Method and system for controlling an electronic auction during the transition to a closed state
Granted: July 1, 2008
Patent Number:
7395238
A method and system for conducting electronic auctions is described. A dynamic lot closing extension feature avoids collisions in closing times of multiple lots by dynamically extending the closing time of a subsequent lot if a preceding lot's closing time is extended to be too close to the subsequent lot's then-currently scheduled closing time. Scheduled closing times can be extended with a flexible overtime feature, in which the properties of the event triggering the extension and the…
Method and apparatus for multiple variable bidding in an online auction
Granted: June 3, 2008
Patent Number:
7383206
A method and apparatus for automatically updating the value of a bid variable or the total bid for a multi-variable bid in an online auction is disclosed. The method includes displaying an automatically adjustable mechanism interfaced to a bidder. Thereafter, the automatic bid adjustments are calculated using the mechanism.
Method and system for conducting electronic auctions with aggregate lotting for transformation bidding
Granted: March 18, 2008
Patent Number:
7346574
An auction methodology wherein individual demands are bid in lots and an aggregation of several lots is then run as an individual lot to determine if the buyer can attract a lower price offering from bidders by selecting to award the total volume of all of the individual lots to one bidder. A bidder-specific transformation factor for the aggregate lot is computed by combining selected transformed values (one for each lot) that take into account that bidder's price offerings for…
Creation of structured data from plain text
Granted: January 29, 2008
Patent Number:
7324936
A method and system for converting plain text into structured data. Parse trees for the plain text are generated based on the grammar of a natural language, the parse trees are mapped on to instance trees generated based on an application-specific model. The best map is chosen, and the instance tree is passing to an application for execution. The method and system can be used both for populating a database and/or for retrieving data from a database based on a query.
Electronic multilateral negotiation system
Granted: November 13, 2007
Patent Number:
7296001
A system and method for managing multilateral negotiations are disclosed. The method generally includes sending a negotiation initiating offer object to a first negotiating party for specifying rules of the negotiation and for forming a negotiation initiating offer including specification of at least one attribute. The method also includes receiving the negotiation initiating offer from the first negotiating party, sending a counter offer object to a second negotiating party for forming…
Method of transformational bidding with rebates and discounts
Granted: October 16, 2007
Patent Number:
7283979
A machine implemented method for transforming bidding with rebates and discounts in an online auction is described herein. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a first bid from a first bidder and a second bid from a second bidder over a network, where at least one of a rebate and discount is offered with at least one of the first and second bids and the first and second bidders are seller bidders. In response, the method assigns a first value and a first unit of measurement for…
Method and system for controlling the initiation and duration of overtime intervals in electronic auctions
Granted: October 16, 2007
Patent Number:
7283980
A method and system for conducting electronic auctions is described. A dynamic lot closing extension feature avoids collisions in closing times of multiple lots by dynamically extending the closing time of a subsequent lot if a preceding lot's closing time is extended to be too close to the subsequent lot's then-currently scheduled closing time. Scheduled closing times can be extended with a flexible overtime feature, in which the properties of the event triggering the extension and the…
Variable length file header apparatus and system
Granted: October 2, 2007
Patent Number:
7277878
A method and system for creating an electronic file to be used in an online auction are described herein. In one embodiment, an exemplary process includes creating a header portion and a data portion of a computer file, where the header portion provides meta-data about data stored in the data portion. The header portion includes multiple header fields. For each header field, a data tag is stored in the header field and the data tag indicates a header field type associated with the…
Method and system for conducting electronic auctions with multi-parameter price equalization bidding
Granted: July 24, 2007
Patent Number:
7249085
A method and system for conducting electronic online auctions using multi-parameter price equalization bidding is disclosed. Bids defined in a context of a bidder are transformed into a comparative bid parameter that enables a common basis of comparison for the submitted bids. A transformed bid of a first bidder can also be detransformed into a context of a second bidder, thereby enabling each individual bidder to view a comparison of submitted bids in their own context.
