Patent ID: 7305363

Claim:
A method of determining one or more winning bids in a multi-unit combinatorial many-to-many auction (exchange), the method comprising the steps of: (a) inputting data regarding each item in the market; (b) receiving a plurality of bids, with each bid including one or more items and for each item a desired quantity thereof, each bid further including a price, wherein each item is zero or more, each item and its associated quantity is tagged either for purchase or for sale, and the price is tagged as price to be received or a price to be paid; (c) determining from plural combinations of bids which combination is optimal in terms of: (i) maximizing a difference between the sum of the prices to be paid for said combination minus the sum of the prices to be received for said combination, (ii) maximizing the sum of the prices to be paid for said combination, (iii) maximizing the sum of the prices to be received for said combination, or (iv) maximizing a function that processes the sum of the prices to be paid for said combination and the sum of the prices to be received, wherein when all or part of the quantity of at least one item of said combination can be disposed of for free, the quantity of said at least one item in said combination to be purchased is less than or equal to the quantity for sale, and the quantity of each item of said combination to be purchased that cannot be disposed of for free is equal to the quantity for sale; and (d) accepting as winning bids, the bids forming said combination.