Patent ID: 7343328

Claim:
A networked system to assist a shopper in selecting a product intended for a user, the system comprising: a) a master database of products which contains information about the products, their specifications, and detailed engineering data, wherein the products have qualitative attributes subjectively assigned to the products that reflect information about potential users of the products; b) a products database server serving contents of the master database over a network; c) a user interface; d) an expert system posing questions over the user interface to the shopper and querying the database in response to answers to the questions; e) a projects database containing a data structure of projects for which products are suitable with at least one of recommended product classes or attribute combinations; and f) a product finder server connected to said expert system and said projects database, said product finder server receiving at least part of the information about products and relevant specifications from said product database server; wherein the questions posed comprise questions about the user and questions about the product, including at least one product for which the product should be suitable, and the selections made by the system are dependent upon the qualitative attributes assigned to the products, and projects for which the products are suitable.