Patent ID: 7895087

Claim:
A method for providing an auction of a plurality of similar items, the method comprising: (a) announcing, via a processor, an ask price for each of a plurality of similar items in an auction; (b) receiving, at the processor, a bid from at least one of a plurality of bidders, each bid comprising an identification of a desired quantity of the item at the ask price; (c) automatically determining, by the processor, one or both of the following: (1) the minimum ask price at which a bidder must have bid to be currently winning the auction and (2) the maximum ask price at which a bidder must have bid most recently to be currently losing the auction; (d) informing, via the processor, the plurality of bidders of a result of (c); (e) incrementing, by the processor, the ask price; and (f) repeating (a)-(e) until no bids are received for the ask price, wherein the auction does not have a scheduled end time.