Abstract:
This invention provides a novel method and system for instantiating a data structure comprising a contract option including a disjunctive capability, of especial utility in enabling a new way of selling commodities or services. Rather than being a right to buy a unit of a type of item at a specified price, as is known to the prior art, the present invention enables one to secure a right to buy at least one unit of one of n-types of items at a predetermined legal consideration.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    This invention relates to a novel method and system for instantiating a data structure comprising a contract option including a disjunctive capability, of especial utility in enabling a new way of selling products or services. 
         [0003]    2. Introduction to the Invention 
         [0004]    Contract options are known, and include a right to buy a unit of a specific item type at a specific price at some future time. Generally, an option may be purchased for a relatively small price, called here the option price, and the item may be purchased for a specified price, called the item price or (in the case of stock options) strike price. 
         [0005]    In particular, and, for example, bundled options are currently used in financial markets. A maximum option includes a bundle of options with a variety of features including different underliers and different strike prices. Only one of the options in the bundle can be exercised, and that one is chosen in the holder&#39;s favor at expiration. A minimum option is similar, except that the option to be exercised is chosen in the issuer&#39;s favor at expiration. Because of the liquidity of the financial markets, and that fact the underlying instruments can be turned (bought and resold) instantaneously, or exchanged instantly for cash at market value with no loss of utility, there is only a very weak notion of “supply” or “capacity”. If one sells more options on a stock than one has actual shares, the value of the options can still be delivered to the buyers. Issuing and pricing such options requires modeling and analyzing the relationship between price and demand, and analyzing the dynamics and variability of the financial markets and/or the underlying instruments, but does not require consideration of the availability of a limited supply of the items under consideration. 
         [0006]    In sharp contrast, physical goods and services are actually consumed by the purchaser. They are bought for a purpose other than simple financial gain. Thus, when selling options for physical goods or services, one must also consider the available supply and the various methods of using that supply to fulfill the options that have been sold. Thus, the supporting data systems and information systems that support the sale of bundled financial options can not be directly applied to the sales and fulfillment processes associated with disjunctive options for physical goods or services. Further, existing inventory and resource management systems tie each sale to specific items (part numbers, SKUs, flights, etc) and use only simple addition and subtraction to avoid depleting supplies. These systems can not effectively represent the sale of even simple options (as opposed to sale of items), and thus can not represent or aid in managing the sale of disjunctive options. Finally, as the intent of financial options is purely to manage financial exposure or gain, rather than to provide flexibility in the use of physical resources such as goods, or resources used to provide services, it is not obvious that the more complex options used in financial markets would have a meaningful application to physical goods and services. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0007]    The present invention discloses a new type of contract option. 
         [0008]    In overview, the present invention enables one to secure a right to buy at least one unit of one of n-types of items at a specified legal consideration. This capability is in sharp contrast to the prior art, which consists simply in defining a contract option as one being a right to buy a unit of a specific type of item at a specified price. 
         [0009]    Accordingly, in a first aspect of the present invention, there is disclosed a data structure comprising a contract option, the contract option including a disjunctive capability providing the right to buy at least one unit of at least one of n-types of items at a predetermined consideration, the contract option providing an ability to actually meet, with existing resources, all the obligations of options that may be sold. 
         [0010]    Preferably, the disjunctive capability comprises at least one of a buyer preference form and a seller preference form. For example, the buyer preference form may comprise a buyer capability for deciding for some time after the purchase of an option which of the types of items will be purchased. In an analogous way, the seller preference form may comprise a seller capability for deciding at some time after the purchase of an option which of the types of items will be sold to a buyer. Note that the disjunctive capability preferably may include a case wherein the buyer preference form and the seller preference form are used in combination. 
         [0011]    The predetermined legal consideration recited above typically includes a specified price of an item. 
         [0012]    Note that the aforementioned contract option can be enabled at some future time. 
         [0013]    In a second aspect of the present invention, there is disclosed a method comprising the steps of: 
         [0014]    i) instantiating a data structure comprising a contract option, said contract option including a disjunctive capability providing a right to buy at least one unit of at least one of n-types of items at a predetermined consideration, the contract option providing an ability to actually meet, with existing resources, all the obligations of options that may be sold; 
         [0000]    and 
         [0015]    ii) offering said contract option to at least one buyer. 
         [0016]    In a third aspect of the present invention, there is disclosed a method comprising the steps of: 
         [0017]    i) instantiating a data structure comprising a contract option, said contract option including a disjunctive capability providing a right to buy at least one unit of at least one of n-types of items at a predetermined consideration, the contract option providing an ability to actually meet, with existing resources, all the obligations of options that may be sold; 
         [0000]    and 
         [0018]    ii) offering said contract option to at least one seller as a solicitation from a buyer. 
         [0019]    In a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is disclosed a computer system especially configured for enabling a novel way of selling products and/or services, the computer system comprising: 
         [0020]    i) means for instantiating a data structure comprising a contract option, said contract option including a disjunctive capability providing a right to buy at least one unit of at least one of n-types of items at a predetermined consideration, the contract option providing an ability to actually meet, with existing resources, all the obligations of options that may be sold; 
         [0021]    ii) means for inputting information to the data structure for execution of a particular contract option; 
         [0000]    and 
         [0022]    iii) means for operating upon and executing said contract option with respect to said input information for outputting a specific contract option. 
         [0023]    The present invention, as just illustratively defined in four summarized aspects, can provide inherent novel advantages compared to the prior art, since new contract option capabilities may now be realized. 
         [0024]    Further advantage of the present invention may be realized because it may be exploited in many disparate fields, for example, extending from financial markets, to the airline industry, or to advertising media (commercial timeslots on TV). In this last case, for example, a high paying buyer might want options for many timeslots, and by way of the present invention, being enabled to choose which timeslot to use based on viewership and/or events that may impact viewership. Other application areas include professional services e.g., contracting for a lawyer, surgeon, or programmer, etc. For example, for some key court cases/operations/projects one might want to reserve multiple resources and decide which to use close to the time of need depending on how other circumstances play out. For less critical court cases/operations/projects, one might be willing to pay less and take whatever gets provided. 
