Price determination for items of low demand

• US 7,627,515 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2005
• Issued: 12/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mahdian, Mohammad, Feige, Uriel M., Chickering, David M., Borgs, Christian H., Meek, Christopher A., Chayes, Jennifer T., Saberi, Amin
• Primary Examiner(s): CAMPEN, KELLY SCAGGS
• Application Number:
  US11/168,161
• Publication Number:
  US 20060293995A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,617 Days
• Field of Search: 705/37, 705/1, 705/14, 705/26, 705/27, 705/35, 705/39, 707/1, 707/3, 707/4, 707/10, 707/E17.108
• US Class Current: 705/37
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/953 Querying, e.g. by the use of web search engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

A computer-implemented system that facilitates establishing price(s) associated with items comprises a clustering component that clusters a collection of non-identical items into one or more sets of non-identical items. A pricing component receives one or more of active bids and stored bids and simulates an auction of at least one non-identical item within one of the one or more sets of non-identical items as if the non-identical items within the set were identical to determine price(s) associated with the at least one non-identical item. For example, the items can be at least portions of search terms received by a search engine.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system that facilitates establishing prices associated with items, comprising:

a clustering component that clusters a collection of non-identical items into one or more sets of non-identical items such that the collection of non-identical items are created to require a minimum number of bids will be received by the system for each collection of non-identical items;

a pricing component that receives one or more of active bids and stored bids and simulates an auction of at least one non-identical item within a selected set of non-identical items as if the non-identical items within the selected set were identical to determine price(s) associated with the at least one non-identical item; and

a price transformation component that scales the determined price in accordance with a user-specified payment plan, the determined price relating to the price for displaying an advertisement on a page view, and the scaled prices relate to one of a number of clicks received upon the advertisement, a number of secured clicks received upon the advertisement, and a number of purchases made by way of the advertisement.

2. The system of claim 1, the pricing component determines that the non-identical items include a search term received by a search engine and sets prices associated with advertising space resulting from utilization of the search term in connection with the search engine.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein a page view resulting from utilization of the search term in connection with the search engine includes an advertisement of a bidder that provides a bid above the determined price.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a logging component that logs a search term received by a search engine, the search term is included within the collection of non-identical items.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the clustering component clusters the collection of non-identical items into a plurality of disparate sets of non-identical items.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a scaling component that scales a bid associated with an item within the one or more sets of non-identical items based at least in part upon an estimated demand associated with the item.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a calculating component that generates an estimate of demand associated with an item within the collection of items, the item purged from the collection of items if the estimate of demand is above a threshold.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising an interface component that accepts a search query from a user, the search query includes at least one search term that is within the one or more sets of non-identical items.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a display component that displays an advertisement associated with a purchaser that bids above the determined price(s).

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the pricing component assigns a substantially similar price to each item within the selected set.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the pricing component analyzes the received bids to set the price(s) for all items within the selected set.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein a portable computing device comprises the clustering component and the pricing component.

13. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an analysis component that monitors bidding activity of a prospective purchaser with respect to at least one of the items within the one or more sets; and

a probability generator component that calculates a probability that the prospective purchaser is undertaking activities adverse to a free market and rejects a bid associated with the prospective purchaser if the probability exceeds a defined threshold.

14. A computer-implemented system that facilitates establishing prices associated with items, comprising:

a clustering component that clusters a collection of non-identical items into a plurality of disparate sets of non-identical items;

a pricing component that receives one or more of active bids and stored bids and simulates an auction of at least one non-identical item within a selected set of non-identical items as if the non-identical items within the selected set were identical to determine the price associated with the at least one non-identical item;

a calculating component that generates an estimate of demand associated with an item within the collection of non-identical items, the item purged from the collection of items if the estimate of demand is above a threshold;

a scaling component that scales a bid of the one or more of active bids and stored bids and that is associated with an item within the plurality of disparate sets of non-identical items based at least in part upon the estimate of demand associated with the item; and

a display component that displays an advertisement associated with a purchaser that bids above the determined price.