Abstract:
A method for automatically bidding on multiple on-line auction items up for bid where the number of items the bidder wishes to buy is less than the number of items up for bid is disclosed. A method of a seller or auction site giving a bidder the ability to add a listing to a set of listings that can be processed as above is also disclosed.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     The present application is a Continuation Application of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/881,371 filed on Jul. 25, 2007, which, in turn, claims priority to U.S. Provisional Applications 60/846,492 filed on Sep. 21, 2006 and 60/930,880 filed on May 18, 2007, all of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. 
    
    
     FIELD 
     The present disclosure is generally directed to facilitating the use of on-line auctions, specifically, to a seller-driven method for a bid set system. More in particular, this disclosure is directed to an improved method of bidding on multiple items at the same time where the desired set of items is less than the number of items available to bid on. 
     BACKGROUND 
     Auctions are a means of selling items by placing items up for bid, collecting bid prices from a number of buyers, and then selling the item to the highest bidder. It is believed that auctions have been used as least as early as 500 B.C. when women were auctioned off as wives to Babylonian men. 
     In 1995, the auction process reached the Internet when a Japanese company auctioned off used cars over the Internet. Later that year eBay started an on-line auction website that allowed users to not only bid on items, but also place items up for bid. Today eBay has over 181 million registered users worldwide and in 2005 handled a gross merchandise volume of $44.3 billion. Since 1995, many other on-line auction sites have opened allowing anyone with Internet access to participate as either a buyer or a seller. Online sites have auctioned items ranging from a single kidney bean to a Gulf Stream jet airplane. 
     Most auction sites allow the bidder to search for items by keyword or browse by category. Once the items matching the bidder&#39;s criteria are found, they are listed along with information such as a description of the item, the item&#39;s selling price, the time left on the item, the item&#39;s current price, the top bidder of the item, and a picture of the item. The bidder can then decide if they wish to place bids on one or more of the items listed. 
     However, each item search invariably yields multiple sellers offering comparable items. Buyers often want “any one of these”, so several of the listings would be suitable, but the auction system allows the buyer to bid on only one seller&#39;s auction at a time (unless, of course, the buyer is trying to buy multiple items). 
     This means buyers that would otherwise be quite satisfied with one seller&#39;s listing end up bidding on another seller&#39;s listing. What is worse, there is very little chance the buyer will return to the first seller, or possibly any seller, if the buyer loses the auction for the other listing. 
     Since there is only one winner per auction, this means scores of buyers who could be happy with an equivalent item will never bid on it. 
     SUMMARY 
     The current disclosure regards a method and system that allows people (users) to create “bid sets”: a listing of comparable online auction items up for bid, where the number of available items typically exceeds the number of items the user wants to buy. 
     The following is an example of how this method could be implemented. It should be kept in mind that the process is not necessarily a linear one and the following steps might occur in a different order than presented here or occur more than once per process cycle. The user selects one or more listings from an online auction website, such as eBay, and places their identifying information (“ID”) into a bid set—a collection of listing IDs in a database. The bid set the listings are placed in can be an existing bid set, or a new bid set can be created for the listings. The bid set database typically contains a set of listings IDs to be bid on, the maximum price the user will pay for each listing (or one price for all listings in the bid set), and the number of listings the user wishes to win bids on. The bids in the bid set can be prioritized by criteria supplied either by the user or by the system (i.e. default criteria). The system then uses the listing ID of the highest priority listing to determine the network location of the listing. The system then bids on the highest priority listing until the user wins the item, the listing&#39;s price exceeds the maximum price the user will pay for that item, or the item is removed from the auction.
         If the user wins the item and the user has won his desired number of items, then the system stops bidding on items in that bid set.   If the user wins the item and the user has not won his desired number of items, then the system starts the bidding process with the next highest priority item.   If the price of the item exceeds the maximum price set by the user, then the system stops bidding on that item and starts the bidding process with the next highest priority item.   If the item is removed from the auction for some reason, then the system starts the bidding process with the next highest priority item.       

