Buyer-side auction dynamic pricing agent, system, method and computer program product
First Claim
1. A method for automating an interaction between a buyer and an electronic, variable, dynamic pricing online auction service comprising of the steps of:
- a. receiving a registration of a buyer at an Internet, web-enabled, buyer bidding application site (site) by creating logon credentials that are used to authenticate and authorize the buyer'"'"'s access to the site, a portfolio of the buyer, and account information of the buyer, wherein the logon credentials are provided by an independent 3rd party through a logon agent using at least one of proxied identification and digital certificates;
b. receiving entered information about financial transaction instruments of the buyer, contact information including at least one of a telephone number, an email address, and a physical mail address, and product preferences into an auction profile of the buyer;
c. receiving a search query from the buyer for a desired product from the product auctions of a plurality of auction sites including at least one of keywords, model identification, brand identification, synonyms, and unique identification, using at least one of a search agent and a meta-search agent, and providing returned auctions, including retrieving current status of the product auctions and presenting the current status to the buyer;
receiving a selection of one or more of the returned auctions to store in the portfolio of the buyer for tracking by one or more scan agents and for bidding by one or more bid proxies;
d. receiving selections of a plurality of product auctions of the returned auctions and placing the plurality of product auctions into the portfolio for use by a cascaded bid proxy;
e. providing monitoring by the one or more scan agents of temporal progression of the plurality of product auctions, and notifying the Buyer via a messaging center of any changes in relevant aspects of the current status of any of the plurality of product auctions that would prevent an initial bid from being placed by the bid proxy;
f. enabling activation of the one or more bid proxies as any completing auction that nears completion of the plurality of product auctions, to begin placing one or more bids until the completing auction is either won or lost by time of auction closing, including enabling interaction between the scan agent and the bid proxy to place the bid of the buyer as close to the time of auction closing as possible and to confirm that a counter-offer has not out-bid a most recent bid of the Buyer;
g. computing and executing another valid higher bid that is within the bid parameters, if the counter-offer has been made and accepted by the auction site that is higher than the most recent bid detected by the scan agent.
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Abstract
The present invention sets forth a system, method, and computer program product for automating an interaction between a buyer and an electronic, variable, dynamic pricing online auction service. The method can include receiving a registration of a buyer at an Internet enabled buyer bidding site, a portfolio, and account information. The method can also receive entered information about financial transaction instruments, contact information, and product preferences in an auction profile. The method can receive a search query for a desired product from product auctions of a plurality of auction sites and can use a search agent or a meta-search agent, and can provide returned auctions, including retrieving and presenting current status of product auctions. The method can receive a selection of returned auctions to store in the portfolio for tracking by scan agents and for bidding by bid proxies. The method can receive selections of product auctions of the returned auctions and place the product auctions into the portfolio for use by a cascaded bid proxy. The method can provide auction monitoring by scan agents of temporal progression of product auctions, and can notify someone via a messaging center of any changes in relevant aspects of the status that could prevent an initial bid from being placed by a bid proxy. The method can enable activation of bid proxies as an auction nears completion to begin placing bids until the auction is won or lost by auction closing and can confirm a counter-offer has not out-bid. The method can compute and execute another higher bid if a counter-offer has been made and accepted, higher than the most recent bid detected
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Citations
17 Claims
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1. A method for automating an interaction between a buyer and an electronic, variable, dynamic pricing online auction service comprising of the steps of:
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a. receiving a registration of a buyer at an Internet, web-enabled, buyer bidding application site (site) by creating logon credentials that are used to authenticate and authorize the buyer'"'"'s access to the site, a portfolio of the buyer, and account information of the buyer, wherein the logon credentials are provided by an independent 3rd party through a logon agent using at least one of proxied identification and digital certificates;
b. receiving entered information about financial transaction instruments of the buyer, contact information including at least one of a telephone number, an email address, and a physical mail address, and product preferences into an auction profile of the buyer;
c. receiving a search query from the buyer for a desired product from the product auctions of a plurality of auction sites including at least one of keywords, model identification, brand identification, synonyms, and unique identification, using at least one of a search agent and a meta-search agent, and providing returned auctions, including retrieving current status of the product auctions and presenting the current status to the buyer;
receiving a selection of one or more of the returned auctions to store in the portfolio of the buyer for tracking by one or more scan agents and for bidding by one or more bid proxies;
d. receiving selections of a plurality of product auctions of the returned auctions and placing the plurality of product auctions into the portfolio for use by a cascaded bid proxy;
e. providing monitoring by the one or more scan agents of temporal progression of the plurality of product auctions, and notifying the Buyer via a messaging center of any changes in relevant aspects of the current status of any of the plurality of product auctions that would prevent an initial bid from being placed by the bid proxy;
f. enabling activation of the one or more bid proxies as any completing auction that nears completion of the plurality of product auctions, to begin placing one or more bids until the completing auction is either won or lost by time of auction closing, including enabling interaction between the scan agent and the bid proxy to place the bid of the buyer as close to the time of auction closing as possible and to confirm that a counter-offer has not out-bid a most recent bid of the Buyer;
