one list onto another, and deleting an item from a list, respectively. Figure 12d is a screen capture illustrating the feature of creating a calendar for sending the user and others of her choosing a reminder with a note regarding an item on her list at a time interval of her choosing. Figure 12e is a screen capture illustrating the feature of enabling a user to e-mail the list to others with a message and a link to the page on which her list is located.

Figures 13a-d are screen captures illustrating an alternative embodiment of the present invention for adding items to a universal online shopping list of the present invention. Figure 13a is a screen capture of the home page of an online retailer that provides links to a number of other online retailers. At least some of these retailers' sites include links to the Snaz site for adding items on the retailer's site to universal online shopping lists on the Snaz site. For example, the Tommy Hilfiger site, for which reference 1305 is a link, contains links to the Snaz site for adding items to universal online shopping lists on the Snaz site. Figure 13b is a screen capture of a page on the Tommy Hilfiger site that displays an item

1310 for sale and an button 1315 (next to the item 1310) which includes a link to the Snaz site for adding item 1310 to a universal online shopping list on the Snaz site. Each item for sale on the Tommy Hilfiger site includes a corresponding button such as button 1315. Clicking on button 1315 links the user browser to the Snaz site and downloads screen 1320 to the user browser. Clicking on submit button 1325 in screen 1320 replaces screen 1320 with screen 1330 (which is shown in the screen capture of Figure 13c). Clicking on one or more of the lists 1331 and 1332 provides the user with a button for adding the item 1310 to the clicked list(s). The button referred to in the preceding paragraph is like button 1335, but unlike button 1335 is for adding item(s) to an existing list and not to a new list to be created. Once the user has added item 1310 to her list(s) she is presented with screen 1340 (shown in the screen capture of Figure 13d) which provides her with the option to continue shopping at the Tommy Hilfiger site or to see the shopping list to which she has added item 1310, which in this case is named My Shopping List.

Figure 14 is an interaction diagram of another embodiment of the process of adding items to the universal online shopping list of the present invention. More specifically, it is an interaction diagram for the hard button (or hard link) version of adding items to the universal online shopping list of the present invention and, thus corresponds to the embodiment illustrated in Figures 13a-d. In step 1402, a user requests the online retailer's site through a browser. In step 1404, the online retailer serves the online retailer's page to the user browser. In step 1406, the user selects an item to add to her list using a hard link to Snaz on the retailer's page. In step 1408, the Snaz agent determines what lists the user has with Snaz and presents the user with her lists. In step 1410, the user specifies the list name to be updated, i.e., the user specifies the list to which she would like to add an item from the retailer's site. In step 1412, the Snaz shopping agent copies the item data to the user list and updates the Snaz database. In step 1414, the user is presented with a choice to continue shopping or to view her list at Snaz.

It is to be noted that the buy process for items created using the method described above in relation to Figures 13a-d is the same as that described above, particularly in relation to the interaction diagram of Figure 5. It is also to be noted that adding the button 1315 which links the user browser to the Snaz site requires the retailer to add a single JavaScript function to its page generator. The Java Script function added to the page generator enables the page generator to add the buttons such as button 1315 to all the pages generated by page generator that include items for sale. Appendix A, attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference, provides retailers with general instructions for adding the Snaz hard button to their site. Appendix B, also attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference, is the code for a web page of a retailer, Gourmet Coffee Club, which includes JavaScript to implement the Snaz hard button.

The system and method of the present invention may be used to increase sales on an online retailer's site. In return for facilitating and/or increasing sales at the retailer's site, by employing the system of the present invention, an intermediary may receive compensation from either the users of the system and/or the retailers. Such compensation may, for example, be based on the volume of purchase orders placed using the universal online shopping list of the present invention. The systems and processes described above support a number of business opportunities, for both the e-tailers as well as intermediaries (e.g., Snaz in the earlier examples). These opportunities may include: a. Shopping list management: The present invention presents a universal shopping basket that can be used across multiple on-line retailers, thus significantly simplifying the online shopping experience for the users, and improving the exposure of the e-tailers. The users may more likely diversify their shopping to more e-tailer sites using the universal shopping basket. b. Personal and custom gift lists/registry: Users may create personal and custom lists of gifts (each including without limitation gifts and services from different vendors) that they would like others to give them. The users may communicate the gift lists to family and friends. The relatives and friends may execute purchases online from the lists. They can do this by applying an e-wallet approach so that they do not have to visit the e-tailers' sites to complete the purchases. Alternatively, they may be directed to the e-tailers' sites through the hyperlinks of the lists, so that they can complete the purchases at the e-tailers' sites. The users, friends and relatives may track the gift list fulfillment status, so that the gift givers can buy the right gifts desired by the users. This reduces returns and exchanges for unwanted items and duplicate gifts. As a further embodiment, a user may create a gift list for a targeted recipient that can be accessed by friends and relatives, but set a restriction in the list to prevent the targeted recipient from accessing the list. c. Wish lists: Users may create wish lists for gifts that they wish to receive that are not tied to any holiday or special events. These may be lists that are made available to friends and relatives throughout the year, thus the intermediary maximizes the sales opportunities in connection with the users. d. Cross selling: Shared gift lists may be implemented by the intermediary to provide cross selling opportunities for e-tailers. A user creating a list of gifts for a targeted recipient may share the list with another user to allow the other user to add to the list items that may be related to the items selected by the first user. For example, if the first user selected a CD- player as one of the items, the second user may select a number of CDs for the targeted recipient. Cross-selling engines may also be provided to automatically cross sell items that relate to the items selected by a user. e. Data-mining: The intermediary can keep track of not only the purchase pattern of a user (i.e., completed transactions), it can also keep track of the user's shopping behavior. For example, the intermediary can keep track of the user's browsing and web surfing behavior, by "screen scraping". This gives a more comprehensive information on the user's shopping behavior, so that the intermediary or e-tailers can determine the type of related items, e-tailers' sites, price categories, etc. that relates to the user. For example, a user that actually bought a CD may have looked for novelty items, books, etc. in similar price categories before making the final purchase of the CD. Consequently, targeted promotion of products and services may be conducted based on such data collected. f. Commission revenues: By simplifying the online shopping experience for users, users would more likely conduct on-line shopping through the intermediary, and consequently the intermediary would receive more commissions from e-tailers. g. Partnering of e-tailers and intermediaries: Because of the ease of online purchasing via the intermediaries, the intermediaries effectively offer those e-tailers that made use of the intermediaries higher visibility to potential shoppers, which improve market penetration and sales of the e-tailers. By partnering with the intermediary, the e-tailers also improve customer brand loyalty. This in turn improves the revenues to the intermediaries.

While the present invention has been described in connection with online shopping, it is understood that the present invention can be applied more broadly for the central online management of a list of information that has been created using the intermediary described above, across an open network of websites, for person to business or business to business applications. Below are further examples. The list may be a list of items recommended to a business by a consultant. For example, a consultant may recommend certain furniture, office equipment, accessories, etc. to a company manager. The list is collected when the consultant visits the sites in which the items were displayed and/or discussed. The list contains the links to the sites, and may also include the specific location on a particular web page of a site on which a particular item is identified. Thus, for example, should a page include several different models of an office chair, the manager will be directed to the correct model on the web page. The web page need not be part of a shopping site. It may be part of the official manufacturer's site that offers official information about the particular product. The list may contain specific information about websites, which may be updated, or refreshed, from a central location (i.e., the intermediary). For example, a company may maintain a list of preferred customers. The company may refresh and update the list maintained by the intermediary quite easily without having to directly visit the individual sites of the customers. The list may also be a list that is referenced to web sites of sources of information. For example, a student may compile a list of topics that relates to thermodynamics, and each topic is linked to a particular source of information. The student may share the list with other students who may benefit from the information.

