Truth revealing market equilibrium

• US 8,073,766 B2
• Filed: 08/10/2010
• Issued: 12/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jain, Kamal, Talwar, Kunal
• Primary Examiner(s): Subramanian, Narayanswamy
• Assistant Examiner(s): BAIRD, EDWARD J
• Application Number:
  US12/853,688
• Publication Number:
  US 20100312651A1
• Time in Patent Office: 483 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 705/37
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0273 Determination of fees for advertising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• 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

Abstract

To use market clearing methods to determine market equilibrium, a market clearing situation is established by determining a number of items to be sold at the market price and allotting a number of pseudo items assignable to bids below the market price. Once bids are received for the items, using the number of pseudo items and the actual items as the supply side, and the total funds bid as the demand side, a market clearing price is determinable using a market clearing equilibrium model. Funds assigned to pseudo items are returned or not charged. Further, by selling items only to bids exceeding the market clearing price, such as by setting the market price incrementally above the market clearing price, bidders are encouraged to submit bid prices bid reflecting what the items are worth to them instead of attempting to bid strategically to guess or set the market price.

Claims

1. A method including computer executable instructions executed by a processing unit for setting a market price and a market clearing price, the method comprising:

determining, by the processing unit, a number of items to be sold at the market price;

presenting, by the processing unit, an advertising opportunity of an advertisement for each of the number of items to be sold;

creating a pseudo commodity, by the processing unit, that is assigned to bids to be received which fall below the market price, the pseudo commodity includes a number of pseudo items;

receiving a plurality of bids for the items;

setting the market price, by the processing unit, based on identifying a market clearing price, the number of items to be sold, and the number of pseudo items as a supply side, and the plurality of bids as a demand side;

determining, by the processing unit, a first likelihood of selecting the advertising opportunity;

determining, by the processing unit, a second likelihood of selecting the advertisement based on at least an estimated and a measured likelihood associated with the second likelihood of selecting the advertisement and setting the second likelihood to one for each pseudo bid;

setting, by the processing unit, the market price for an auction, the auction includes a number of rounds where the number of items to be sold and the number of pseudo items are available for sale during each of the rounds, and each of the plurality of bids includes a bid price and an auction budget, the plurality of bids includes;

a plurality of actual bids received from a number of actual bidders; and

a plurality of pseudo bids received from a number of pseudo bidders, where;

the number of pseudo bidders is equal to the number of items to be sold plus one; and

each of the pseudo bids includes a pseudo auction budget;

determining, by the processing unit, the market clearing price by maximizing a utility of each of the actual bidders and the pseudo bidders, where the utility is the product of the bid price, the first likelihood, and the second likelihood;

selecting only a single advertisement for a single bidder to be presented on a single screen using at least one of;

a matching polytope, which occurs when all of the items are sold and all of the budgets are exhausted;

an assignment polytope, which assigns a first advertising opportunity to a first bidder for fifty percent of the first bidder'"'"'s impressions and to a second bidder for fifty percent of the second bidder'"'"'s impressions;

or

a double stochastic matrix, which includes a binary search algorithm employed to ensure that there are pseudo items to be assigned to below market price bids to effect a market clearing situation.

2. A method of claim 1, wherein the number of items to be sold is based on at least one of:

a known number of items available to be sold;

a body of historical data representing an actual number of items sold;

or a projection of a number of items to be sold.

3. A method of claim 1, further comprising:

setting the market price to equal to or greater than the market clearing price;

assigning each item a bid, greater than or equal to the market price;

assigning at least one pseudo item a bid below the market price; and

one of not charging and refunding each of a plurality of bidders submitting each of the bids to which each of the number of pseudo items is assigned.

4. A method of claim 1, further comprising determining the number of pseudo items to effect a market clearing situation based on at least the number of items to be sold and the number of bids received.

5. A method of claim 4, wherein the number of pseudo items to effect the market clearing situation is determined using a binary search algorithm to determine the number of pseudo items needed when the price of each pseudo item is equivalent to the bid that will be assigned to each of the pseudo items.

6. A system for setting a market price and a market clearing price, the system comprising:

memory;

one or more processing units coupled to the memory;

a plurality of modules stored in the memory and executable on the one or more processing units, the plurality of modules to perform actions of;

determining, by a processing unit, a number of items to be sold at the market price;

presenting, by the processing unit, an advertising opportunity of an advertisement for each of the number of items to be sold;

creating a pseudo commodity, by the processing unit, that is assigned to bids to be received which fall below the market price, the pseudo commodity includes a number of pseudo items;

receiving a plurality of bids for the items;

setting the market price, by the processing unit, based on identifying a market clearing price, the number of items to be sold, and the number of pseudo items as a supply side, and the plurality of bids as a demand side;

determining, by the processing unit, a first likelihood of selecting the advertising opportunity;

determining, by the processing unit, a second likelihood of selecting the advertisement based on at least an estimated and a measured likelihood associated with the second likelihood of selecting the advertisement, and setting the second likelihood to one for each pseudo bid;

setting, by the processing unit, the market price for an auction, the auction includes a number of rounds where the number of items to be sold and the number of pseudo items are available for sale during each of the rounds, and each of the plurality of bids includes a bid price and an auction budget, the plurality of bids includes;

a plurality of actual bids received from a number of actual bidders; and

a plurality of pseudo bids received from a number of pseudo bidders, where;

the number of pseudo bidders is equal to the number of items to be sold plus one; and

each of the pseudo bids includes a pseudo auction budget;

determining, by the processing unit, the market clearing price by maximizing a utility of each of the actual bidders and the pseudo bidders, where the utility is the product of the bid price, the first likelihood, and the second likelihood;

selecting only a single advertisement for a single bidder to be presented on a single screen using at least one of;

a matching polytope, which occurs when all of the items are sold and all of the budgets are exhausted;

an assignment polytope, which assigns a first advertising opportunity to a first bidder for fifty percent of the first bidder'"'"'s impressions and to a second bidder for fifty percent of the second bidder'"'"'s impressions;

or

a double stochastic matrix, which includes a binary search algorithm employed to ensure that there are pseudo items to be assigned to below market price bids to effect a market clearing situation.