Patent ID: 7461022

Claim:
An auction-redemption system, comprising: a web server; an account database for maintaining account records with points, including credit points, that are redeemable and represent payment units for covering bid prices, a first account record of which being associated with a first bidder and a second account record of which being associated with a second bidder, wherein the credit points are not owned by but made available to any bidder who is qualified, wherein the credit points comprise attention points adapted for bids for an auction which are issued by a merchant for viewing an advertising of the merchant, and wherein for each group of one or more points there is an expiration date at which unredeemed points from such group are eliminated; and an auction server linked to the web server for receiving and processing one or more bids for an item to be auctioned by the merchant, one of which being a first bid with a first bid price from the first bidder and another one of which being a second bid with a second bid price from the second bidder, wherein the auction server reserves points representing payment units for covering the first bid price from the first account record if, when received, the first bid is deemed valid and points representing payment units for covering the second bid price from the second account record if, when received, the second bid is deemed valid, the auction server further redeems reserved points of a winning bid from among the one or more bids for the item.