Patent ID: 8251702
Filing Date: 2012-08-28
Classification: A61G,A61J,G06Q,G09B

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented method for conducting an on-line auction of the type wherein a plurality of customers may receive, via said auction, an offer of a product supplied by one of at least two merchants, said product comprising a plurality of Program Terms, wherein the method is implemented in a computer system when executed by one or more processors configured to execute one or more computer program modules, said method comprising: executing, on the one or more processors of the computer system, one or more computer program modules configured to obtain, over a network, customer information from said plurality of customers, wherein said customer information comprises: executing, on the one or more processors of the computer system, one or more computer program modules configured to automatically group the plurality of customers into pools based on customer selections of the Program Terms indicated as being the most important in the sets of customer information corresponding to the individual users, wherein the pools comprise: executing, on the one or more processors of the computer system, one or more computer program modules configured to obtain, over said network, from individual ones of said at least two merchants, bids to provide the product to customers in the plurality of customers, wherein a given bid defines an offer to provide said product to at least some of said plurality of customers; executing, on the one or more processors of the computer system, one or more computer program modules configured to select Preferred Offers from the obtained bids to provide the product to customers from the plurality of customers, wherein individual Preferred Offers correspond to individual pools of customers such that the Preferred Offers include a first Preferred Offer that corresponds to the first pool of customers and a second Preferred Offer that corresponds to the second pool of customers, and wherein the selection of the Preferred Offers comprises: executing, on the one or more processors of the computer system, one or more computer program modules configured to individually notify customers of the corresponding Preferred Offers such that: