Patent ID: 8332302

Claim:
A method of processing bid information for an electronic auction comprising the steps of: (a) providing a database of items available for auction; (b) receiving a set of bids from one or more bidders for a corresponding set of items selected from said database, each bid in said set of bids including at least a bid price and a bid ranking specified by a bidder for an item; wherein said bid ranking from said bidder for an item represents a desired order in which a bid is to be resolved in the electronic auction compared to any other bids made by such bidder for other items in said database of items; further wherein said bidder can specify that a set of ranked bids submitted by such bidder for a set of items should be treated as mutually exclusive, such that the electronic auction determines at most a single item to be awarded to said bidder from said set of ranked bids by correlating a ranking relationship between separate items bid on by said bidder.