Telephony controlled auction
First Claim
1. Control apparatus for an electronic auction system comprising, a telephony interface for connection to a voice or data an auction interface for connection to an electronic auction system and an auction manager arranged to receive user commands via the telephony interface, to receive auction information via the auction interface, to relay auction information to the telephony interface and to relay user commands to the auction interface.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An online auction such as Ebay is provided with a telephone interface. This allows buyers, sellers or auction watchers to receive spoken information describing the auction progress and also allows bidding by telephone using speech and/or DTMF. Reminders may also be issued when a certain bid price has been reached and/or as the auction reaches its closing stages. The Interface provides far greater access to an auction than is otherwise possible. This is advantageous to the auction operator and buyers and sellers.
48 Citations
20 Claims
- 1. Control apparatus for an electronic auction system comprising, a telephony interface for connection to a voice or data an auction interface for connection to an electronic auction system and an auction manager arranged to receive user commands via the telephony interface, to receive auction information via the auction interface, to relay auction information to the telephony interface and to relay user commands to the auction interface.
- 12. A method of interacting with an auction comprising receiving bid commands from a user via a speech or DTMF interface, interpreting the commands, relaying the bid commands to an electronic auction system, receiving auction information from the electronic auction system and relaying auction information back to the user in the form of machine-generated spoken information.
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19. A computer program which when operated on suitable hardware causes the hardware to be operable to receive bid commands from a user via a speech or DTMF interface, interpret the commands, relay the bid commands to an electronic auction system, receive auction information from the electronic auction system and to relay auction information back to the user in the form of machine-generated speech.
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20. A method of generating revenue from an auction comprising providing a real-time telephony interface to an electronic auction which accepts spoken and/or DTMF commands and charging the auction provider and/or auction user for the provision of the voice or DTMF connection.
Specification