Patent ID: 7249027

Claim:
A computer-implemented system for conducting an auction of a plurality of items, at least some of said items being dissimilar, said system comprising: a) an auctioneer's system and at least two user systems, the auctioneer's system communicatively coupled to user systems; b) said user systems including: b1) means for receiving messages from the auctioneer's system and for displaying said messages; b2) means for receiving bid related information from users, and b3) means for transmitting bid information to the auctioneer's system, said bid information including bids (S i , P i ) each comprising a set identification S i and a value parameter P i , where the set identification S i identifies a set of items that a user proposes to transact and where the value parameter P i specifies a value proposed by the user for the set of items identified by S i , at least one of the bids including a set identification S i identifying at least two different items; and c) said auctioneer's system including: c1) means for generating and transmitting messages to at least one of said user systems, said messages including a non-final message indicating that the auction will continue and a final message indicating that the auction has terminated; c2) means for receiving bid information from at least one of said user systems; and c3) decision means responsive to the bid information received from the user systems for determining whether the auction should continue or terminate, said decision means including: c31) selecting means which selects bids to maximize a function of the value parameters P i of the selected bids; c32) means to initiate the generation of a non-final message to at least one user system in response to a determination to continue the auction; and c33) means to initiate the generation of a final message to at least one user system in response to a determination to terminate the auction.