Patent ID: 7127416

Claim:
A computer-implemented electronic commerce system comprising one or more computer systems each comprising one or more processing units and one or more memory units, the electronic commerce system further comprising computer-executable instructions stored in memory to: communicate a search query for one or more products to one or more seller databases that contain product data, each seller database operable to generate local search results responsive to the search query; communicate one or more sorting parameters to the seller databases, the sorting parameters directing each seller database to sort the local search results generated at each seller database in response to the search query such that the sorted local search results are pre-sorted prior to being communicated to the one or more computer systems; receive sorted local search results from one or more of the seller databases, the sorted local search results having been pre-sorted by the one or more seller databases prior to being communicated to the one or more computer systems; if the received sorted local search results comprise sorted local search results received from more than one of the seller databases: merge the sorted local search results received from the seller databases to generate merged search results; sort the merged search results according to the sorting parameters; communicate the sorted merged search results to a user; and carry out an electronic commerce transaction for at least one of the products represented in the sorted merged search results; and if the received sorted local search results comprise sorted local search results received from a single one of the seller databases, communicate the sorted local search results received from the single one of the seller databases to a user and carry out an electronic commerce transaction for at least one of the products represented in the sorted local search results.