Patent ID: 7236945

Claim:
An information trading method, utilizing a computer network, the method comprising: registering information provided by an information provider; allowing an information referrer to refer to the registered information at his/her request to conduct transference of an information fee dually between an account of the information provider that is opened on a database of a server for providing information trading services and an account of the information referrer that is opened on the database of the server for providing information trading services; accepting, from the information provider, offered information as an offered subject, and setting of an information fee for nonexclusive information reference to said offered information of an information fee for exclusive information reference to said offered information or of an information fee of purchase of said offered information; accepting, from the information referrer, designation as to whether the information referrer is to nonexclusively refer to said offered information, to exclusively refer to said offered information, or to purchase said offered information provided by the information provider; and updating account balances of the information referrer and information provider in the database when the information fee is transferred between the information provider and the information referrer, wherein the registering information provided by the information provider and the referring information provided by the information referrer are respectively stored in the database of the server for providing information trading services, wherein, when registering information with an associated keyword, the registration of the information in the database is rejected if substantially similar keywords already exist, wherein the information fee for the exclusive information reference is increased or decreased corresponding to the number of referred times and an averaged referring fee per reference for a predetermined period of time, and wherein the fee as set by the information provider is displayed when the number of referred times is zero and when the number of referred times is greater than zero, the fee is an expected number of referred times multiplied by an averaged referring fee where the expected number is based on a number of referred times during a predetermined period of time and the averaged referring fees is an average of referring fees during the predetermined period of time.