Patent ID: 7870050

Claim:
A method for enabling a bidder in an auction of two or more types of items to vary its bidding among the items within a group of types of items offered in said auction, said group of types of items including two or more types of items, said method implemented in a computer system comprising a plurality of computers including a first computer and at least one other computer which is located remotely from the first computer and interconnected by a communication system, wherein price-related information is transmitted to bidders and bid-related information is received from bidders, each on plural occasions, said method comprising: transmitting, via said communication system, price-related information for each said type of item within said group of types of items to at least one bidder at two or more times including at least one time subsequent to receiving bid-related information from said bidder, receiving, using said computer system, bid-related information, including an indicator of a quantity for each said type of item within said group of types of items, from said bidder, an instance of said receiving occurring after an instance of said transmitting, and applying, at said first computer a constraint to the bid-related information to require that a sum of the quantities over said group of types of items is no greater than a sum of the quantities over said group of types of items contained in bid-related information received from said bidder at an earlier time in the auction.