Patent ID: 7603295

Claim:
A method for acquiring rights to lease a drilling rig comprising: a. authenticating a leassee of the drilling rig and enabling an authenticated leassee to communicate with a secure server; b. placing information about leassors of the drilling rig on the secure server; c. creating a bid request for the drilling rig of interest using technical requirements for the drilling rig of interest supplied by the authenticated leassee or technical requirements supplied by the secure server; wherein the technical requirements comprise: i. the drilling rig type, location of the drilling rig, the drilling rig capabilities, types of moorings, whether or not the drilling rig is movable, water depth the drilling rig can be placed in, the drilling rig owner, information on equipment used on the drilling rig, and combinations thereof; d. storing the bid request, wherein the bid request is stored on a reporting and data storage module for providing reports and storing of data and information; e. creating a distribution list of leassors of the drilling rig by the authenticated leassee; f. communicating the bid request to leassors of the drilling rig, wherein the communication occurs over a network; wherein the network can be a an Internet, or a wide area network, or a local area network, or an Intranet, or a subscriber network; g. authenticating leassors of the drilling rig using the secure server to enable an authenticated leassors to draft a tender offer in reply to the bid request; h. transmitting the tender offer to leassees over the network and saving the tender offer to the secure server; i. creating a short list of authenticated leassors and leassors of the drilling rig based on the tender offer; wherein the short list comprises: i. leassors selected by the leassee from those leassors that made tender offers; j. selecting the tender offer from the short list of authenticated leassors and leassors which most closely fills tender requirements of the leassee; wherein the tender requirements comprise: i. the technical requirements, the best commercial fit, rig availability, and combinations thereof; and k. accepting the tender offer.