Patent ID: 7428500
Filing Date: 2008-09-23
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A method in one or more computer systems for identifying auctions offering units of the same item, comprising: displaying information about a first auction, the information including a description of a first item unit offered in the first auction; receiving user input requesting information about other auctions offering item units that are units of the same item as the first item unit; determining, for the description of the first item unit among descriptions of item units offered in a group of auctions including the first auction, the inverse document frequency of terms occurring within the description of the first item unit; selecting a plurality of terms within the description of the first item unit having the largest inverse document frequencies; for each of the selected terms, conducting a search for auctions in the group whose item descriptions contain the selected term; for each auction found in at least one of the conducted searches, determining which of the selected terms occur in the auction's item description; identifying as an auction offering an item unit that is a unit of the same item as the first item unit an auction among the found auctions where the sum of the inverse document frequencies of the selected terms that occur in the item description for the auction exceeds a threshold; and displaying information about the identified auction.