Patent ID: 7127414

Claim:
A method for generating comparison shopping data, comprising: generating a database of classified advertising, the database of classified advertising having a plurality of classified advertisements; generating a database of items, each item having a list of merchants and prices, and each merchant has an associated price for the item; providing a list of one or more classified advertisements from the plurality of classified advertisements; receiving a selection of a classified advertisement from the list of one or more classified advertisements; determining, by a computer, a description of a desired item based on information in the selected classified advertisement, the description describing the desired item and comprising information in the selected classified advertisement; running the description of the desired item comprising information in the classified advertisement through a classification rule base to determine an item type; determining a list of merchants and prices in the database of items for the determined item type; and displaying the desired item along with the determined list of merchants and prices, the determined list of merchants and prices being part of the database of items and being associated with the item type from the database of items being associated with the item type from the database of items.