Patent ID: 8321317

Claim:
A method of generating price metrics, comprising: under control of instructions that are executed by one or more computing devices: retrieving, from a database containing price data sets previously exchanged between buyers and sellers, one or more price data sets representing a specified time period, wherein each of the retrieved price data sets is responsive to a product specification data set that includes at least one parameter value and a unit of measure for each of one or more items, and wherein each of the retrieved price data sets includes at least a parameter value, a quoted cost, and a selling unit of measure for at least one item; for each responsive item in the retrieved price data sets, determining a total item price based on the quoted cost for the item in the respective price data set; summing the total item price per item across the retrieved price data sets to produce a combined item price total; for each responsive item in the retrieved price data sets, verifying the selling unit of measure is as specified for the corresponding item in the product specification data set, and if not, mathematically converting the selling unit of measure to the specified unit of measure; summing the units of measure per item across the retrieved price data sets to produce a combined item unit total; and dividing the combined item price total by the combined item unit total, thereby generating a metric price per unit for the specified time period for each item in the product specification data set.