     Once the user has won the desired number of items from the bid set, or if the bid set has no more items to bid on, the process ends. 
     In some embodiments of the disclosure, the bidding is done programmatically by software in computer-readable media and/or hardware. 
     In some embodiments, monitoring of auctions is carried out by a programmatic interface monitoring the auction through an API (Application Programming Interface). 
     In some embodiments, auction monitoring is carried out by an automated system, such as a program that periodically checks the contents of auction site webpages for auction results. 
     In other embodiments, auction monitoring is carried out by an email notification system between the auction website and the bidding system. 
     In some embodiments, the multi-item bidding system is integrated into the auction website. 
     In one embodiment of the disclosure, bidders submit different bids for different items in a bid set. 
     In one embodiment of the disclosure, the bidding system submits each bid a short time before the end of the corresponding auction. This allows bidders maximum time to continue to add listings to their bid set before a decision is made as to the listings&#39; priorities and thus the order in which they will be bid on. 
     In one embodiment of the disclosure, the method is performed by a server connected to the Internet. In one embodiment of the disclosure, the method is performed by client software connected to the Internet. 
     In some embodiments, the user interface allows the user to drag and drop items from one or multiple auction and/or e-commerce websites into their bid set of objects to be bid on. 
     It is preferable that the bidding be done programmatically by software in computer-readable media and/or hardware. 
     In some embodiments, every time a bidder bids or adds an item to his/her bid set, an automated system presents similar or related items for inclusion in the bid set based on the characteristics of the listing, such as product description, product manufacturer, size, color, and model number. In some embodiments, listings from the same seller as the listing selected are presented preferentially (e.g. above others, or with a more salient typography or display characteristics). 
     In some embodiments, the bid set system delivers targeted advertisements to prospective buyers that are related to the listings they have indicated an interest in. For example, advertisers could pay for placement of their advertisements. Further, the advertisers could pay for placement of ads when particular keywords are shown. Advertisers could pay per impression. Optionally, the advertisers could choose to pay per click, and the system could optimize the timing of when to show the advertisements in order to maximize the click through rate for those ads. Alternatively, the advertisers could pay per bid, and the system will optimize when to show the advertisements in order to maximize the number of bids. Alternatively, advertisers could pay per purchase, pay per dollar of purchase amount, or pay different amounts for each of more than one of the above, i.e. impressions, clicks, bids, purchases or purchase value. For any of the above embodiments, the payment could be handled through a bidding system itself, i.e. the advertisers could bid for the placements. 
     In some embodiments, an automated system searches one or more auction websites to find items related to those the prospective buyer/user has expressed an interest in by comparing the characteristics of the listings; for example: if the user is interested in bidding on a red, short-sleeve shirt, the system find other listings for other red, short-sleeve shirts. In one embodiment, the results of this search are provided to the user as a list. In some embodiments, the related items are automatically searched for if and when the user loses the auctions for all the listings he or she had selected. In some embodiments, the list of related items are provided to the user for approval before the system bids for them. In some embodiments, such request for approval is via email; in others via a web interface; in others through a pop-up in the user&#39;s computer; in others through text messages to a phone; in others through voice messages; in others through RSS messaging. In another embodiment, the system automatically adds the related items to a bid set and processes the bid set without confirmation from the user. 
     In some embodiments, listings are identified with a code unique to each different type of item (e.g. a stock keeping unit, or “SKU”), and bids for a listing can be interpreted as a bid for any item identified with the same code in comparable condition (e.g. new). 
