Patent ID: 6985885

Claim:
A system for vending copies of an electronic work, the system including: (a) means for receiving a plurality of bids from a plurality of bidders; (b) means for storing the bids; (c) means for select a bid from the plurality of bids, wherein the bid being submitted by one of the bidders; (d) means for selecting a sample of bids from the plurality of bids, wherein the sample of bids does not include the bid from the one bidder; (e) means for deriving a threshold from the sample of bids, (f) means for comparing the bid of the one bidder with the threshold to determine whether to vend a copy of the electronic work to the bidder based, at least in part, on the comparison; and (g) a network interface unit for sending a copy of the electronic work to the bidder; wherein copies of the electronic work available to be vended by the system comprise a quantity of copies that is greater than the quantity of bids in the plurality of bids.