Patent ID: 7287007

Claim:
A method of selling personal, non-transferable usage rights of unlimited availability, said method comprising the steps of: (a) electronically offering through a communications network personal nontransferable usage rights which are executable either at prices that aim at reflecting the costs associated with the execution of said usage rights or under conditions of a competitive supply environment; (b) storing in a database a group of consumers records and offering through said network to a sample of said group a price for said usage rights to be paid by each member of said sample in case of accepting the offer; (c) causing said sample to vote on said offered usage rights by members of said sample stating their willingness to pay for either accepting or rejecting said offer and collecting results of said vote through said network; (d) through said network determining any pivotal payments from any pivotal member of said voting sample whose stated willingness to pay for a certain outcome alone was sufficient to swing the outcome from an outcome undesirable to him or her, said pivotal payment comprising a margin between all pro and contra votes while either including or excluding the vote of a said pivotal member under consideration; (e) through said network accepting or rejecting offers of said usage rights for all members of said voting sample according to the result of the vote; and (f) through said network correspondingly applying the offered price for the usage rights to said group in the case of an approving vote of the sample, but taking a revealed willingness to pay for said usage rights by the sample as a basis for the price to be paid by the remaining members of the group in the case of a rejecting vote of the sample while excluding said voting sample from the payment for said usage rights.