The list may also be a to-do list. For example, a wedding coordinator may compile a list of action items, such as: order wedding cake, reserve banquet room, arrange chapel, appointment with priest, etc. Each item on the list is linked to a particular web site, which allows information to be retrieved and/or completion of a transaction. The wedding cake may be ordered online; information about the priest's address and telephone number may be retrieved online from a web site, etc. The to-do list may be "checked-off ' by one or more users who have been given access to the list, so the to-do items would not be duplicated by different people.

For certain applications that require the use of passwords, using the present invention, only a single password is needed to access the various web sites via the intermediary. For example, when a user accesses different stock trading sites, the user only need to provide her password once to the intermediary's site, and such password will apply to any stock trading sites accessed via the intermediary.

Another business opportunity enabled by the present invention is the provision of a Application Service Provider (ASP) solution to equip shopping portal with its own market place, accessible through web and wireless devices, enabling fast ramp up to launch of the market place. The e-tailers can monetize their customer base by powering their online shopping market place with a Snaz single, universal shopping basket and transaction platform. This functionality provides a superior shopping management system. Their customers will benefit from the ease of accessing their favorite online merchants with a single identity and password, flexibility to create personalized product lists, and conveniences of single button check out.

The Snaz deep-link buy technology enables the accurate tracking of product information to instantly propel customers back to the product page of an item stored in their basket. This provides a compelling incentive to spend time on your site and return to make a purchase. Detailed customer purchase intentions and behavioral data are recorded giving you the resources to develop a profound, sophisticated customer profile database and a group-specific targeted promotions.

Online retailers can partner with Snaz to convert browsers into buyers. The Snaz commerce solution is complete, easy to implement and dramatically improves the online shopping experience. The present invention accelerates your market proposition by improving your site's stickiness, boosting your revenue generation and creating a valuable, loyal customer base. The Snaz ASP Solution provides a wholly customized shopping environment and a merchant network that brings affiliate revenues from the start. As an ASP, Snaz takes full responsibility for all technical and commercial aspects of its service, thus truly providing its clients a "shopping solution out of a box".

Another business opportunity is a middleware solution based on the Snaz platform. Based on an open standard, the Snaz middleware solution enables an online retailer to power their existing shopping environment with the bare functionalities of a universal shopping cart and m-wallet - the Snaz single click checkout solution. The flexible nature of this solution permits the retailers to select the particular functions that are valuable to their specific customer base and integrate them best within their current offering. Snaz middleware solution corresponds best to Internet players that position themselves as lead generators, already equipped with a shopping environment that has potential for further development.

The present invention may be implemented for a wireless network platform for mobile interactive user devices, such as Internet enabled portable PCs, PDAs or wireless Internet Phones. By way of example and not limitation, such wireless implementation is described in reference to an implementation for use with a wireless PDA 700, for example the Palm Pilot VII distributed by Palm, Inc. In this embodiment, referring to Fig. 1, the client 12 takes the ^^<L form of the wireless PDA and the wireless network replaces or interfaces with the Internet network.

Fig. 15 shows the wireless PDA 700 communicating with a wireless gateway 800 that is coupled to the Intemet 14, to which the Snaz server 802 is connected. Fig. 16 is a depiction of the Palm Pilot VTI PDA 700. It is essentially a computing device with limited functionality, including bi-directional wireless connectivity to a wireless network via a built-in antenna 702. It has a display 704 and a set of keys 706 for user interactivity with the PDA 700. The implementation software in the afore-described embodiment may be ported or rewritten to conform to the Palm operating system (Palm OS) environment. (Information about Palm Pilot VII PDA and Palm OS is available from www.palm.com, which is fully incoφorated but reference herein.)

The data flow and basic features of the wireless embodiment is quite similar to the web- based embodiment described above. Fig. 17 depicts the transaction flow for the wireless embodiment. For example, the PDA 700 is provided with a user interface that allows the user to undertake a series of tasks. Because the size of the display area 704 of the PDA 700 is limited, a menu driven interface is created to facilitate access to the Snaz server. The interface allows the user to, for example:

- login to the Snaz server;

- view predefined "hot lists" and user personalized lists (e.g., My Lists) that have been created and downloaded from the user's computer; each list contains information on the store and product names for selected items;

- share lists with others who can link directly to and purchase from the user's lists with their own account;

- view detail information for each item in the lists, including the vendor, description, price and date; execute purchases and receive confirmation of the transaction order number and email from the retailer; single click check out;

- browse through online retailers.

Other functionalities and features of Snaz may be facilitated by the built-in functionalities of the Palm PDA. For users who are interested in implementing the functionality of the universal online shopping list and other features of Snaz, they can download the Snaz application from the website of Snaz, and install the application on the PDA 700.

The present invention is particularly advantages to a wireless user interface device such as a PDA that has a limited number of keys. The present invention permits wireless shoppers to use single-click to order merchandise across multiple shopping sites without the hassle of inputting personal data using the limited functionality of keypads on such type of mobile devices. Other mobile/wireless devices can also take advantage of the present invention. For example, Internet enabled cellular phones, two-way pagers, and other Internet enabled wireless devices may be implemented with the present invention without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.

The present invention has been described above in terms of functional modules in block diagram format. It is understood that unless otherwise stated to the contrary herein, one or more functions may be integrated in a single physical device or a software module in a software product, or a function may be implemented in separate physical devices or software modules, without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.

It is appreciated that detailed discussion of the actual implementation of each module is not necessary for an enabling understanding of the invention. The actual implementation is well within the routine skill of a programmer and system engineer, given the disclosure herein of the system attributes, functionality and inter-relationship of the various functional modules in the system. A person skilled in the art, applying ordinary skill can practice the present invention without undue experimentation. Appendix C, attached hereto and made a part of the present disclosure and fully incoφorated herein by reference, is a Technical White Paper that discloses additional reference information about the Snaz solution. While the invention has been described with respect to the described embodiments in accordance therewith, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and improvements may be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Accordingly, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited by the specific illustrated embodiments, but only by the scope of the appended claims.

APPENDIX A

(3 PAGES INCLUDING THIS COVER)

WO 01/27837 PCT/TJSOO shopnlist

Shopnlist Welcome Package

This welcome package contains the information you need to set up the Shopnlist button on your web site. Please follow our step-by-step instructions. Feel free to contact us at tech-support@shopniist.com if you have any questions.

An HTML sample downloaded from your site accompanies this document and contains recommended changes to your product page that will enable the Shopnlist button.

Background

You can enable the Shopnlist button on your web site by adding a small amount of code to your product description web pages. After this is done, your customers can add your products to the Shopnlist gift registry.

Components

The key components are Java server page addtolistjsp, JavaScript function addToList 0. and the Shopnlist button. addtolist.jsp addtolistjsp is a Java server page (jsp) on the Shopnlist site that accepts descriptive input about your products. When your customers press the "Shopnlist" button, they call addtolistjsp with an HTML query string that contains descriptive data about your product. The data can later be used to purchase your products.

JavaScript function addToList 0

JavaScript function addToList 0 calls addtolistjsp and is defined in the HTML head. The arguments to addToList 0 are variables that have different values on each product page. Refer to the accompanying HTML sample for the definition of addToList 0-

Shopnlist button

The Shopnlist button is a gif image that is hosted on the Shopnlist site. You will reference this image on your product description pages. The Shopnlist image is enclosed in an HREF tag that calls addToList 0- shop fist

Implementation

To set up Shopnlist you should:

• Generate the addToList 0 definition in every product page HTML header exactly as we have provided it to you.

