MULTIPARTY COMPUTER-ASSISTED HAGGLING

• US 20080071692A1
• Filed: 09/20/2006
• Published: 03/20/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jain, Kamal
• Granted Patent: US 7,991,645 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/80
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0603 Catalogue ordering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0617 Representative agent
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0619 Neutral agent
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/188 Electronic negotiation

Abstract

The claimed subject matter relates to a computer-implemented architecture that can facilitate computer-assisted haggling and/or negotiation between multiple parties simultaneously. For example, various proxies associated with both buyers and sellers can be configured to negotiate with other proxies to buy or sell an item. The negotiations can be required to be progressive and during the negotiations a buyer or seller is, typically, allowed to withdraw his or her proposals. The architecture can include a registration component that can resolve concurrency and facilitate a registration of an agreement between two of the parties. The registration of an agreement can create a binding obligation between the parties after which other outstanding proposals can be terminated.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system that facilitates multiple party haggling in an online market environment, comprising:

a seller proxy configured to negotiate a sale of an item for a seller at a desirable sell price;

a buyer proxy configured to negotiate a purchase of the item for a buyer at a desirable buy price; and

a registration component configured to resolve concurrency and to facilitate a registration.

2. The system of claim 1, the registration creates a binding agreement between the buyer and the seller for the sale of the item.

3. The system of claim 1, the registration closes negotiation for the item for both the seller proxy and the buyer proxy.

4. The system of claim 1, the desirable sell price is higher than a minimum price the seller is willing to accept for the item.

5. The system of claim 1, the desirable buy price is lower than a maximum price the buyer is willing to pay for the item.

6. The system of claim 1, at least one of the seller proxy or the buyer proxy receives a proposal for the item at a current price, the proposal is at least one of an offer and a counteroffer.

7. The system of claim 6, the at least one of the seller proxy or the buyer proxy rejects the proposal and submits a counteroffer to the proxy associated with the proposal.

8. The system of claim 6, the proposal is required to be progressive.

9. The system of claim 6, the proposal is configured to be valid for only a limited period of time.

10. The system of claim 6, the seller proxy is configured to either allow or disallow inspection of the proposal by buyers other than the buyer associated with the proposal.

11. The system of claim 6, the buyer proxy is configured to either allow or disallow inspection of the proposal by sellers other than the seller associated with the proposal.

12. The system of claim 6, the at least one of the seller proxy or the buyer proxy accepts the proposal and submits a registration request to the registration component.

13. The system of claim 12, the registration component generates the registration for the accepted proposal.

14. The system of claim 1, the registration component maintains a bipartite graph in order to resolve concurrency, the graph includes two disjoint sets of vertices with a first set comprising buyers and a second set comprising sellers.

15. The system of claim 1, the registration component employs a semaphore in order to resolve concurrency.

16. The system of claim 1, the buyer proxy is configured to buy 1-N items at an aggregate price of a total budget.

17. The system of claim 1, the buyer and the seller both are nonprofessionals.

18. The system of claim 1, further comprising at least one of the following:

the seller proxy is configured to negotiate with a plurality of buyer proxies substantially simultaneously;

the buyer proxy is configured to negotiate with a plurality of seller proxies substantially simultaneously, the respective seller proxies offer for sale another item that is substantially similar to the item; and

the registration component is configured to ensure the item is sold at most to only one buyer and/or the buyer buys at most only one item.

19. A computer-implemented method for ensuring that negotiations for sale of an item are meaningful, comprising:

configuring a proxy for transmitting and receiving initial offers for an item at desirable prices;

configuring the proxy for transmitting and receiving counteroffers for the item at proposal prices; and

requiring the proposal prices to be progressive based upon a percentage of a price gap between one of the desirable prices and one of the proposal prices.

20. A computer-implemented method for ensuring that at most one item is sold and/or at most only a single item is bought for a particular transaction, comprising:

constructing a bipartite graph;

associating a first disjoint set of vertices with items for sale and a second disjoint set of vertices with items for purchase;

receiving a registration request associated with one of the vertices of the first set, a first vertex, or one of the vertices from the second set a second vertex;

determining whether an edge exists for either one of the first or the second vertex; and

creating an edge between the first and the second vertex.