Patent ID: 7505930

Claim:
A sales system in a computer network comprising: means for a mediator in said computer network to receive a bid from a first buyer, said bid comprising a quantity of an arbitrary desired commodity for an arbitrary desired purchase price; means for said mediator in said computer network to receive an offer from a first seller, said offer comprising a quantity of an arbitrary desired commodity for an arbitrary desired price; means for said mediator to present said bid and said offer to said first buyer and said first seller; means for said mediator to announce said bid and said offer, such that if conditions of a second seller or a second buyer match said bid or said offer respectively, a transaction is concluded and conclusion information thereof is always announced; means for said mediator to receive changes to said first seller's unconcluded offer and changes to said first buyer's unconcluded bid; means for said mediator to announce said unconcluded offer including said changes and said unconcluded bid including said changes; means for said mediator to receive a bid from a third buyer, said bid corresponding to said unconcluded offer and changes; means for said mediator to receive an offer from a third seller, said offer corresponding to said unconcluded bid and changes; means for said first buyer or said first seller to enter a plurality of bids or offers and the desired number of bids or offers to be concluded in at least one transaction regardless of the desired commodity from one data entry screen; means for correlatively registering said plurality of bids or offers with said data entry screen; means for assigning a correlated register symbol to each of the plurality of registered bids or offers entered on said data entry screen to respond to bids from other buyers and sellers separately from commodity names; and means for retrieving and canceling bids or offers having correlated register symbols on said data entry screen, without concluding at least one transaction if a desired number of bids or offers of said plurality of bids or offers are concluded in at least one transaction.