Method, apparatus, and system for varying an award volume in an auction
Granted: May 29, 2007
Patent Number:
7225152
A method of allocating an award in an auction wherein an award for a given auction round is allocated amongst a plurality of highest ranked bidders including at least a first ranked bidder and a second ranked bidder is disclosed. The method provides an incentive to the first ranked bidder and the second ranked bidder to each improve their respective bids during the conducting of the auction. The method includes adopting a formula for allocating the award amongst at least the first ranked…
Method and system for providing multi-organization resource management
Granted: May 29, 2007
Patent Number:
7225145
A method and system for providing multi-organization resource management. According to one embodiment of the invention, data is imported from a set of one or more external applications, a purchase requisition is generated from resource data from the set of one or more external applications. Then, after the purchase requisition is approved and validated the purchase requisition is converted to a purchase order and exported to one or more external applications.
Method and system for dynamically controlling overtime in electronic auctions
Granted: December 19, 2006
Patent Number:
7152043
A method and system for conducting electronic auctions is described. A dynamic lot closing extension feature avoids collisions in closing times of multiple lots by dynamically extending the closing time of a subsequent lot if a preceding lot's closing time is extended to be too close to the subsequent lot's then-currently scheduled closing time. In one embodiment, scheduled closing times can be extended with a flexible overtime feature, in which the properties of the event triggering the…
Method and system for supplier prioritization
Granted: December 5, 2006
Patent Number:
7146331
A method and system for selecting potential bidders or suppliers for a current electronic auction by using quantitative models to create a prioritized list of potential suppliers. A prioritization software analyzes a supplier's bidding participation history and bidding competitiveness history from the bidding data collected for all prior auctions in which the supplier participated or was requested by the auction coordinator to participate. Using the prior bid data, the software generates…
Operating resource management system
Granted: October 3, 2006
Patent Number:
7117165
A software system efficiently procures operating resources within an enterprise. A requisition record generating module generates a requisition record for a requisition. The requisition record indicates at least an operating resource that a requestor desires to purchase. The requisition record generating module generates the requisition record responsive to a combination of input by a requestor and operating resource information in an operating resource information database. An approval…
Method and system for processing files using a printer driver
Granted: August 1, 2006
Patent Number:
7084998
The method and system of the present invention provides a single interface to process and upload files to a document management system on a remote computer system. The method includes initiating a print driver, accessing the remote server, acquiring metadata, queuing the files with a spooler for processing and transmitting processed files and the metadata to the document management system on the remote computer system.
Method and system for extracting information from RFQ documents and compressing RFQ files into a common RFQ file type
Granted: July 4, 2006
Patent Number:
7072061
The method and system of the present invention provides for converting all RFQ documents to a common compressed format. The method includes receiving an electronic file for use in an RFQ; extracting link information from the file and storing the extracted link information in an output file, if the file is a text-based file; extracting ISO symbol information from the file and storing the extracted symbol information in an output file, if the file is a CAD file; converting the file to a…
System and method for matching multi-attribute auction bids
Granted: October 4, 2005
Patent Number:
6952682
A system and a method for matching multi-attribute auction bids are disclosed. A set of multi-attribute bids or bid values are collected from one or more buyers and one or more sellers. The set of bid values may include variances from nominal bid values. Buyer and seller bids are generated from the set of buyer and seller multi-attribute bid values after predetermined attribute values, if any, are added. A pair of bids between each buyer and each seller having a highest surplus is…
Method and apparatus for ordering items using electronic catalogs
Granted: August 12, 2003
Patent Number:
6606603
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…
Facilitator for aggregating buyer power in an on-line market system
Granted: June 24, 2003
Patent Number:
6584451
The Online Buyers Club System (OBCS) is a mechanism for the online purchasing of goods and services. The mechanism is targeted at user communities consisting of a large number of small-volume buyers (the “Buyers Club”). The primary function of the mechanism is to automatically aggregate the buying power of these buyers. The present invention provides a mechanism to promote competition among vendors as well as a mechanism to incent buyers to make a purchase.
Universal on-line trading market design and deployment system
Granted: September 4, 2001
Patent Number:
6285989
A method and an apparatus for a universal auction specification system is disclosed. The universal auction specification system comprises a network accessible set of trading primitives. A script generator is used for combining the set of trading primitives into a temporal protocol script representing a particular auction specification.