         [0025]    Other advantages may also be secured, since the present invention sets forth a novel contract option framework that can be readily adapted to add more functionality, for example, determining how many options to offer, or what option price or purchase price to offer. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING 
         [0026]    The invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawing, in which: 
           [0027]      FIG. 1  provides a flowchart realizing a methodology of the present invention; and 
           [0028]      FIG. 2  shows an environment for machine realization of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0029]    The present invention, as summarized above, is now illustratively enabled pursuant to the following detailed description. 
         [0030]    Preferred enablement of the present invention assumes that there must be at least one item of each type available; in general, we expect that a form of options that this will be most applicable will obtain when multiple items of each type are available. We call this a disjunctive option, as in a simplest case one, the option is a right to buy either A or B (but not necessarily both) at a specified price. 
         [0031]    For the purpose of illustration, we use an example from the airline industry. However, this invention is not limited to this example, but is applicable to any circumstance where buyers purchase one item from among a collection of different types of items. 
         [0032]    In our example, the seller is an airline and the buyers are passengers. The items being purchased are seats on the direct flights from city A to city B. We note that a traveler generally has some desired time window for departure, and in the case when multiple airports serve a city, may have a preference for at least one of the departure airport and the arrival airport. A disjunctive option would be the right to buy a ticket on one of a specified set of flights (or equivalently, to fly) in the desired time window from city A to city B. For our example, we assume that the full fare from city A to B is $700 and that the lowest price fare is $200. Note that the purchase price may depend on which flight is used, but is locked in at the time the option is purchased. 
         [0033]    Preferably, there are two forms of disjunctive options, the buyer preference (BP) form in which the buyer can decide at some time after the purchase of the option, which one of the types of items he will purchase, and the seller preference (SP) form, in which the seller may decide at some time after the purchase of the option, which one of the types of items he will sell to the buyer. 
         [0034]    In our example, the BP option gives the passenger the right to fly on any of the specified flights while the SP option gives the passenger the right to fly on (at least) one of the specified flights. The BP option might be attractive to a business traveler, who is planning to take the 6 pm flight, but wants to have the flexibility to extend his meeting and catch the 7 pm flight. The business traveler might buy this option for $300, with a ticket purchase price of $700. His total cost to fly is then $1000, which is more than the cost of a single ticket but less that the cost of tickets on both flights. The SP option might be attractive to a college student who has a limited budget, and is willing to arrive at the airport in time for the 6 pm flight with the understanding that he might have to wait for the 7 pm flight. He might buy this option for $50, with a ticket price of $100. His total cost to fly is then $150, which is less than the lowest cost fare. 
         [0035]    Using BP and SP disjunctive options in combination may provide particular benefit. In our example, suppose that the airline had exactly one seat available on each of the two flights. If both the business traveler and the student purchased the options and tickets as described above, the airline&#39;s revenue would be $1150. Although this is less than the maximum $1400 possible revenue for these two tickets, it is considerably higher than the revenue that would have been generated had either of the seats remained empty. 
         [0036]    The BP disjunctive option provides significant flexibility to the buyer. One would expect that these would normally carry a premium price. Essentially the buyer is reserving multiple items (one of each type). One might expect that the item price for such an option would be at or near the list price of the item, and that the option price would be at least a significant fraction of the list price. Thus the total cost of exercising such options would be priced at a level that would be higher than the usual price of a single item of any type, but lower than the sum of the usual price of one item of each type. 
         [0037]    The SP disjunctive option provides significant flexibility to the seller. He can continue to offer the optioned items for sale at a higher price, so long as he has access to more items (of each type) than he has sold options for. 
         [0038]    It should be noted that when used in combination, BP and SP disjunctive options provide a means for sellers to generate additional revenue by providing flexibility to their high value customers while generating a simultaneous demand for the resulting surplus. 
         [0039]    The challenge of using disjunctive options is that since there is no longer a one-to-one relationship between options and types of items, it is no longer straight forward for the seller to determine whether he has sufficient capacity to meet all of the options he has sold, or even whether he has sufficient capacity to sell one more option. In general, this “feasibility determination” problem requires computing an allocation of the individual items to the option owners. In the case of combinations of BP and SP disjunctive options, it requires considering (implicitly or explicitly) every possible combination of type choices of the buyers. 
         [0040]    In the simplest embodiment of flexible options the available item types are partitioned into disjoint sets, and a disjunctive option gives a buyer the right to buy one unit of one of the items in the set. In our airline example, the sets might be 
         [0041]    Set1={7 am flight, 8 am flight} 
         [0042]    Set2={9 am flight, 10 am flight, 11 am flight} 
         [0043]    Set3={12 noon flight, 1 pm flight, 2 pm flight} 
         [0044]    Set4={3 pm flight, 4 pm flight} 
         [0045]    Set5={5 pm flight, 6 pm flight, 7 pm flight} 
         [0046]    Set6={8 pm flight, 9 pm flight,}. 
         [0000]    Note that it is not necessary for the sets to be of the same size. To ensure feasibility, the number of items of each type must be at least as large as the number of BP options sold for the set that includes that type. Further, the total number of items in the types in a set must be at least as large as the total number of BP and SP options sold for that set. Thus, rather than just checking, on whether there is remaining availability of a single item, when selling a single disjunctive option, one must compute several values, and evaluate inequalities involving all of these values. 
         [0047]    In the airline example, feasibility requires that the number of available seats on a flight must be at least as large as the number of BP options sold for the set that includes that flight. Further, the total number of seats available on the flights in a set must be at least as large as the total number of BP and SP options sold for that set. 
         [0048]    Additional flexibility can be obtained by allowing the sets to have items in common. However, this makes the problem of determining availability somewhat more complex. S(2), . . . , S(n) be the sets for which disjunctive options are being sold and let q(i) be the m of options sold for set S(i), I=1, . . . , n. For item type t, let a(t) be the number of items of available. Then for each type t, the sum of number of BP options sold for sets that include cannot exceed the number of units available for type t. 
         [0049]    That is, 
         [0000]    
       
