| 摘要 |
The present invention includes a method and system for trading goods and services through recurring auctions. Recurring auctions are increasingly popular form of markets for perishable and time-sensitive resources. Traditional auctions strive to motivate bidders to bid their true valuation of the resources traded. Yet, when successful, they also quickly divide the recurring auction bidders into permanent winners and permanent losers. The latter have no incentive to stay in the market, so they leave, decreasing the competitive pressure and depressing pricing. The present invention introduces a novel winner selection method to maintain customers' interest in auction participation that employs participant retention mechanism in assigning traded resources to bidders. The winners are selected from a wider range of bidder ranks than in traditional auction mechanisms. For a group of bidders, winner selection takes into account bid values, and winnings and participation of each bidder in the previous auction rounds. |
| 主权项 |
1. A method for an auctioneer to allocate perishable or time-specific resources to bids in a plurality of auction rounds, wherein allocating resources to bids in each auction round is executed on at least one computer comprising computer-readable medium with computer executable instructions to perform various computer-implemented operations necessary for timely execution of said allocation, comprising:
(a) said computer receiving in its storage and thus having available a list of perishable goods or time-specific resources traded in a given auction round, wherein said list of resources to be traded in said given round is ranked according to factors set by the auctioneer and each resource is traded only in said auction round because said resource loses value if not allocated because it is perishable or time-specific; (b) said computer receiving bids relevant to said auction round wherein each bid comprises a bid price for allocation of one of the resources listed in said list of resources received in step (a), and information identifying a participant bidder making said bid; (c) for each of said bid prices received in step (b), said computer:
(c1) establishing probabilities of winning the resource in a single auction round wherein a difference between the probabilities computed for two bids is a non-decreasing function of difference between bid prices of the two bids whereby bidders of these two bids are motivated to raise their bid prices to increase their probability of resource allocation,(c2) sorting said probabilities of winning in order of said probabilities of winning,(c3) not restricting participation in a future auction round based on a participant bidder winning or losing in said given round or in a previous round; and (d) said computer allocating said resources to said bids based on said probabilities of winning established in said step (c), rather than based on said bid prices received in said step (b) by selecting sequentially, in the order the said sorted probabilities in (d), bidders as winners randomly based on their probabilities established in (c), until either all resources are allocated, or the number of unprocessed bidders becomes equal to the number of unallocated resources remaining, in which case the remaining bidders are allocated the remaining resources in the order of their said sorted probabilities. |
