Software and hardware for publishing and viewing products and services for sale5799284Abstract A computer system that utilizes client/server software to allow users of the client software to log into a server and publish information about a product or service. Once the information is published, other users of the client software may log into the server to browse or search for the information. This system is designed to help extractors and manufacturers of products, as well as service providers, to advertise their product or service to other extractors, manufacturers, service providers, distributors, retailers or other consumers to help aid in the distribution of those products or services. The system is also designed to help reach these establishments over a wide area, limited only by communication networks, and the system is kept current through the use of the established users of the client allowing rapid change. Claims I claim: Description BACKGROUND--FIELD OF THE INVENTION
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1 client 2 separating data
3 data components 4 server
5 new link process 6 link storage
7 data-link storage
8 search request
9 search results 10 login button
11 advertise button
12 search buttons
13 browse button 14 inventory button
15 category edit box
16 category file edit box
17 category file type combobox
18 keyword search edit box
19 keyword search button
20 limit search button
21 result listbox 22 view ad button
23 additional information button
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Description--FIGS. 1 to 2F An explanation of the operation of the equipment of the invention will be described with reference to these drawings: FIG. 1 is a block diagram describing how the software and hardware components are connected and how they operate. FIGS. 2A to 2F are drawings of the client windows, which allow the client to enter, search and retrieve data. Operation--FIGS. 1 to 2F The fundamental hardware and operational design for the current invention are illustrated in FIG. 1. The hardware design is very typical of the client/server (or terminal/host) communications design. Two computers are used to communicate information. One computer acts as the server 4 and the other acts as the client 1. The server includes a hard drive, which is used to store data in a similar process of a tape system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,932,826 to Moy. The Distributors Network is unpublished software (at the time of submittal of this document) that is unique to this invention and is made up of two components. One component is client software which runs on the client computer and the other component is server software which runs on the server computer. The client and server software are specifically designed for this invention and use modems as the method of communication. Some of the dialog windows of the client software are illustrated in FIGS. 2A to 2F. Most of the features of operation are typical of communications software on the market today. The client logs into the server by pressing the login button 10 illustrated in FIG. 2A. Once communications between the client and server have been established, the client may publish information or search for previously published information. The client may publish information about a product or service by selecting the advertise button 11. This operation calls the dialog illustrated in FIG. 2B. The client may enter all the necessary information about the product or service, including a contact person, the companies name, address and phone number, keywords describing the product or service, price, minimum quantity, a text file which contains additional information about the product or service and the product or service. The client can select the "OK" button to send this information to the server. The data is separated by component 2 and packaged into several strings, which contain the component data along with information about the client. The packaged strings are communicated 3 to the server 4. The server obtains a new link 6 from a file on the hard drive and adds it 5 to each of the component strings 3 that were sent from the client. Each data component and link are stored in individual files 7 on the hard drive. This is similar to how a relational data base works. By selecting the search products button 12, the client may search for a product or service. This operation will call the dialog illustrated in FIG. 2D. From this dialog the client can enter a keyword or keywords. By pressing the search button 19, the result window is cleared and the keywords 8 are sent to the server 4. The server 4 searches the files 7 on the hard drive until it reaches a match to the keywords or until it reaches the end of the files. If the server 4 obtains a match, then it will retrieve the link for that match. The server 4 will search through the category and price files for the link in order to obtain the components associated to the matching keywords. The server 4 will communicate 9 the resulting link, category component and price to the client 1. The client 1 will display the resulting information in the result box 21. If the server 4 gets to the end of the files without finding a match, then it will communicate 9 that no match was found to the client 1. If too many results are displayed in the result box 21 then selecting the limit search 20 button will allow the resulting data to be limited to linked criteria, for example by city or state. Based on the information displayed in the result box 21, the client 1 may select one of the results displayed and press the view ad 22 button. This will communicate to the server 4 that the client would like to obtain more information about the product or service. The server 4 will then continue to search through all files 7 for the matching link in order to retrieve additional information associated to the result. The server 4 will communicate 9 the additional information to the client 1. Then the client 1 will display the dialog illustrated in FIG. 2E. By selecting the additional information 23 button, the client will display the associated text file. In order to submit multiple product or service data, the integrated inventory system 14 button is used rather than the advertise 11 button illustrated in FIG. 2A. The communication for this procedure is similar to what has already been described, since this is common to most client/server data base processes. Pressing the integrated inventory system 14 button calls the dialog illustrated in FIG. 2C. Rather than manually entering in data about multiple products or services, the client 1 will communicate 9 to the server 4 an entire file containing the information. The reason for this is that multiple information is expected to come from the client owners (businesses) own inventory system. The businesses inventory system allows the client owner to export their inventory to a file. If the business has multiple products and multiple categories of these products, then different files can be created for each category. The client owner may enter a category in the category edit box 15 and the file name containing the exported data into the category file call edit box 16. Since different inventory systems will export the inventories to many different types of formats, it is important for the server 4 to know how to separate the data from the exported inventory file of the client owner. The drop down list box 17 allows the client owner to select a format (for example, delimitated text) that matches the format that their inventory system uses. Instead of searching for a product or service by keyword, the client software offers a browse feature. By selecting the browse 13 button illustrated in FIG. 2A, the dialog illustrated in FIG. 2F is displayed. This dialog list box displays either predefined categories or categories submitted by the client 1, which are retrieved from the server 4. By selecting a broad category the dialog updates and narrows down the category list until the resulting data is displayed. Summary, Ramification, and Scope Accordingly the reader will see that the design of this invention is very useful for publishing products and services. The invention is a tool that aids in the distribution of products formed from extraction or manufacturing processes and for advertising information about services. Businesses and consumers will be able to utilize this invention in order to quickly, easily and cost effectively find available resources and relative information. In addition, the client maintained data base will insure accurate information. Furthermore, this system has further advantages in that it provides allowance of a product or service to be published by a client so that other client machines may view the data; it provides allowance of many products or services to be published by a client so that other clients may view the data; it provides relational links so that the data may be searched for quickly without having to go through all of the related information; it provides a method for searching for a component of published data; and it provides a method for browsing through categories of published data. The scope of this invention should not be limited to the description above. Many specificities have been described and should only act as an illustration of the operation of the invention. Many variations can be constructed, for example, the server may be constructed of multiple computers like the system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,207 to Hikita. Another variation could be the use of the internet for communications rather than a modem and telephone lines. Thus the scope of the invention should not be determined by the example given, rather it should be determined by the appended claims.
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