Patent ID: 8744916

Claim:
A system for controlling automated auctions, comprising: an administrative server; and a plurality of collaborative bidding servers, each collaborative bidding server comprising a plurality of entities collaborating to submit a bid, the plurality of collaborative bidding servers configured to increase a gain G(COL) of the system defined by: G ( COL )>CCR +n*CIR; where: CCR is a factor descriptive of collaborative communication resources used by the plurality of collaborative bidding servers; n is a number of collaborative bidding servers in the plurality of collaborative bidding servers; and CIR is a factor descriptive of communicating information resources; wherein the increasing a gain G(COL) comprises: identifying a collaborative bidding entity associated with at least one of the plurality of collaborative bidding servers that is operable to provide bidding information, obtaining the bidding information from the identified collaborative bidding entity, executing decision rules to evaluate the obtained bidding information to determine whether the bidding information is correct bidding information; responsive to determining that the bidding information is incorrect: communicating a request to the identified collaborative bidding entity to provide the correct bidding information, and obtaining the correct bidding information; and generating the bid based on optimization rules and on the correct bidding information, wherein software running on each of the plurality of collaborative bidding servers is operative to: automatically generate and transmit the bid to the administrative server on behalf of a respective bidding entity; and optimize the bid on behalf of the respective bidding entity based on prices of supplies provided by suppliers of a respective collaborative bidding entity, wherein the prices of supplies are updated in real-time.