• Place a Shopnlist image next to the product's "Buy" with an HREF to function addToList 0- In the HTML code that reads HREF="javascript:addToListCwww. etc., substitute actual generated values for the ones shown in the example that we have provided to you.

You should try these changes on a few test pages and notify us to test the implementation before applying these changes to your entire site.

Operation

A customer visiting your site may decide to buy your product right away by pressing "buy", or may choose to press "Shopnlist", to add the item to the Shopnlist universal shopping basket and gift registry. Pressing the "Shopnlist" image button calls the JavaScript addToList 0 function, which opens a small window and calls addtolistjsp. addtolistjsp saves the product data in the Shopnlist database and gives the choice of continuing to shop at your site, or to visit Shopnlist.com to review his shopping list

IT-

APPENDIX B

(20 PAGES INCLUDING THIS COVER)

1«

speccof . html <!doctype html public "-// 3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-885 9-l">

<meta name="Keywords" content="wholesale,mailorder, retail, espresso, coffee, roaster, expresso,mocha beans,mocha coffee, rican beans, onaespre sso, buying espresso, mountain roaster, bulk coffee, Java beans, peaberry e spresso, columbianroaster, equipment coffee, buying roaster, blue espresso , Sumatra beans, machines roaster, konacoffee, brazil espresso, brazil roas ter, equipment espresso,machines espresso, bulk espresso, ricanroaster, e nya espresso, roast espresso, rican coffee, gourmet roaster, mountain espr esso, jamaicancoffee, costa beans, blue roaster, Java espresso,brazilian b eans, brazilian espresso, buying beans, sumatraroaster, brazil beans, enya beans, roast roaster, affiliate coffee, retailer coffee, Sumatra coffee, c olumbianespresso, shops beans">

<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/ .5 [en] C-RCN032399 ( in98 ; I) [Netscape] ">

<title>Varietals</title> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE = "Javascript"> function addToList (description, catalog,price, formaction,m_Grind,m_vwit em,m_vwcatalog)

{ description=escape (description) ; catalog=escape (catalog) ; price=escape (price) ; formaction=escape (formaction) ; m_Grind=escape (m_Grind) ; m_v item=escape (m_vwitem) ; m_vwcatalog=escape (m_vwcatalog) ; url2it=escape (document. location.href) ; htmlver =1; window. open ( ' http: //www. shopnlist . com/list/addtolist . j sp?site=www. gourmetcoffee. com&description= ' +description+ ' &catalog= ' +catalog+ ' &pric e= ' +price+ ' &formaction= ' +formaction+ ' &Grind= ' +m_Grind+ ' &vwitem= ' +m_vwi tem+ ' &vwcatalog= ' +m_vwcatalog+ ' &url2it= ' +url2it+ ' &htmlver= * +htmlver, ' a ddtolist' , 'WIDTH=400,HEIGHT=400' ) ; }

</SCRIPT> </head>

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#009900" vlink="#009900" background="sfg c_1550_8788"> &nbsp;

<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 > <tr VALIGN=TOP> <td><map name=4cb937ff5c5b7870><area shape=rect coords="0, 0, 105, 23" hr ^6

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<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl .gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=26x/td>

<tdxa href="http://st3. yahoo. com/sfgc/index.html"Ximg SRC="sfgc_1550

_359925" BORDER=0 height=36 width=379x/a>

<br>&nbsp; ,

speccof . html <table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH=" 417" > <tr VALIGN=TOP>

<td><a href="sfgc_1550_385083"ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_359925" BORDER=0 he ight=180 width=225 align=LEFTX/aximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 he ight=188 width=10 align=LEFTXimg SRC="sfgc_1550_384746" ALT="Varietal s" BORDER=0 height=18 width=63>

<pxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>Packaged in your choice of 1-pound &amp; 5-pound fully-lined Coffee Bags to ensure that roaste d-f resh flavor with every cup you brew . All prices are for pounds . Buy 5 and s ave

$2. 00 per pound ! </fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>When ordering, please r egister in our database and select an ID and password. By doing this you will not have to re-enter your shipping and billing addresses the next time you order. We will also notify you of our specials and new products . </font ></font>

<p><bxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Click on any title t o add a varietal to your store favorites. </fontx/fontx/b> <br>&nbsp; <br>&nbsp;</td> </tr> </table>

<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH="417" >

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=l></td>

</tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "Ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<tdxbxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/braziliansantol . html">Brazilian

Santos</ax/fontx/fontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>From the world ' s large st coffee producer, Bourbon Santos describes the producing area and port through which the coffee is shipped. </fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>This gourmet coffee del ivers speccof . html excellent body and balance, with mild acidity . </fontx/font> <pxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>Click on title to add t o your favorites</fontx/font>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l> <br><form

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3 . yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+brazi liansantol ">

<brxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-lxb>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>1601<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_359436" ALT="$ 9. 5 5 , 5/$37 . 75" BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="tr ans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"xoption>Whole Bean</option><option>Espresso</optionXoption>Drip</fontx/fontx/opti onx/selectxinput

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</tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8"Ximg SRC=" trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<tdxb><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/celkal . html">Celebes

Kalossie</a></fontx/fontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"Xfont size=-l>From the Indonesian is land of Sulawesi - tucked away in the southwestern Pacific Ocean - comes th is rich &amp; full bodied gourmet coffee. </fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>For your taste buds you

'11 find wonderful spicy notes along with low acidity and a very full arom a.</font></font>

4 speccof.html <brximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l> <br><form

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3. yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+celka 1">

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l><b>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l>1602<img SRC="trans_lxl .gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_410300" ALT="$9.8 5, 5/$39.25" BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTER><img SRC="tr ans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp;<select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</option><option>Espresso</optionXoption>Drip</fontX/fontX/opti onx/selectxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="CELKAL"X input

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"Xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brX/form></td> <td>

<a href =" Javascript : addToList ( ' Celebes Kalossie ' , ' 1602 ' , '9.85', ' sf gc+c elkal¹ , document . forms [0] .Grind. options [document. forms [0] .Grind. selecte dlndex] .text, 'CELKAL', 'SFGC') ; "XIMG SRC="http: //www. shopnlist . com/rem ote/images/shopnlist/ovl_63x20_orasha.gif" ALT="Add to List" BORDER="0 " WIDTH="63" HEIGHT="20"X/A>

</tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl.gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lX/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8"ximg SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=8X/td>

<td><bxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http: //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/colsup . html">Colombian

Supremo</a></fontx/fontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl.gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<brxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Supremo - Colombia's f inest grade of coffee. Truly gourmet .</fontX/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l>You' 11 discover a rich, superbly balanced flavor from this "famous for coffee" South American country.

