Patent ID: 7353191

Claim:
A method of selecting a desirable allocation of bids in a combinatorial exchange setting comprising: (a) providing a plurality of bids, each of which includes at least one item, a quantity for each item and price for all of the item(s) and their quantities; (b) selecting an adversarial allocation of the bids; (c) determining as a function of the adversarial allocation of the bids (1) a candidate allocation of the bids and (2) a value of a minimax regret related to a utility associated with the adversarial allocation minus a utility associated with the candidate allocation; (d) determining as a function of the candidate allocation (1) a new adversarial allocation of the bids and (2) a value of a maximum regret related to a utility associated with the new adversarial allocation minus a utility associated with the candidate allocation; (e) if the current value of the maximum regret is greater than the current value of the minimax regret, determining as a function of the adversarial allocation(s) (1) a new candidate allocation of the bids and (2) a new value of minimax regret related to a utility associated with the adversarial allocations minus a utility associated with the new candidate allocation; (f) determining as a function of the new candidate allocation (1) a new adversarial allocation of the bids and (2) a new value of maximum regret related to a utility associated with the new adversarial allocation minus a utility associated with the candidate allocations; and (g) repeating steps (e) and (f) until the current value of maximum regret is not greater than the current value of minimax regret.