         
           
             
               
                 
                   
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         [0050]    If only SP options are sold, a combination q(1), q(2), . . . q(n) of q(i) SP options for set S(i) is feasible if and only if there is an integer solution to the following set of equations. 
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         [0051]    In the equations above, y(i,t) is the number of SP options for set S(i) that are satisfied by items of type t. 
         [0052]    We observe that although some for some instances of the sets S(i) it may be relatively easy to determine whether integers y(i,t) satisfying the equations (2)-(4) is in general quite difficult. In fact, even in the case when a feasible solution y*(i,t) exists, determining whether another SP option for set i can be sold is also quite difficult if 
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         [0000]    A technique known as integer programming can be used to solve both the feasibility problem and the incremental feasibility problem. 
         [0053]    When both BP and SP options are being sold for the same set of items, determining feasibility requires that for every possible set of buyer choices of eligible items, there be enough remaining items to satisfy all of the seller choice options. We let q BP (i) be the number of buyer preference options for set i, q SP (i) and be the number of buyer preference options for set φ. It is sufficient, but not necessary that there is an integer solution to the following set of equations. 
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         [0000]    This approach to determining feasibility is very conservative; essentially it reserves an excessive number of items for the buyer choice options. Additional seller choice options can be sold to generate revenue from the items that must be available for, but will not be consumed by, the buyer choice options. Let s(i,t) be integers such that 
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         [0054]    We can interpret s(i,t) as the number of buyers of a BP option for set S(i) who select type t. Then the combination of q BP (i) buyer preference options and q SP (i) seller options of type i=1,2, . . . , n is feasible if and only if for every set of integers s(i,t) satisfying equations (8)-(10) there exists a set of integers the following set of equations. 
         [0000]    
       
         
           
             
               
                 
                   
                     
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         [0055]    For each possible allocation s(i,t), a technique known as integer programming can be used to determine whether a feasible solution to (11)-(13) exists. The incremental availability check can also be made using integer programming. 
         [0056]    Attention is now directed to  FIGS. 1 and 2 , which show respectively, a flowchart (numerals  10 - 16 ) for enablement of a representative aspect of the present invention, and a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computer system (as numeral  18 - 24 ) for machine realization of the present invention. In particular, the computer system  18  comprises means for instantiating a data structure comprising a contract option, the contract option including a disjunctive capability providing a right to buy at least one unit of at least one of n-types of items at a predetermined consideration, the contract option providing an ability to actually meet, with existing resources, all the obligations of options that may be sold; means for inputting information to the data structure for execution of a particular contract option; and means for operating upon and executing the contract option with respect to the input information for outputting a specific contract option.