(Juan Valdez, you know) </font></font> ^s

speccof . html <pxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>Coupled with a medium b ody, this aromatic coffee is a popular choice anytime of day . </fontx/font> <pximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l> <br><form METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3 . yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+colsu

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<brxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxb>Availability: </b> ϋ sually ships in 2-3 business days . </font></font>

<pxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>1603<img SRC="trans_lxl

. gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_359436" ALT="$ 9. 5

5 , 5/$37 . 75 " BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="tr ans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp;<select

NAME="Grind"xoption>Whole e

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NAME=" Decaf "Xoption>no</option><option>yes</fontx/fontx/optionx/s electxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="COLSUP"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"Xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <br></formX/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "Ximg SRC=" trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<tdxbxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l><a href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/costarican . html">Costa

Rican Tarazu</aX/fontX/fontx/b>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Often called one of th e world's finest coffees. But don't let the price fool your taste buds.<

/fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>This gourmet coffee del ivers good acidity with full-bodied richness . </fontX/font>

<pxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>Enj oy an unusually silk y ^ -

speccof . html flavor that creates a wonderful-tasting, complex prof ile . </fontx/font >

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l> <brxform

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3. yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+costa rican">

<brxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxb>Availability : </b> ϋ sually ships in 2-3 business days . </fontx/font>

<pxfont face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l>1604<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10Ximg SRC="sf gc_1550_410300" ALT="$9. 8 5, 5/$39.25" BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTER><img SRC="tr ans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</option><option>Espresso</op ionXoption>Drip</fontx/fontx/opti onx/selectxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="COSTARICAN"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"Xinput

TYPE=SUB IT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <br></formX/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "Ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<tdxbxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/ethiopian . html">Ethiopian</aX/f ontx/f ontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l>The finest Ethiopian c offee from the birthplace of the wild Arabica coffee tree.</fontx/font>

<pxfont face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l>You' 11 enjoy a full-bod ied taste - yet it ' s remarkably soft and rich . </f ontx/f ont>

<pxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>An expensive premium pr emium quality gourmet coffee worth every penny. </fontx/font>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<brxform

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3. yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+ethio pian"> <br><font face="arial, helvetica"Xf ont size=-lxb>Availability: </b> U

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<pxfont face="arial , helvetica"xf ont size=-l>1606<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_410300" ALT="$ 9. 8 5 , 5/$39.25" BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="tr ans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

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NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="ETHIOPIAN"xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"Xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <br></formX/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "Ximg SRC=" trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<tdxb><font face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l><a href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/f renchroast . tml">French

Roast</aX/f ontx/f ontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>Similar in properties to our espresso blend, but very darkly roasted and slightly less acidic.

To this day, French Roast is known by many as 'the wine of Arabia' with a strong aroma hinting at its perfect balance between sweetness and bitt erness .</fontx/font>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><form

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3. yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+f renc hroast">

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-lxb>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>1607<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10Ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_359436" ALT="$ 9. 5 5 , 5/$37.75" BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="tr ans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</optionXoption>Espresso</option><option>Drip</option>< /select > D

8 -»>

speccof . html ecaf : &nbsp; <select

NAME=" Decaf "><option>no< /opt ionxoption>yes</f ontx/f ontx/optionx/s electxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE=" FRENCHROAST"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brx/formX/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"x/td>

<td WIDTH="8"ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8X/td>

<tdxb><font face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l><a href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/ s f gc /guat an . html " >Guat emala

Antigua</aX/f ontx/f ont></b>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Among the world ' s fine st gourmet coffees. Certainly one of the best values you're likely to fin d anywhere . </fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>A full-bodied, well bal anced cup with spicy, complex notes prevalent . </fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Smokey undertones are f ound in the finish to delight the palate</fontx/font>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><form

METH0D=P0ST ACTION="https : //st3 . yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+guata n">

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l><b>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l>1608<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10Ximg SRO="sfgc_1550_359436" ALT="$ 9. 5 5 , 5/$37 . 75" BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="tr ans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</optionXoption>Espresso</optionXoption>Drip</option></select> D ecaf : &nbsp; <select

NAME=" Decaf "><option>no</opt ion><option>yes</f ontx/f ont X/optionX/s speccof . html electxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="GUATAN">< input

NA E=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"X input

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brX/formX/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<td><bxfont face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-lxa href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sfgc/kenyaaa . html">Kenya

AA</aX/f ontx/f ontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>A highly prized Africa n coffee. Definitely one of the finest available on world markets. </font

></font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xf ont size=-l>This coffee delivers a heavy body with superb acidity and balance, layered with winey notes. </font>

</font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Truly an excellent cup of coffee. </fontx/font>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><form

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3 . yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sfgc+kenya aa">

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"Xfont size=-lxb>Availability : </b> ϋ sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<pxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>1610<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10Ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_410300" ALT="$9. 8 5, 5/$39.25" BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="tr ans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

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NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="KENYAAA"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"X input

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10 speccof . html <brx/formx/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

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<td WIDTH="8"><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<tdxbxfont face="arial, helvetica"xf ont size=-lxa href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sfgc/konakaifancy. html">Kona

Kai Fancy</aX/fontx/fontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<brXfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>100% pure Kona - not a blend. You'll instantly notice the aromatic scent and full taste, with exceptional body and balance that fills the senses and is sure to plea se.</fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l>Once brewed, you'll dis cover a superb aroma, a light mild body and a clear, sweet, mellow flavor - hallmarks of the Kona gourmet coffee bean. </fontx/font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>The superior quality of

Kona coffee also makes a delightful summer refreshment when served as an iced coffee. True gourmet character from the good ol' USA. </fontx/fon t>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<brxform

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3 . yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sfgc+konak aifancy">

<brxfont face="arial , helvetica"Xfont size=-l><b>Availability : </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l>1611<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_410805" ALT="$20 . 55 , 5/$ 92 . 75" BORDER=0 height=18 width=113 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="t rans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</optionXoption>Espresso</option><option>Drip</fontX/fontx/opti onX/selectxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="KONAKAIFANCY"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC">< input

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brX/formx/td>

11 speccof . html </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<td><bXfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sfgc/konablend. html">Kona

Blend</ax/f ontx/f ontX/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Pure Kona blended with the finest high-grown Central American coffees , providing a Kona-like cup at a smaller price. Wonderfully satisfying! </fontx/font>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><form

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3. ahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+konab lend">

<brxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-lxb>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </font></font>

<pxfont face="arial , helvetica"Xfont size=-l>1612<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10Ximg SRC="sf gc_1550_411326" ALT="$15 . 55 , 5/$67 . 75" BORDER=0 height=18 width=113 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="t rans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp ; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</option><option>Espresso</optionXoption>Drip</f ontx/f ontx/opti onx/selectxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="KONABLEND"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"Xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <br></formX/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

12 4-*

speccof . html <td><bxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http : //st3 . yahoo . com/sfgc/ j amblumoun . html "> Jamaican Blue Mount ain< /a>< /f ontx/f ontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l> <br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>Other gourmet coffees may be noted for one special characteristic, but Jamaica Blue Mountain is noted only for its perfection . It is more than a good coffee; it is a great coffee and a rare treat . We encourage you to purchase genuine 100% Blue Mount ain

Coffee . </f ontx/f ont>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l> <br><form

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3 . yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sfgc+j ambl umoun">

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-lxb>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<p><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>1613<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif* BORDER=0 height=l width=10Ximg SRC-"sfgc_1550_411831" ALT="$29. 55, 5/$138 . 75" BORDER=0 height=18 width=121 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC=" trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</option><option>Espresso</optionXoption>Drip</f ontx/f ontx/opti onx/selectxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE=" JAMBLUMOUN"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"X input

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brX/formx/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdXimg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td>

</tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8"Ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<td><bxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/ j amhigmoun . html "> Jamaican

High Mountain</ax/fontx/fontx/b>

<brXimg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Grown and processed so me

13 speccof.html 2000 feet above sea level. Located in a mountain range in the middle o f

Jamaica, the soil and climatic conditions combine to produce this Jama ican blended coffee. </fontx/font>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l> <brxform

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3. yahoo. com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sfgc+jamhi gmoun">

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxb>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<pxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>1614<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_412383" ALT="$18 . 55, 5/$82 . 75" BORDER=0 height=18 width=113 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="t rans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean< /opt ion><option>Espresso< /opt ion><option>Drip</f ontx/f ontx/opti onx/selectxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE=" JAMHIGMOUN"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"Xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brX/formx/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>.

<tdxbxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l><a href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/mocha Java . html">Mocha

Java</ax/f ontx/f ontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"Xfont size=-l>From the small island of

Java, located in the southern portion of the Indonesian islands. </font

></font>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>You'll enjoy a subtly a romatic coffee that is heavy in flavor and body, but with a smooth and spicy f inish. </fontx/font>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl .gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><form

14 H

speccof.html

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3. yahoo. com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sfgc+mocha java">

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"Xfont size=-lXb>Availability : </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<pxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>1615<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_410300" ALT="$9. 8 5 , 5/$39.25" BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="tr ans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</optionXoption>Espresso< /opt ion><option>Drip</f ontx/f ontx/opti on></ select >< input

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="MOCHAJAVA"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"Xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart "> <br></formX/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<td><bxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l><a href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/papuanewguinea . html">Papua

New Guinea</a></fontx/fontX/b>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>In the western highlan ds of New Guinea, from an area called the Wahgi valley, there is grown a wonderful coffee. This coffee cups extremely well and is very well balanced. It has a rich, sweet aroma, good acidity and body, and finishes with a rich c hocolatey flavor and a slightly dry aftertaste. </fontx/font>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><form

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3 . yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+papua newguinea">

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l><b>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont> <p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>1616<img SRC="trans_lxl

15 speccof . html . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width-lOximg SRC="sfgc_1550_412898 " ALT="$10 . 85 , 5/$44 . 25" BORDER=0 height=18 width=113 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="t rans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind : &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"xoption>Whole Bean</option><option>Espresso</optionXoption>Drip</f ontx/f ontx/opti onx/selectxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE=" PAPUANEWGUINEA"X input

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC"X input

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brx/formx/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8"ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<tdxbxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l><a href="http : //st3

. yahoo . com/sf gc/sumatra . html">Sumatra

Mandheling</ax/f ontx/f ontx/b>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<brxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Originating from the s econd largest of the Indonesian Islands, here's another of the world's most highly regarded coffees . </f ontx/f ont>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>Highlighted with a heav y body and marked with excellent balance and acidity. Chocolately notes are prevalent in the finish. </f ontx/f ont>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<brXform

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3. yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sfgc+sumat ra">

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxb>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<p><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>1617<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Regular price : $9.85<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=10Xfont color="#CC0000">Sale price:<img SRC="sfgc_1550_413422" ALT="$8.85, 5/$34.25" BORDER=0 heigh t=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTER><img SRC="trans_lxl .gif" BORDER=0 heigh

16 speccof . html t=l width=10x/font>Grind: &nbsp ; <select

NAME="Grind"xoption>Whole Bean</option><option>Espresso</optionXoption>Drip</f ontx/f ontx/opti on></ select Xinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE=" SUMATRA" xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC" Xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brx/formx/td> </tr>

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8"ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<td><bXfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l><a href="http: //st3

. yahoo. com/sfgc/tanpeab. html">Tanzanian

Peaberry</ax/fontx/fontx/b>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>A peaberry is a coffee cherry which contains just one rounded bean instead of two "half" bean s.

A rare treat when available, it is rich and snappy in the cup, with a wild, earthy flavor profile. </font></font>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><form

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3 . yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sf gc+tanpe ab">

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l><b>Availability: </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<p><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>1618<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_410300" ALT="$ 9. 8 5, 5/$39.25" BORDER=0 height=18 width=105 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="tr ans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</optionXoption>Espresso</optionXoption>Drip</f ontx/f ontx/opti onX/selectxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="TANPEAB"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC" Xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brX/formx/td> </tr>

17 WO 01/27837 PCT/TJSOO/28009

speccof . html

<tr>

<tdximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=5 width=lx/td> </tr>

<tr VALIGN=TOP> <td WIDTH="0"X/td>

<td WIDTH="8 "Ximg SRC="trans_lxl . gif " BORDER=0 height=l width=8x/td>

<td><bxfont face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http : //st3

. yahoo. com/sfgc/tipofandes . html">Tip of the Andes</ax/fontx/fontx/b>

<brximg SRC="trans_lxl .gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-l>A blend of the richest and most flavorful beans found alongside the Andes mountains are roast ed to perfection. Very well balanced in the cup; this one should please e veryone ! </fontx/font>

<br><img SRC="trans_lxl.gif" BORDER=0 height=2 width=l>

<br><form

METHOD=POST ACTION="https : //st3. yahoo . com/cgi-bin/wg-order?sfgc+tipof andes">

<br><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l><b>Availability : </b> U sually ships in 2-3 business days . </f ontx/f ont>

<p><font face="arial , helvetica"xfont size=-l>1619<img SRC="trans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10ximg SRC="sfgc_1550_413919" ALT="$10 . 55, 5/$42 . 75" BORDER=0 height=18 width=113 align=ABSCENTERXimg SRC="t rans_lxl . gif" BORDER=0 height=l width=10>Grind: &nbsp; <select

NAME="Grind"Xoption>Whole Bean</option><option>Espresso< /opt ion><option>Drip</f ontx/f ontx/opti onX/selectxinput

NAME=vwitem TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="TIPOFANDES"Xinput

NAME=vwcatalog TYPE=HIDDEN VALUE="SFGC" Xinput

TYPE=SUBMIT VALUE="Add to Cart"> <brX/form></td> </tr> </table>

<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH=" 417" >

<tr>

<td>

<hr WIDTH="100%">

<center><a href="http : //www. thepubliceye . com"Ximg SRC="monitor5. gif "

BORDER=0 X/aXimg SRC="creditcards . gif " ALT="We accept these maj or cr" edit cards!" height=44 width=252>

18 speccof . html <pxbr>

<p><a href="http : / /www . data-x . com/hitmaster/acc . asp?rid=24977 "Ximg SR C="dxbanner . gif " ></ax/center>

<pxbr>

<p><a href="http : //www. gotoworld. com/getpaid/default . asp?rid=100139307

3"ximg SRC="468x60_6.gif" height=60 width=468x/a>

<br>&nbsp;

<br>&nbsp;

<br>

<center>

<pxfont face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http: //cc. rovi ng.com/roving/tierO/firstPage. asp?m=makiaqyb&p=gift">Reminders</a>

<a href="http: / /cc . roving. com/roving/tierO/firstPage.asp?m=makiaqyb&p=

ViewFavorites">View my store favorites</a> <a href="http: //cc. roving. com/roving/tierO/firs tPage.asp?m=makiaqyb&p=emailPage">E-mail this page to a friend</a></fontx/font>

<br><font face="arial, helvetica"xfont size=-lxa href="http: //st3.ya hoo . com/sfgc/sfgc/recommendus . html">Enter for FREE COFFEE</aX/fontx/fontX/center>

</td>

</tr>

</table>

</td>

</tr>

</table>

</body> </html>

19 APPENDIX C

(21 PAGES INCLUDING THIS COVER)

4 <

commerce solutions

Technical White Paper

"Component Based interactive Commerce Solutions for Internet Enabled Devices"

SNAZ Technical White Paper

SNAZ_TM Commerce Solutions^SM provide a suite of hosted application services that allow users with Internet enabled PCs, PDAs or Wireless Intemet Phones to shop from multiple Internet e-commerce sites using single-click purchasing and cross-vendor shopping basket technology. This White Paper explains the technical background to the core system behind these products and the process carried out to provide SNAZ enabled shopping from your portal or community service site.

