Patent ID: 7124096

Claim:
A method for searching for goods and services by means of a computer network, the method comprising: compiling a customer profile in a program at a client in the computer network, wherein the customer profile contains data and preferences entered by the customer; sending search parameters to a search engine at an aggregate server in the computer network, wherein the search parameters relate to a specified product; receiving a list of product suppliers that satisfy the search parameters from the aggregate server, automatically selecting and displaying a subset of product suppliers from the list of product suppliers, according to the preferences entered in the customer profile, at the client; automatically sending a product query and at least a portion of the customer profile to each product supplier in the selected subset via the computer network, automatically receiving product information from each product supplier in the selected subset via the computer network, wherein the product information corresponds to the product query; automatically assigning a best-fit score to each product supplier in the selected subset according to how closely the product information received from each product supplier conforms to the preferences entered in the customer profile; and automatically ranking and displaying the selected subset of suppliers according to best-fit score at the client.