     In one embodiment, either the seller or auction provider can place a webpage form element—such as a graphical user interface (GUI) button, text link, GUI checkbox, or GUI option button—with the listing up for bid. The bidder then only needs to activate the element to add that listing to a bid set. The code for the element is provided by the bid set system website. In embodiments where the seller is responsible for placing the element, the seller may add the code along with the description when he enters the item into the auction system. In embodiments where the auction provider (e.g. eBay) places the element, the element can be included by default in all listings. The code could be in HTML, JavaScript, Flash, AJAX or any similar web-friendly language. The listing can be identified implicitly based on the URL information included in referrer information in the HTTP request to the bid set system, i.e. identification is made by identifying the webpage from which the action was called and selecting the identifying information either from the URL string or from the web page itself. Alternatively, the listing identification can be included in the element code and be returned to the bid set system as a variable in the call. An example of what an HTML version of this code could look like for a GUI button 
                                 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=http://www.1ofthese.com/?Page=SellerNCRU.aspx&amp;Item=       YourItemNumber target=“_blank”&gt;&lt;img src=“http://www.-       1ofthese.com/1ofthese/Web/Style/images/add_bidset.gif”       border=“0”/&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;                    
where “www.1ofthese.com” is the web server for the bid set system and “add_bidset.gif” is the image file of the GUI button. In embodiments where the present invention is integrated with the auction website, the listing can be identified without the need to use URL or referrer, using a parameter of the function called by the element.
 
     If the buyer who activates the element is not currently logged into the bid set system, then the system prompts the buyer either to log in, if they have an account, or to establish an account, if they do not already have one. Once logged in, the bid set system processes the bid set as usual. In some embodiments, the present invention is integrated with the auction website, and there is no need to log into the bid set system separately from the auction website. 
     If the buyer has already logged onto the bid set system, the activation may be sufficient to place an item in the user&#39;s bid set. In this way, the user can select several listings to be placed on the bid set without having to revisit the bid set website. 
     In another embodiment, bidders may add an item to a bid set by performing an action at a webpage listing multiple items available for sale. For example: checking a check box adjacent to a picture or description of the corresponding item or listing, and then clicking a button elsewhere on the page. Alternatively, the selection may be made by clicking a button next to a listing in a list of listings. 
     Another embodiment of the disclosure includes an automated system that takes into account the utility functions or preferences of several bidders and sellers in an auction and matches the bidders to the sellers in a way such that no change can be made to the matches without reducing someone&#39;s utility. For example, each buyer could either state an order of preference of listings or how much he or she is willing to pay for each listing and each seller could explicitly or implicitly state an order of preference of buyers (usually the more a bidder offers, the higher a seller&#39;s preference for him or her). One embodiment of this follows: the buyer who bids the most (and is thus most desirable to sellers) is assigned his or her top choice, and that listing is removed from available choices. The buyer who bids second most is assigned his or her top choice from among the available choices. The process then repeats until all listings are filled. 
     Another embodiment of the disclosure includes a method of automatically finding auction items that are about to sell at price below a calculated “fair” price and bids for them. If the item is won, an automated system automatically re-sells the item at a higher price in a subsequent auction. A “fair” price might be an average price or some pre-determined function of the distribution of historical prices. In one embodiment of this, the delivery address of the re-seller user (the original buyer and subsequent seller) is not provided to the original seller until the delivery address of the subsequent buyer has been provided to the re-seller. 
     According to a first aspect of the present disclosure, a method for bidding on on-line auction listings is provided, comprising the following steps: (a) selecting a plurality of listings to bid on from an on-line auction, wherein each listing has an identification; (b) determining a number of listings required to be won; (c) storing the identification of each of the plurality of listings in a bid set database, wherein each listing has a corresponding record containing the identification; (d) selecting the first record from the bid set database after at least one listing has been stored; and (e) bidding on the listing that corresponds to the selected record after the first record is selected; the method further comprising: if the bidding results in success: decrementing the number of listings required to be won; if, after the decrementing, the number is zero, ending the process; and if, after the decrementing, the number is greater than zero, selecting the next record in the bid set database and, if the record exists, repeating step (e); and if the bidding results in failure: selecting the next record in the bid set database and, if the record exists, repeating step (e); wherein steps (c), (d), and (e) are performed by a computer. 