Functional Overview

SNAZ Commerce Solutions implement a core application layer of technology to provide intelligent shopping functionality across multiple merchant sites and across multiple channels. The solutions currendy allow users of the web and mobile devices to purchase items from multiple merchant sites with a single click using their e-wallet, and to view previous transactions and flagged items for future purchase through each of the multiple devices.

The SNAZ Commerce Solution is multilingual and is currently provided in English, French and German. Other European languages will be available later.

Integrated Solutions

SNAZ Commerce Solutions provide complete commerce solutions for Intemet enabled, web browser based PC platforms, WAP and I-mode enabled wireless internet devices, wireless enabled PDA devices.

Web Solution

The SNAZ Commerce Solution for web combines SNAZ's Universal Shopping Basket technology with the SNAZ e-wallet product to allow users to browse the sites of SNAZ's merchant partners through the SNAZ Proxy Interface, and purchase and store items browsed in this way. The system is fully customisable and can be rebranded to suit your company's requirements.

The SNAZ Commerce Solution for web works by dynamically detecting when a purchaser goes to an item display page on a SNAZ merchant partner's web page, and then dynamically proxying the page the user has requested — that is, it parses the contents of that page and dynamically substitutes all URLs so that they redirect the user's web access back through the SNAZ Proxy Interface — and then displaying the page with the Universal Shopping Basket overlaid at the bottom of the window. The content of the web page appears to users just the same as it would have if SNAZ were not being used.

As the user navigates a merchant's site, the Universal Shopping Basket populates a drop-down list of products available on the current page. The Proxy Interface uses predefined trigger criteria specific to the current merchant web site to detect when products are displayed on the browser window. These trigger criteria are created by the SNAZ merchant integration team during the integration of the merchant site. The following pictures shows how triggers alter the appearance of the Universal Shopping Basket when the user moves from a page with no product triggers to a page that has product triggers. The initial page is as follows: Bo

When the user moves to the Literature department's page, the product triggers are activated and the drop-down list is populated with the product titles found on that page:

^4-

Adding an item to the shopping basket is simply a matter of selecting it from the drop-down list, entering the quantity required and selecting the 'add to SNAZ' button. Other selection boxes may be displayed depending on the product selected; with clothing, for example, the user may be prompted for a size and colour.

Users can move from merchant to merchant, each time adding new items to the shopping basket without ever losing the items added from previous merchant sites. As they shop, users can group their selections into lists, such as Wedding List, Birthday List, Ben's Party, and so on. Each user can create any number of lists of any size containing goods from any number of merchants.

If the user is simply 'window shopping' and does not wish to purchase the items in the shopping basket immediately, the list can be saved for future reference. The user can then, later, request a price update to update the list with the latest prices, or run a price comparison on selected items to see whether a better price can be obtained by purchasing from a different merchant. Lists such as wedding lists can be e-mailed to friends and relatives who can, themselves, make purchases from the list. When ready to buy, the user selects the required items from the current list. Any number of items can be selected from a single list. Users wishing to make purchases from multiple lists simply repeat the purchase steps for each list in turn.

The SNAZ Commerce Solution completes the merchants' purchase forms using personal information about the user stored in the user's e-wallet. First-time users will not have an e-wallet, so they will be prompted to enter personal details such as name, address, e-mail address and credit card details. These details are then saved in the e-wallet and the merchants' purchase forms are completed. The SNAZ Commerce Solution takes care of passing the purchase details to the merchants concerned. If the user has bought from a number of merchants, the single SNAZ transaction will result in a number of different transactions on the credit card.

Wireless Solution

The wireless solution provides similar functionality to the web solution, but the physical size of wireless devices means that the user interface is more focused on searching merchant sites for product information or selecting from lists rather than displaying merchant web pages for browsing. The diagram below outlines the facilities available and the processes the user carries out for each one.

"5*.

Shop by Category

Wireless Shop by Category allows users to purchase goods by making selections from a number of predefined merchant product lists. The user starts by selecting the Shop option from the main menu. This displays a list of merchant categories such as Accessories, Books, Computers, and so on. The user then selects a merchant category and is shown the names of merchants who sell that particular type of goods.

The user selects a merchant and then scrolls through the list of products available from that merchant, finally selecting one to view in more detail. A merchant's wireless product list is created by the SNAZ merchant integration team in collaboration with the merchant in order to allow users to browse a selection of the merchant's products without having to enter selection criteria for the products they wish to see.

When an item is selected, the SNAZ Commerce Solution displays the full product description and price. At this point the user may choose between buying the product, e-mailing the details to a friend, or requesting a price comparison with the same product from other merchants. If the user opts to buy, the SNAZ Commerce Solution opens the user's e-wallet and extracts the details needed for the merchant's purchase form. If the user has more than one credit card, the last four digits of each card number are displayed so that the user can choose which one to use for this purchase. The same procedure applies to multiple shipping addresses. Facilities are provided for adding new credit cards or shipping addresses at this stage.

Although the user has already requested a purchase, the SNAZ Commerce Solution requires confirmation of the request before the order is placed. When the user confirms the request, an order confirmation number is displayed for reference. «ζ>2>

The illustrations below show typical merchant name, product list, product details and card selection displays. The appearance of the displays varies slightly between Europe and the United States (focusing on the different browser technologies supported within the wireless devices), but the information shown and the underlying processes and procedures are identical. In Europe the displays are as follows:

In the United States, the displays are as follows:

Wireless Search

The Wireless Search facility allows a user to locate products using a free text search.

The user selects a product type to search (currently, only certain types of products may be searched) keys in one or more words that apply to the product, with each word separated by a space, and then selects where in the product details those words should occur. For example, to list all books written by Charles Dickens, the user would select the Locate Books option, enter the search words as 'Charles Dickens' and select the Author field as the part of the product details to search. ^ M-

The Search engine parses this request using SNAZ's own Natural Language Processing engine to extract the required product and attributes the user has requested for this search, and then begins a two- phase search of merchant products to locate suitable information.

If several products match the search string, the product names are listed for the user to browse. If the search string is very specific, only one match will exist and the full details of that product will be displayed with an option to run a price comparison.

The illustrations below show what the user sees at each stage of the process.

SNAZ Components

Each of the SNAZ Commerce Solution platform products is constructed using the core SNAZ Commerce Platform components. Each of these components can be customised to integrate with partners who may not require the full functionality of the Commerce Solutions.

List Management Engine

The List Management engine tracks users noting which merchant sites they have visited and which products they have bought or added to their lists.

As users add items to their lists, the engine records details about which merchant site and location those items came from. This allows the Price Refresh and Price Comparison engines to access those pages automatically.

The List Management engine also controls the display and maintenance of existing lists and the creation of new ones. For example, when users access the web based SNAZ Commerce Solution, they are presented with a list of their lists and may choose one from the list. They can then select a product from the list and request a price comparison, or request a price refresh for all items in that list. If users wish to build new lists, the engine prompts for a name and creates the list in the database. S

Because the lists are stored on the SNAZ database server, they are available to users who wish to shop using wireless technology, Internet enabled PDAs or Internet enabled PCs. The centralised storage of lists allows these users to access their lists whenever and wherever they wish.

The illustrations which follow compare the List Management engine displays seen by web users with those seen by users of wireless devices. When users select My Lists they see:

When users select the list called My Shopping List the display changes to:

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Proxy Engine

The SNAZ Commerce Solution Proxy engine allows users to navigate merchant sites without altering the appearance or behaviour of those merchants' Web pages and without leaving the partner site within which they are browsing.

The SNAZ Proxy engine dynamically replaces all links within the merchant pages with calls back to itself so that it can brand each page that the user browses with the SNAZ Universal Shopping Basket, and interact with the Universal Shopping Basket component.

