Patent ID: 7610217

Claim:
An auction method of determining a successful bidder for a single kind of product or products, the auction method being executed in a server computer connected with a plurality of client computers via a network, each client computer belonging to a respective bidder, the auction method comprising the steps of: a) transmitting, from the server computer, information on a product to be auctioned to the plurality of client computers via the network; a′) establishing, in the server computer, a current auction price against which bids are judged; b) receiving, in the server computer, a rules set including at least one rule defining participation in the auction by a bidder, from each of the plurality of client computers via the network; b′) determining, in the server computer, and based on the rules set received for each bidder, a desired auction price that a bidder, is willing to bid for the product, optionally with a maximum allowed price greater than said desired auction price that a bidder is willing to bid; c) judging, in the server computer, whether the current auction price is equal to or lower than the desired auction price determined according to the rules set received in step b) from each of the plurality of client computers that the bidder, is willing to bid, for each bidder; d) determining, in the server computer, each remaining bidder who has sent the rules set by which it is judged that the current auction price is equal to or lower than the desired auction price judged in step c); e) judging, in the server computer, whether a competitive state occurs or not, based on the amount of products to be auctioned and the sum of amounts of products that the bidders desire to purchase, wherein a state in which there is more than one remaining bidder as a result of said determining in step d) is defined as a competitive state; f) in response to a judgment in step e) that the competitive state occurs, increasing, in the server computer, the current auction price and repeating steps c), d), and e) using the increased current auction price as the current auction price, wherein the repeating of steps c), d), and e) is performed until it is determined in step e) that no competitive state occurs; wherein if the current auction price is greater than the desired auction price upon repeating step c), the repeated step c) judges whether the current auction price is equal to or lower than the maximum allowed price if present in the rules set as determined according to the rules set received in step b) from each of the plurality of client computers that the bidder is willing to bid, for each bidder, and the repeated step d) determines each remaining bidder if the current auction price exceeds the maximum allowed price judged in step c); and g) in response to a judgment in step e), the competitive state does not occur, determining, in the server computer, the remaining bidder as a successful bidder.