Patent ID: 6868433

Claim:
A method of obtaining product-related information regarding a product, comprising the steps of: disposing a first computer of a user on a network that is operable to run an application program in the foreground and a product information access program in the background; connecting an input device to the first computer to provide a user interface to the first computer and the operation of the input device coupled to the application and product information programs, wherein the input device can sense both positional data of an external surface that is related to an optical indicator on a user display associated with the first computer to indicate the relative position of the input device to the external surface when the first application program is running in the foreground, and detect optical indicia of the product from displayed indicia on an external optical indicia surface containing a product ID; detecting with the input device the optical indicia of the product on the external optical indicia surface, the step of detecting the optical indicia associated with the product information access program; the product information access program operable to access a second computer disposed on the network in response to the detection of the optical indicia of the product with the input device; performing a lookup operation at the second computer to match the product ID with routing information of each of a plurality of vendor servers disposed on the network, the vendor servers having unique product-related information of the product; returning the routing information of the vendor servers from the second computer to the first computer in order to access the vendor servers; and accessing the vendor servers in accordance with the routing information to return the product-related information to the first computer for simultaneous presentation to the user on the display.