Patent ID: 8949338
Filing Date: 2015-02-03
Classification: G06F,G06Q,H04L

Abstract:
1. A system comprising: a network-based interaction environment including a plurality of peer-to-peer nodes being able to communicate directly with each other using a peer-to-peer protocol and a peer-to-peer client application, each peer-to-peer node of the plurality of peer-to-peer nodes including a processor and a memory coupled to the processor for storing data related to persistent item information, wherein a network connection between at least two peer-to-peer nodes of the plurality of peer-to-peer nodes is shared by another data transfer session; a first peer-to-peer client application to maintain persistent item information on at least one peer-to-peer node of the plurality of peer-to-peer nodes, the persistent information being related to an item being offered in an e-commerce transaction by a first user of the first peer-to-peer client application, the first peer-to-peer client application further to authenticate the first user, the persistent information related to the item being offered in an e-commerce transaction by the first user being stored on a plurality of other peer-to-peer nodes; and a search engine on any of the plurality of peer-to-peer nodes, the search engine including a filter to exclude search results from peer-to-peer nodes of the plurality of peer-to-peer nodes that are not on a buddy list, search results produced by the search engine being cached on the at least one peer-to-peer node of the plurality of peer-to-peer nodes, the cached search results being accessible to other peer-to-peer nodes of the plurality of peer-to-peer nodes that are on the buddy list, the cached search results being related to items being offered in an e-commerce transaction by a plurality of users, the search engine enabling a search of peer-to-peer nodes on a buddy list without using a central search server.