g. computing and executing another valid higher bid that is within the bid parameters, if the counter-offer has been made and accepted by the auction site that is higher than the most recent bid detected by the scan agent. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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2. A method for automating a Buyer'"'"'s online, electronic search agent of specific electronic auctions on a targeted auction site comprising:
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a. providing a programmable search agent, from a server, that searches auction catalogs of a plurality of auction sites and identifies correlations between product parameters of a Buyer that can be at least one of entered and stored, and can include at least one of keywords, product classifications, and price ranges, and products that are listed for sale through dynamic price competitive bidding using a number of electronic auction techniques including at least one of a Dutch, Yankee, and Reverse auction techniques. - View Dependent Claims (3)
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4. A method for executing one or more programmed bid proxies that are controlled by bid parameters comprising the steps of:
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a. retrieving, using a scan agent, the current auction status within a time to auction close window (TACW) wherein said TACW spans a range of time beginning at a time calculated by subtracting an absolute time to start proxied bidding from an auction end time, and ending with a time of the auction end time, wherein the TACW defines a period of time when a scan agent and a bid proxy work in tandem to place as many bids as necessary to win an auction;
b. determining, by a bid proxy, if parameters of the current auction status fall within a range of acceptable auction status parameters;
c. computing, using the bid proxy, a next valid price by adding a minimum valid price increment to a current auction price to compute an offer price, if the current auction price is below a maximum price, using the parameters of the current auction status;
d. activating a bid proxy, and placing a bid in accordance with an auction site specific protocol, if the offer price is below the maximum price in the acceptable auction status parameters, wherein the auction site specific protocol varies from site to site, and a basic protocol involves at least one of entering the offer price, and authenticating as the Buyer so the offer price can be correlated with an account of the Buyer on the auction site and entered on behalf of the Buyer;
e. retrieving the current auction status, using the scan agent, to verify that a latest bid of the Buyer has been accepted by the auction site;
f. repeating steps (b) through (e) until auction end, if the current auction status indicates that the offer price of the Buyer has been rejected or outbid by another bidder; and
g. scanning the auction, at the auction end, to determine win/loss status of the auction and storing the win/loss status in portfolio of the Buyer for later reporting to the Buyer through a messaging system. - View Dependent Claims (5)
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6. A method for providing cascaded bidding comprising:
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a. executing a series of cascaded bids for an identical product in temporally sequential auctions according to a programmed set of bid parameters, wherein the bid parameters comprise at least one of the following types;
a programmed bid value limit for one or more units of product;
an algorithmically calculated bid value limit based on prevailing market prices for similar or identical products monitored by agents and stored in a data warehouse.
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9. A method for scanning online auctions using a scan agent, comprising:
a. scanning web pages of a targeted auction site and extracting relevant auction status information including at least one of an open, a close, a maximum bid, a minimum valid bid, a last bidder, and other auction parameters and information using a scan agent that can be used to compute a valid Buyer bid, comprising;
1. retrieving one or more programmed bids, using a scan agent, from one or more portfolios of one or more buyers;
2. extracting auction site identification from programmed bid information;
3. activating the appropriate scan agent based on the auction site identification and domain information of an auction site;
4. retrieving using the scan agent the latest auction site characterization information available for that auction site;
5. retrieving, using the scan agent, auction information from the auction site by at least one of navigating auction information pages of the auction site, and through using an application programming interface (API) that enables programmatic retrieval of the auction information;
6. the current auction parameters are retrieved, analyzed and stored in entry for the auction in the portfolio of the Buyer; and
7. performing further analysis by at least one of one or more site agents and processes. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12)
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13. A method for adapting to changes in auction site layout and relevant auction site information, comprising:
a. adapting to changes within a plurality of web pages of an auction site and changes across the plurality of web pages, so that one or more scan agents and one or more bid proxies intelligently adapt to format and data type changes in the web pages of the auction site comprising;
1. alerting by the scan agent of an intelligent process known as the information extractor when old information that is expected to be found on a new page is not found;
2. examining a new page layout by the information extractor and comparing the new page layout data to a stored copy of the old page layout of a known navigable page to determine if the old information is located elsewhere on the new page;
3. modifying the parameters of the scan agent by the information extractor to identify where the old information is now located on the new page, if the old information is found in another location in the new page layout than it was in the old page layout;
4. stepping through one or more previous pages in navigation of pages of the auction site, by the information extractor, and scanning new links to see if the old information has been moved to another page, if the old information is not found in the new page layout;
5. modifying parameters of the scan agent, by the information extractor, to identify the new location of the old information, if the old information is found; and
6. sending an alert to an administrator for the page and resulting navigation path to be retrained by the administrator using at least one of a neural net engine controlling the scan agent and another intelligent engine reprogramming mechanism, if the old information is not found.
Specification