Universal Shopping Basket

The Universal Shopping Basket allows users to view and store cross-merchant product information within their list engine by interpreting product triggers sent to it by the SNAZ Proxy Engine. As the SNAZ Proxy Engine detects product triggers within merchant sites it automatically triggers the SNAZ Universal Shopping Basket to show these products to the site user, complete with all associated attributes for the product.

By default, the shopping basket is branded for SNAZ, but it can be rebranded to satisfy your company requirements, for example, by replacing the SNAZ name and colours with your company name and corporate colours.

E-wallet Engine

The e-wailet engine allows users to store personal details, multiple credit card details and multiple shipping addresses for purchases. Users can then access this information via mobile, web or other system touch points to make purchases.

Users will normally register and enter their e-wallet details using the web interface, but personal details can be changed and new details can be added using any of the SNAZ interfaces.

Although the SNAZ web-hosting site is secure in itself, all information in a user's e-wallet is encrypted for further protection against unauthorised access. Users who access the SNAZ Commerce Solution via a mobile phone have a PIN number that they enter when they wish to use the system. Users will not be able to use the SNAZ Commerce Solution if their PIN number cannot be matched against their phone's device ID.

The initial registration process on the web prompts the user for name, e-mail address and password, and asks whether the user wishes to subscribe to additional services such as the SNAZ newsletter and notification of special offers: Φc

Snaz Registration

Where users of an ASP partner site have already entered their account information for that site, the SNAZ Commerce Solution is able to register those users automatically using the information held in those accounts.

Wireless users who do not have an account can also register using their wireless device, and accounts will be created using the same procedure as for the web. The wireless registration process prompts for each item of information separately:

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Having registered, the user then has access to the SNAZ Commerce Solution but does not yet have a complete e-wallet Credit card and shipping address details are entered by selecting My Account from the SNAZ web page and then choosing the appropriate options from the next page:

The user selects Billing to enter the name and address to which billing information is to be sent, and the types and numbers of the credit cards that can be used for SNAZ shopping. The user may add up to six credit cards to the e-wallet, but only the last five digits of each card number will be displayed for identification purposes:

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Your Billing Information

Whenever the user buys goods, the SNAZ Commerce Solution displays all cards numbers in the e- wallet and prompts the user to select the one to use for this transaction.

The Shipping option allows the user to specify up to six shipping addresses. Each address is identified by a short name that can be displayed in place of the full address during the buying process:

Your Shipping Information

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The user can return to these pages at any time to add new details or modify or delete existing ones. All changes are saved in the e-wallet immediately and can be used for subsequent purchases.

Price Comparison Engine

The Price Comparison engine allows users to compare the price of an item in their shopping basket with the same item at other merchants' sites to see whether they are obtaining the best price. The system scans the database of cached page data and presents users with a two-column list showing merchant names and prices. If a better price is available, users can replace the item currently in their shopping basket with something from the list.

The Checkout Gateway

The Checkout Gateway is where users come when they decide to buy items. A secure Java/XML API runs to transfer personal, shopping and billing details from users' e-wallets onto merchants' purchase forms. Merchants receive these details, send out the goods and deal with the credit card transactions. Where purchases are made from multiple merchants, the system is sufficiently flexible that a failed transaction with one merchant does not affect transactions with other merchants.

Purchase details are stored in the SNAZ database and are available for the user to review at any time.

12 Details of failed or problematic transactions are flagged for investigation by the SNAZ Customer Support team. Contact details from the user's e-wallet are made available to the Customer Support team for this purpose and all members of the SNAZ Customer Support team are security cleared to allow them to do this.

As new merchants join the SNAZ partnership, the XML API is provided with information about the merchants' purchase forms and is able to complete them automatically. There is never any need for users to re-enter their details, even if the new merchants' purchase forms are formatted differently to those of existing partners.

Refresh Price Engine

Once products have been added to a list, they remain there until removed by the user. If items remain in the list for some time, it is possible that the prices of those items may change. The Price Refresh engine uses Java code to update the list database with the latest price information, thus ensuring that the prices shown for items in the shopping basket are correct before the products are purchased.

Product Search Engine

The Product Search engine allows users to search the SNAZ merchant product database for items to purchase. All merchants that sell the item in question are displayed and users can then add the item to their shopping basket based on preference, price or other such criteria.

The information that may be searched varies according to the item type. Books can be located by title or by author; music items such as CDs or DVDs can be located by album title, artist or song title. Users need not enter titles, product names or descriptions in full, although they may do so if they wish. Instead, they enter a set of one or more key words separated by spaces. The Product Search engine inserts these words into an natural language search statement and displays a list of all items of the appropriate type that contain the key words in the appropriate location.

E-mail Targeting Engine

All purchasing information is available to ASP partners and can be used by the E-mail Targeting engine to promote different types of goods to users who have shown an interest in similar items in the past. Purchasers must have agreed previously to accept this type of targeting before being included in this facility.

Cached Merchant Pages and Searches

The SNAZ Commerce Solution keeps a dynamic cache of viewed merchant's web pages and uses this combined with cached search results to provide the price comparison functionality. The code scans each page looking for fixed types of information, such as product descriptions and price information, that can reasonably be expected to remain static in relation to the web site templates in which they are rendered. It then searches for product information in specific positions relative to those fixed items and records that information in the database.

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When a user accesses a merchant's web page, the SNAZ Commerce Solution uses Web Interface Design Language technology to compare the product names that it finds on that page with the texts in the search criteria. Every text where a match is found is displayed in the selection list in the Universal Shopping Basket.

The system dynamically updates each page within the cache as its relevance expires, so any minor changes made by merchants can be found quickly and easily, ensuring that the product selection list always accurately reflects the actual page content Merchants are obliged to notify SNAZ of major changes to the appearance of a page or to product texts so that the QA team can verify that the XML code still extracts the correct data.

SNAZ Commerce Application Design

The SNAZ Commerce Solution products run entirely using server side technology. Nothing is installed on merchant computers or on portal or community service sites. Instead, the whole application remains on the SNAZ application server machines and communicates with users and merchant sites using thin client query and response protocols. The SNAZ Commerce Solution is also device independent, so users can shop using Internet enabled PCs, PDAs or Wireless Internet Phones, and because the same engine is used for all device types, the system is easy to use in all environments. The diagram below outlines the way in which the SNAZ design achieves this.

The SNAZ API architecture also allows the user accounts system to be integrated with ASP partners' systems in various ways — either as a complete solution where user accounts are created on the SNAZ Commerce Solution hosted servers, or by integrating existing user profiles from ASP partners' sites and reusing this information, or by a combination of the two whereby users' details are recorded by the SNAZ Commerce Solution but are stored on the ASP partner's site.

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The diagram shows the integration of the core functional elements of the SNAZ Commerce Solution. The multiple clients communicate with the SNAZ core system using their native protocols; that is, HTTP/S for iTV and PCs, WAP and iMode for Wireless Intemet Phones, or proprietary protocols such as Palm's web-clipping. Tight, integrated security between the client layer and the SNAZ core system is provided using 128-bit SSL security.

The SNAZ core system then communicates with the merchant web sites using their native protocols (HTML, XML or directly to their data source using protocols such as JDBC and ODBC) and binds these responses with 128-bit SSL again to make sure that all transactions containing sensitive data are secured from compromise.

All secure wireless communications between the user's wireless device and the SNAZ core systems use WTLS (Wireless Transport Layer Security) to encrypt the data that is sent Note that because the SNAZ wireless solution sits behind the network provider's gateway, the information transmitted between wireless users and the SNAZ core systems can only be as secure as the provider's gateway.

