Systems and methods for transacting business over a global communications network such as the internet

• US 20060059055A1
• Filed: 10/28/2005
• Published: 03/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Performance Pricing, Inc. (Acacia Research Corporation), Priceplay.com Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Priceplay.com Incorporated
• Inventors: Lin, Wayne W.
• Granted Patent: US 8,050,982 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0253 During e-commerce, i.e. online transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0605 Supply or demand aggregation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0609 Buyer or seller confidence or verification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

A business model/process is described for conducting business transactions over the Internet, allowing buyers to reduce the price of the selected product/service based on the buyer'"'"'s performance during a collateral activity. Sellers offer the product/service within a specified price range, and buyers accept the offer, in exchange for the opportunity to close the transaction at the lowest price offered by achieving a high score or performance rating during the collateral activity. The ultimate price is within the agreed upon range, but is determined based upon the buyer'"'"'s performance and scaled to the performance at the collateral activity. The price may change throughout performance of the collateral activity, and the available price at any given time may be displayed or otherwise made available to the buyer. The price change may be continuous, at intervals, in response to certain events, etc. The activity may be a video game, electronic board game, sports bet, card game, or any other activity, and may be performed against the seller, a pre-programmed software opponent, a computer opponent, another buyer competing for the same or a different product, a player participating as a player only and not as a buyer, or anyone or anything else. The seller will receive payment for listing products for sell, and as the products attracts buyers to participate in PDAs and compete for lower prices, revenues will be generated from the time spent by the buyers during the PDAs, the time can turn into advertisement revenues for the host of the web site, and the revenue can be shared accordingly with the sellers.

Claims

1. A method of assigning payment to sellers for offering products for sale over global communications networks such as the internet, comprising the steps:

communicating to a seller via a global communications network, a description of a system to pay the seller for listing products for sale;

accepting a first request from the seller to list a product or pluarity of products for sell;

receiving data over the global communications network representing the amount of time or number of view page or advertisement spent or generated by buyers or a buyer, while the listed product or products are selected by said buyer or buyers and displayed,

determining the amount to pay the seller dependent at least partially upon the data received.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first point in time is after the PDA (Price-Determining-Activity) start time and before the PDA end time.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of the buyer selecting the product or products.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of the buyer selecting the PDA.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining the amount of payment to the seller based on the number of PDAs participated for the offered product or pluarity of products.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining the amount of payment to the seller dependent on the view pages generated during PDA.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of determining the amount of payment to the seller dependent on the advertisement generated during PDA.

8. A method of assigning price to a product over global communications Networks such as the internet comprising the steps:

determining the amount of payment the seller receives for listing the product or products for sell; and

assigning a price to the product or products, said price being determined at least partially dependent on the payment a seller receives for listing the product or products for sell.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of determining a price range prior to determining the amount of payment the seller receives, said price range having a lower limit associated with a higher payment to the seller, and an upper limit associated with a lower payment to the seller, and the price range and the final price is scaled up or down dependent on the payment to the seller.

10. A method of assigning a price to a product over the global communications network such as the internet comprising the steps:

receiving data on the total amount of time or purchase amount a buyer has spent or view pages generated on a web site;

or a combination of the amount of time, purchase amount, page views a buyer has spent or generated on a web site,

accepting request from the buyer to buy a product or pluarity of products,

said final price of the product or pluarity of products for the buyer being determined at least partially dependent on the data received.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising the step of determining the final price at least partially dependent on the number of total view pages generated on the web site.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising the step of determining the price at least partially dependent and scaled to the buyer'"'"'s previous total purchase amount on the web site.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising the step of determining a price range prior to determining the final price, said price range having a lower limit associated with a higher amount of time, and an upper limit associated with a lower amount of time, and wherein the price range and the final price is scaled up or down based on the total amount of time spent by the buyer.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of determining a price range prior to determining the final price, said price range having a lower limit associated with a higher number of view pages, and an upper limit associated with a lower number of view pages, and wherein the price range and the final price is scaled up or down based on the total number of view pages generated by the buyer.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising the step of determining the total number of previous view pages of the buyer.

16. The method of claim 12 further comprising the step of determining a price range prior to determining the final price, said price range having a lower limit associated with a higher total amount of previous purchases, and an upper limit associated with a lower total amount of previous purchases, and wherein the price range and the price is scaled up or down based on the total amount of previous purchases by the buyer.

17. The method in claim 10 further comprising the steps:

receiving data on the total amount of time or purchase amount spent or view pages generated on a web site for a particular product;

or a combination of the amount of time, purchase, page views spent or generated on a web site for a particular product,

said final price of a product or products being determined at least partially on the data received.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising the step of determining a price range prior to determining the final price, said price range having a lower limit associated with a higher total amount of previous purchases, and an upper limit associated with a lower total amount of previous purchases, and wherein the price range and the price is scaled up or down based on the total amount of previous purchases.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising the step of determining a price range prior to determining the final price, said price range having a lower limit associated with a higher quantity of view pages, and an upper limit associated with a lower quantity of view pages, and wherein the price range and the final price is scaled up or down based on the quantity of view pages.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising the step of determining a price range prior to determining the final price, said price range having a lower limit associated with a higher amount of time, and an upper limit associated with a lower amount of time, and wherein the price range and the final price is scaled up or down based on the amount of time.