Patent ID: 7606736

Claim:
A method that provides an electronic item list for items residing on the Internet comprising: employing a processor executing computer executable instructions to perform the following acts: providing at least one database that stores information with respect to items, the information that can be stored per item are at least, a product identification, a product class identification, a merchant identification, and a merchant model identification; providing an item list database that stores at least one list of references to one or more of the items stored in the at least one database, a list has references to items that a user has added to the list based upon their desire for the items; receiving a request from a requestor for a list from the item list database; accessing the item list database to retrieve the list; extracting data from the at least one database that corresponds to the references in the list; and utilizing the extracted data to degrade and display the requested item list to the requestor, wherein for each item in the list: determining if the item in the list has a valid product identification and a valid merchant identification; upon determining that the item in the list has a valid product identification and a valid merchant identification, displaying the item with a link to the item at a merchant identified by the merchant identification; upon determining that the item in the list does not have a valid product identification and a valid merchant identification, determining if the item in the list has a valid product identification; upon determining that the item in the list has a valid product identification, displaying the item with link(s) to one or more merchants for buying the item represented by the product identification; upon determining that the item in the list does not have a valid product identification, determining if the item in the list has a valid product class identification; upon determining that the item in the list has a valid product class identification, displaying the product class with link(s) to one or more merchants that for buying items represented by the product class identification; and upon determining that the item in the list does not have a valid product class identification, displaying nothing for the item.