Patent ID: 8150775

Claim:
An automated method for bargaining in a round by round manner to achieve a binding bargained payment for a transaction, said method being capable of multiple rounds comprising: configuring for at least one computer and at least one computer readable medium storing thereon computer code which when executed by the at least one computer performs the method, the method comprising, accepting one or more offers for sale from at least one first party and one or more offers to purchase from at least one second party, wherein the computer is configured to accept offers from a party either round by round or to accept more than one offer from a party before the completion of any round; automatedly comparing the offers round by round, wherein each such offer corresponds to a sequential round; and automatedly analyzing the offers by automatedly comparing the offers corresponding to a first round to determine if they satisfy a predetermined criterion for achieving a binding agreement; and if the first round offers satisfy the criterion, providing a response to at least one of the parties that indicates that the comparison analysis has produced an agreement on a binding bargained payment that is calculated as a function of at least one of the offers in the first round; if, however, the analysis of the offers indicates that the first round offers do not satisfy the criterion for the first round, then, permitting the parties on both sides of the transaction to engage in at least one subsequent round by submitting at least one offer after the first round has been completed or based on the submission of a second round offer before the completion of the first round; automatedly analyzing the offers then in the second round by comparing the offers for that round and determining if they satisfy the criterion for that round; and if the offers for that round satisfy the criterion for that round, providing a response to at least one of the parties that indicates that the comparison analysis has produced a binding bargained payment calculated as a function of at least one of the offers for that round; if, however, the offers in that round do not satisfy the criterion for that round, conducting any number of subsequent rounds, wherein the at least one computer is configured such that during a given round no indication of the amount of any offer from one party for that round is provided for use by the party on the opposite side of the transaction and wherein said automation is implemented by a computer, and the automated analysis and comparison is completely automated, and wherein the at least one predetermined criterion includes at least one criterion allowing for achieving the binding agreement when the offer for sale is greater than the offer for purchase.