     According to a second aspect of the present disclosure, a method for adding an on-line auction listing to a bid set is disclosed, comprising: providing a webpage form element corresponding to an on-line auction listing; identifying the on-line auction listing by information provided by the webpage form element; storing the on-line auction listing into a bid set database based on the information provided by the user interface element, wherein the bid set database contains zero or more on-line auction listing records; and running computer software that performs a task of bidding on at least one on-line auction listing if the bid set database has at least one on-line auction listing record. 
     According to a third aspect of the present disclosure, a method for adding an on-line auction listing to a bid set is disclosed, comprising: providing a user interface element corresponding to an on-line auction listing on an on-line auction website; identifying the on-line auction listing by information provided by the user interface element; storing the on-line auction listing into a bid set database based on the information provided by the user interface element, wherein the bid set database contains zero or more on-line auction listing records; bidding on at least one on-line auction listing if the bid set database has at least one on-line auction listing record. 
     According to a fourth aspect of the present disclosure, a method for conducting an on-line auction is disclosed, comprising: collecting the requirements from each bidder from a plurality of bidders, including a seller priority value of each seller from a plurality of sellers said each bidder wishes to be matched to, wherein for each bidder each seller has a different seller priority value and the highest seller priority value indicates the seller said buyer most wants to buy from; collecting the bid values from each bidder from a plurality of bidders, wherein there is a highest bid value and a lowest bid value; and matching one-to-one said plurality of bidders to said plurality of sellers, the matching comprised of the steps: (a) prioritizing the bidders by bid value, such that the highest bid value corresponds to a highest priority; then (b) matching a bidder from said plurality of bidders who has a priority value equal to or greater than each other bidder and who has not yet been matched to any seller from said plurality of sellers to a seller from said plurality of sellers who has a seller priority value for said bidder greater than any other seller who has not yet been matched to any bidder from said plurality of bidders and who has not yet been matched to any bidder; and then (c) repeating step (b) until the plurality of bidders are matched to sellers or the plurality of sellers are matched to bidders. 
     According to a fifth aspect of the present disclosure, a method for enhancing on-line auction purchases is disclosed, comprising: determining a fair price for an auction listing for a set of goods; monitoring the auction listing bid price of the auction listing; bidding on the auction listing if the auction listing bid price is below the fair price; and if the bidding is successful, placing the set of goods in a new auction listing wherein the new auction listing bid price is higher than the auction listing bid price; wherein the above steps are performed by a computer. 
     According to a sixth aspect of the present disclosure, an interne computer server system is disclosed, comprising: a web server for collecting hypertext transfer protocol messages; a bid set system connected to the web server, the bid set system comprising: a database for storing auction listings and a bidding engine for bidding on auction listings; wherein the bid set system is adapted to determine buyer identification and auction listing identification based on the content of the hypertext transfer protocol messages. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FIGURES 
         FIG. 1  is a flowchart showing an embodiment of the bid set system. 
         FIG. 2  is a flowchart of an embodiment of the seller-driven enhancement to the bid set system. 
         FIG. 3  is an example of the seller-driven enhancement implemented on an auction webpage. 
         FIG. 4  is an embodiment of the bid set server system and its relationship to an on-line auction website. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       FIG. 1  gives a flowchart for an embodiment of the bid set method. First, a buyer (user) selects a bid listing they want to bid on  102  from an online auction  106 . The user also tells the bid set system what the maximum price the user is willing to bid for that listing and how many listings the user needs to win. Then, the user instructs the online bid set system  104 , via webpage interface, to add this listing to either a new or existing bid set  108 . The system sorts the listings in the bid set according to the priorities assigned to them, either by the system or the user  110 . The system then accesses the online auction and bids on the highest priority bid  112 . The system checks to see if the bid won the auction  114 . 
