Patent ID: 7143055

Claim:
An Internet-based system for collecting, managing and serving consumer product-related information over the Internet, said Internet-based system comprising: a database management subsystem for storing and managing information representative of (i) a plurality of trademarks placed on or used in connection with a plurality of consumer products made, sold and/or distributed by a plurality of manufacturers, and (ii) a plurality of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) symbolically linked to said trademarks and specifying the location of a plurality of Web documents stored in one or more Internet-based information servers, and published by said manufacturers, their agents and/or third parties, and containing particular kinds of information related to consumer products on which said trademarks are placed and used in commerce; a trademark/URL information server operably connected to said database management subsystem and the infrastructure of the Internet, said trademark/URL information server accessing one or more URLs from said database management subsystem in response to a request placed with said trademark/URL information server by a consumer-operated client computer subsystem seeking to find consumer product related information contained in one or more Web documents stored in said one or more Internet-based information servers at one or more URLs symbolically linked to a trademark contained within said request; a plurality of manufacturer-managed client computer subsystems operably connected to the infrastructure of the Internet, each said manufacturer-managed client computer subsystem enabling a manufacturer to transmit to said database management subsystem, information representative of a plurality of trademarks placed on or used in connection with a plurality of consumer products and a plurality of URLs symbolically linked to said trademarks and specifying the location of a plurality of said Web documents stored in said one or more Internet-based information servers; and a plurality of consumer-operated client computer subsystems operably connected to the infrastructure of the Internet, each said consumer-operated client computer subsystem enabling a consumer to access one or more URLs from said database management subsystem in response to a request transmitted to said trademark/URL information server by said consumer-operated client computer subsystem for consumer product related information contained in Web documents located at said one or more URLs symbolically linked to a trademark contained within said request placed by said consumer-operated client computer subsystem.