Online intelligent information comparison agent of multilingual electronic data sources over inter-connected computer networks

Abstract

A method and system for real-time online search processing over inter-connected computer networks, in which an offline database information is maintained for a plurality of vendor sites from the inter-connected computer networks. The information includes URLs, search form URLs, description of domains, and vendor descriptions, and while the vendor descriptions comprise generalized rules about how product information is organized on each of the vendor sites. Parameters are processed for a price comparison request for a desired product using the information maintained in the offline database whereas price comparison request is received from an online user or buyer and/or from the system of the present invention. Real-time price and product information is then extracted from identified ones of the plurality of vendor sites, wherein the extracted price and product information are in a native language of the site; and the extracted price and product information are displayed to the user.

1 . A method for real-time online search processing of selected types of information in inter-connected computer networks, the method comprises the steps of:
 a. assembling site descriptions for a plurality of sites in the inter-connected computer networks including for each of the plurality of sites:
 i. a URL for the site; 
 ii. a search form URL for the site; 
 iii. generalized rules of how the selected types of information on the site are organized; 
 iv. sample data retrieved from the site corresponding to the selected types of information; and 
 v. descriptions of domains found in the site; 
   b. receiving a request for specified types of information from an online user;   c. identifying from the site descriptions, sites which may have the specified types of information;   d. constructing search requests for the specified types of information using the site descriptions for each of the identified sites;   e. submitting the constructed search requests to the identified sites;   f. receiving search results from the identified sites, and upon locating accurate matches in the received search results, extracting information corresponding to the specified types of information in a native language of the site, and displaying the extracted information to the user.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the generalized rules include identifying characteristics that can accurately identify the occurrence of the selected types of information within the site. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the submitting constructed search requests step is multi-threaded. 
   
   
       4 . A method for assembling site information for use in real-time online search processing of selected types of information over inter-connected computer networks, the method comprises the steps of:
 g. collecting information from a plurality of sites over inter-connected computer networks including:
 i. a URL for each of the plurality of sites; 
 ii. a search form URL for each of the plurality of sites; 
 iii. sample pages containing the selected types of information retrieved from each of the plurality of sites; 
 iv. positional information associated with the selected types of information within the sample pages; and 
   h. from the collected information, deriving generalized rules about how the selected types of information on each of the plurality of sites are organized.   
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 4  wherein the deriving generalized rules step includes the step of assembling identifying characteristics which can uniquely identify the occurrence of the selected types of information within each of the plurality of sites. 
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 5  wherein the assembling identifying characteristics step includes the steps of
 i. identifying delimiter characters which bound the selected types of information in the sample pages;   ii. retrieving further sample pages from the site; and   iii. corroborating the identified delimiter characters against the retrieved further sample pages.   
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the identifying delimiter characters step includes the steps
 iv. from the sample pages, compiling a list of possible strings of delimiter characters for each of the selected types of information.   v. comparing the list of strings of delimiter characters compiled for one of the sample pages with the list of strings of delimiter characters compiled for another of the sample pages, and revising the complied lists of strings to be consistent for all compared sample pages; and   
     further wherein the corroborating step comprises the step of repeating the comparing step for the further sample pages retrieved contemporaneously from the site. 
   
   
       8 - 35 . (canceled)