Ordering items using catalogs wherein the user queries a central catalog and is linked supplier catalogs

摘要

A system for electronically ordering items having at least one supplier computer system for storing at least one catalog containing the items offered by a supplier and a customer computer system with the improvement of a public computer system comprising an index to the items in the catalogs on the at least one supplier computer system, means for querying the index on the public computer system for a desired item in response to a request for the desired item from the customer computer system and means for generating a pointer for the customer computer system to catalog information about the desired item in the catalog on the at least one supplier system which has been identified by the query of the index.