     If the bid did not win the auction (i.e. someone else placed a higher bid), then the system increases the bid by a preset amount  116 . If this new bid price is not over a user selected maximum bid price  118 , then the system submits a new bid at the new price  112 . 
     If this new bid price is over a user selected maximum bid price  118  or if the listing is no longer available to be bid on (e.g. someone else won the auction), then the system removes the highest priority listing from the bid set  122  and checks to see if there are any remaining listings in the bid set  124 . If there are none, then the system ends and sends the user a result  126 . If there are listings remaining in the set, then the new highest priority listing is bid upon  112 . Alternatively, the system could make only one bid attempt per listing at the maximum bid price rather than stepping up the price repeatedly. 
     If the bid did win the auction, then the system checks to see if the user has won enough listings to satisfy the user&#39;s requirements (set by the user)  120 . If the user requires more listings to be bid upon  120 , then the highest priority listing (i.e. the one just won) is removed  122  and more listings are bid upon  112  until the bid set is empty  124 ,  126  or the user has won enough listings to fill his requirements  120 ,  128 . If the user does not require more listings to be bid upon  120 , then the system finishes  128  and sends the user a report. 
       FIG. 2  shows how a buyer  202  and a seller  204  can take advantage of the seller-driven embodiment of the bid set system. First, a seller  204  goes to the bid set system  106  website and downloads the code for a graphical user interface (GUI) button to be placed with the seller&#39;s listing. The seller  204  then places  212  a listing for bid on an on-line auction  104  website and includes the button code with the listing. A buyer  202  browses  216  the on-line auction  104  website and finds  216  the listing with the GUI button. The buyer  202  then presses  216  or “clicks on” the GUI button. The GUI button code then sends  218  a message via the internet to the bid set system  106  web-server. The message contains identifying data on the buyer  202  and the listing. The bid set system  106  then begins bidding on listings in the bid set for the buyer  202 , using a method like the one depicted in  FIG. 1 . 
       FIG. 3  shows an embodiment of the seller-driven enhancement, specifically an embodiment of the in-listing button. In this embodiment, the seller has a listing  304  on an on-line auction webpage  302 . The listing  304  contains seller-provided information and, optionally, a photo  306  of the item up for bid. In the description section  308  of the listing  304 , the seller places the code provided by the bid set system. This code appears on the webpage  302  as a GUI button  310  that, when pressed, will place the item in a bid set for the buyer browsing the page. This is in contrast to the button provided by the auction system  312  that bids on the listing for the buyer without first placing it in a bid set. Alternatively, the code for the GUI button  310  could be integrated on the webpage  302  by the auction system so that the seller does not need to input the code. 
       FIG. 4  shows an embodiment of a computer server system  400  implementing an embodiment of the seller-driven enhancement. The buyer goes to the website of an on-line auction  402 . There, the buyer finds a listing  404  the buyer wishes to bid on. With the listing  404 , there is a GUI button  406  labeled in a way to let the buyer know that clicking on it will add the listing  404  to the bid set system  414 . The buyer clicks on the button  406 , sending an HTTP message  408  to the computer server system&#39;s  400  web server  410 . The web server  410  then parses out the identifying data from the HTTP message  408  and sends that data to the bid set system  414 . The bid set system  414  is preferably a computer programmed to handle the task of managing the communications with the database  416  and the on-line auction  402 , as well as processing any bidding algorithms and determining the status of the bid set (i.e. if enough listings have been won or not). The identifying data is stored in a bid set database  416 . The bid set bidding engine  418  then takes the identifying data from the database  416  and uses it to connect to communicate  420  with the on-line auction website  402  to bid on the listing if needed. 
     The disclosure has been described in general terms according to the preferred embodiments. However, people having ordinary skill in the art will understand that changes may be made to what is disclosed. Therefore, the scope of the invention is to be limited only by the following claims and their equivalents.