Patent ID: 8301528

Claim:
An electronic procurement system comprising: at least one electronic computer a procurement program fixed in non-transient medium and executed by the least one computer for receiving a request for purchase of a product by a user together with product identification information associated with the request, the procurement program automatically processing approvals for purchase of the product; the processing of approvals applying a set of predefined rules to the product identification information and information about the user to determine whether the order will be generated; an electronic catalog of products of contract suppliers, the electronic catalog communicating with the at least one electronic computer executing the procurement program to be searched by a user to find a first product and to provide product identification information for the first product to the procurement program for the processing of approval of purchase of the first product; and a web access program fixed in non-transient medium and executed by the at least one computer for communicating with the procurement program and web pages at third party web sites of non-contract suppliers, the web access program allowing web sites of the non-contract suppliers to be searched by a user to find a second product, and upon a command by the user contemporaneously with the finding of the second product by the user, the web access program providing product identification information for the second product to the procurement program for the processing of approval of purchase of the second product where the product information is automatically extracted directly from the web sites of the non-contract suppliers in a form that may be processed by the procurement program for automatically processing approvals for purchase of the second product according to the set of predefined rules and for automatically populating an order for the second product with information suitable for ordering the product.