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System Architecture

The SNAZ Commerce Solution runs on Sparc/Sun hardware under the Solaris operating system, as shown below:

The key features of this design are:

• Load balancing

Load balancing between the seven Web servers and between the two database servers ensures that incoming requests are always dealt with by the server that is least busy at the time. This ensures best possible response times and also allows the system to continue functioning even if one server is temporarily inactive.

• Security

Security is ensured by a firewall at the entrance to the SNAZ system. Messages containing sensitive information are passed using secure http (https). A 128-bit key is used which is currently the highest available in commercial web development. All user data stored in the system databases are encrypted on the servers using a two-way key infrastructure to avoid their compromise.

• Redundancy

The SNAZ Commerce Solution has been designed with built-in redundancy so that it is always able to cope with extra-busy periods with no deterioration in the speed or reliability of the service.

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Server Architecture

Each of the seven Web servers and two database servers is able to provide the following facilities:

• Web server

The web server holds the SNAZ HTML pages and media assets such as images. Multiple Apache Stronghold servers provide the delivery of dynamically generated page information to the client browser (web, WAP, other) interpreting the data generated by the Application Server and sending it via Hyper Text Transfer Protocol to the user.

• Allaire Jrun application server

The application server uses Allaire Jrun to run Java Servelets and Java Server Pages (JSPs). It manages the Universal Shopping Basket and runs the Proxy engine, the List engine and the E-mail Targeting engine.

SNAZ has chosen Java servelets because they are scalable and can be run on multiple servers simultaneously. This allows the same servelets to be used regardless of the number of merchants and merchant web pages.

Java server pages are used to integrate queries with the site pages; they tell the engines to run queries and then return the responses to users.

• XML server

This server runs XML code to communicate with the merchant sites and integrate them with the Umversal Shopping Basket. For example, when a purchaser goes to a merchant page, the code scans the page to build a list of products on that page and displays them in the SNAZ selection box at the foot of the page.

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Net Perceptions application server

This server provides real-time, personalised cross-selling and up-selling information to users of the SNAZ Commerce Solution.

As users shop, the Net Perceptions software learns about each user's individual wants, needs and preferences, and is able to make specific, personalised recommendations to each user based on that knowledge. As the profiling process continues, all knowledge gained is pooled with similar knowledge about other users, so allowing the recommendation process to become increasingly sophisticated. For example, Net Perceptions can alert you to unexpected interest in a product allowing you to maximise sales at the height of the product's popularity.

Net Perceptions can also issue reminders about related or complementary items that may be useful in relation to the product being purchased, but which are not included with it. Typical examples are batteries for electrical goods or special cleaning products for shoes.

Sybase database

This stores users' e-wallets containing personal data, encrypted credit card details and shipping and billing details. It also holds a full audit history of purchases made, and is used as a data warehousing facility to track user page views and item selections as they use the SNAZ Commerce Solution. User journey information is also stored to allow complex data analysis of shopping and behaviour patterns.

Where ASP partners already store some or all of the e-wallet details in their own databases, this information can be integrated into the SNAZ e-wallet automatically so that users do not have to reregister.

Oracle database

This stores the cached merchant data and searches that are downloaded and are used as the basis for providing the lists of products associated with each merchant page that the user browses.

ASP Branding Process

The SNAZ Commerce Solution is very flexible and can be tailored to suit your company's requirements.

Sites that are new to e-commerce may wish to take a complete channel solution and rebrand the SNAZ Commerce Solution to show their company name and use their corporate colours. Sites that already offer shopping facilities may prefer to integrate their existing facilities with the SNAZ Commerce Solution, taking either a whole channel solution or parts of the core system. A site that has its own merchant base in a specific market sector, for example, may not wish to use any of the SNAZ merchant partners, so it may take the SNAZ Commerce Solution but have it customised to use its existing merchant base.

Other rebranding possibilities include the ability to provide access to a subset of SNAZ merchant partners, tailoring of the predefined selection lists that are displayed at various points in the browsing and shopping process, and re-use of existing users' personal and account details by merging them into the SNAZ e-wallet

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Client-side Technologies Supported

Web Technology

The SNAZ Commerce Solution can be run on PCs that have any of the following installed:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer v4.01 and higher

• Netscape Navigator v4.03 and higher

• AOL version 5 and higher

The SNAZ Commerce Solution can be run on Macintosh computers that have any of the following installed:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer v4 and higher

• Netscape Navigator v4 and higher

• AOL version 5 and higher

Wireless Technology

The SNAZ Commerce Solution can be accessed from the following:

• Palm wireless devices (such as the Palm VII) which use Palm Web Clipping technology to display SNAZ sites.

• AvantGo enabled Palm and Microsoft Pocket Explorer devices (including HandSpring and other Palm operating system users) which have wireless connectivity provided using modems such as Omnisky.

• US WAP devices from companies such as Motorola which use phone.com 's up-browser to display the site (which SNAZ programs in WML vl.l).

• European and Asian WAP devices supporting phone manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Siemens, browsers from phone.com, Nokia and Ericsson, and wireless gateways from suppliers such as WapHQ, Nokia, Kannel and phone.com.

• Japanese and Korean I-mode devices using compact HTML (cHTML) technology. (cHTML is a form of HTML developed for these devices in Asia. It is similar to the HTML that web browsers use but with fewer commands supported.)

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Conclusion

The SNAZ Commerce Solution product suite offers complete platform solutions and core commerce components that allow non-commerce-enabled partners to add a scalable commerce solution to their Internet or wireless offering quickly and efficiently.

Using industry-proven technology and platforms with Java and Unix (Solaris), the system can scale to meet the demands of our clients and partners and deliver e-wallet, list management and checkout abilities across wireless, web and interactive platforms.

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Claims

CLAIMSWe claim:

1. A method of facilitating online shopping from various vendors offering items via a network, comprising the steps of: providing an intermediary server accessible by a user; the intermediate server providing online facility to the user to create a central list of the items from online selections from the various vendors; and the intermediate server providing online facility to the user to execute purchase of one or more of items from the list via the intermediary server.

2. A method as in claim 1, wherein the user accesses vendors through the intermediary server to make online selections.

3. A method as in claim 1, wherein the user accesses vendors independent of the intermediary server to make online selections, but invokes the intermediary server to create the list as the selections are made.

4. A method as in claim 1 , further comprising the step of providing online facility to the user to update information relating to the items via the intermediary server.

5. A method as in claim 1, further comprising the step of the intermediary server tracking information relating to the user online shopping characteristics such as user preferences and interests.

6. A method as in claim 1 , wherein the list is created for the purpose of at least one of: shopping list management; gift registry for a particular event; general gift wish list; and gift list sharing among users.

7. A method as in claim 1, further comprising the step of the intermediate server providing access to the user via a wireless network.

8. A method as in claim 7, wherein the step of the intermediate server provides wireless access by a user using at least one of Internet enabled PC, PDA or wireless Internet phones.

9. A method as in claim 1, wherein the online facilities are implemented in the form of a middleware for the facility of an existing online shopping portal.

10. A method as in claim 1, wherein the online facilities are implemented in the form of an application remotely provided to an online shopping portal.

11. A method of online management of information from various sources, comprising the steps of: providing an intermediary server accessible by a user; the intermediate server providing online facility to the user to create a central list of the information obtained online from the various sources; and the intermediate server providing online facility to the user to update the information on the list via the intermediary server.

12. A method as in claim 9, wherein the list is a list of tasks to be undertaken and/or followed up.