Patent ID: 8086517

Claim:
A method for constraining a consumer's ability to take delivery of a price protected commodity, comprising: providing to a consumer a price protection contract for the purchase of a commodity, wherein the price protection contract specifies a locale and at least one lock price and quantity such that commodity may be purchased at the lock price at one of a plurality of locations within the locale, wherein providing the price protection contract comprises: setting up an account associated with the price protection contract for the consumer at a price protection system accessible by the consumer over a network via one or more computing devices; creating a virtual reserve of the price protected commodity with the account, wherein the virtual reserve represents the quantity of the commodity available for purchase by the consumer under the price protection contract; specifying a time frame for the price protection contract, wherein the time frame comprises a plurality of time segments and each of the plurality of time segments is associated with a predefined quantity of the virtual reserve of the price protected commodity that is to be depleted during the time segment; receiving, by a price protection computer via a network, information from a computer at a retail location associated with the purchase of the commodity, wherein the information includes a retail price, a quantity, a time of purchase and information about the retail location, wherein if the quantity of the commodity is purchased within the locale, and the quantity is less than a current quantity of the virtual reserve and the quantity is less than the predefined quantity that is to be depleted during an associated time segment, the method further comprises: billing the consumer, by the price protection computer, according to the price protection contract; and depleting, by the price protection computer, the quantity from the virtual reserve.