COMPUTERIZED SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ANONYMOUS COLLABORATIVE AUCTIONS

• US 20150269661A1
• Filed: 09/13/2013
• Published: 09/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Recippeeps, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Recippeeps, Inc.
• Inventors: Eller, Timothy, Luke, Benjamin
• Granted Patent: US 9,715,708 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions

Abstract

A computerized auction system is used for collecting bids from a plurality of producers. The bids are placed on individual components of a multi-component ensemble. Bids from separate marketers are added and affect the rank of a single ensemble within a potential consumer'"'"'s ensemble search result. The bids are cooperative as the separate bids on the components are added to form the single bid on the ensemble. The bids are anonymous such that each bidding marketer is kept unaware of whether another marketer'"'"'s bid was combined with the bidding marketer'"'"'s bid.

Claims

1. A computerized auction system, comprising:

a server computer comprising communications electronics, a memory device, and a processing circuit communicably coupled to the communications electronics and the memory device;

wherein the memory device comprises a database describing a plurality of ensembles for potential consumption by consumers, wherein each ensemble comprises a set of components which must be consumed by the consumers for the ensemble to be consumed;

wherein the processing circuit receives, via the communications electronics, a consumer selection defining characteristics of a consumer-desired ensemble;

wherein the processing circuit receives, via the communications electronics, a plurality of bids from a plurality of marketers, wherein each bid specifies a component and a price;

wherein the processing circuit is configured to cause an output ensemble to be reported to the consumer making the selection, wherein the processing circuit is configured to determine the output ensemble by finding an ensemble that meets the characteristics of the consumer-desired ensemble and which is associated with the highest component bid total spanning one or more components and one or more marketers per component of the ensemble.

2. The computerized auction system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to determine other ensembles meeting the characteristics of the consumer-desired ensemble with high total component bids and to cause a ranked list including the output ensemble and the other ensembles with high total component bids.

3. The computerized auction system of claim 2, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to receive an indication that the consumer selected one of the ensembles of the ranked list.

4. The computerized auction system of claim 3, wherein the processing circuit is further configured to compute a payment price for each marketer based on the ensemble selected by the consumer, and wherein the processing circuit is configured to cause each marketer'"'"'s payment price to be transmitted to the marketer for payment.

5. The computerized auction system of claim 4, wherein the payment price for each marketer is further based on the marketer'"'"'s bid on each component of the ensemble selected by the consumer.

6. The computerized auction system of claim 5, wherein the payment price for each marketer is further based on the quantity of the selected ensemble indicated as consumed by the consumer.

7. The computerized auction system of claim 1, wherein the processing circuit further receives a consumer inventory comprising branded components in the possession of the consumer, and wherein the processing circuit further determines the output ensemble by selecting the output ensemble from a set of ensembles that can be created from the consumer inventory.

8. The computerized auction system of claim 7, wherein the processing circuit further determines the output ensemble by restricting selection to the set of ensembles that can be created from the consumer inventory by ignoring component brands.

9. The computerized auction system of claim 8, wherein the processing circuit causes the output ensemble to be reported to the consumer without reference to brand.

10. The computerized auction system of claim 9, wherein the received bids are brand-specific.

11. The computerized auction system of claim 10, wherein contributions to the component bid total of a branded bid from a first producer and a branded bid from a second producer, when the two branded bids are interchangeable, are calculated by weighting the bids by the proportion of the branded component from the first producer to the branded component from the second producer in the consumer'"'"'s inventory.

12. The computerized auction system of claim 10, wherein, among all branded bids for a given component from all marketers, the contribution to the component bid total of each branded bid is calculated by weighting the branded bid by the proportion of the lesser of the quantity of that branded component in the consumer'"'"'s inventory and the quantity of the component required by the ensemble, to the corresponding quantity of each other branded component.

13. The computerized auction system of claim 12, wherein the payment amount assessed to each marketer is varied according to the quantity of the branded component reported by the consumer as having been consumed in the ensemble and the marketer'"'"'s branded bid on that component.

14. The computerized auction system of claim 10, wherein, among all branded bids for a given component from a plurality of marketers, only the highest branded bid, or highest branded bids in the event that the quantity of the branded component corresponding to the highest bid is exhausted in fulfilling the quantity of that component required by the ensemble, contributes to the component bid total.

15. The computerized auction system of claim 14, wherein the payment amount assessed to each marketer is varied according to the contribution of the marketer'"'"'s branded bid to the component bid total.

16. The computerized auction system of claim 9, wherein the received bids are not brand-specific.

17. The computerized auction system of claim 1, wherein each ensemble is a recipe and each component is a recipe ingredient.

18. A computerized collaborative auction method, comprising:

accepting bids from a plurality of auction participants, the bids being placed on individual components of a multi-component ensemble;

adding separate bids from the plurality of auction participants to form a single bid on the ensemble;

ranking the ensemble within a listing of a plurality of ensembles based on the single bid for the ensemble relative to single bids for other ensembles in the plurality of ensembles;

wherein the auction participants are not aware of whether other participants'"'"' bids are being combined with their own bids to form the single bids.

19. The computerized collaborative auction method of claim 18, wherein each multi-component ensemble is a recipe and the individual components are recipe ingredients.

20. The computerized collaborative auction method of claim 18, further comprising:

causing a graphical user interface to be output which displays at least a portion of the ranking of the ensemble within a listing of the plurality of ensembles.

21-28. -28. (canceled)