Method, system and apparatus for automatic real-time iterative commercial transactions over the internet in a multiple-buyer, multiple-seller marketplace, optimizing both buyer and seller needs based upon the dynamics of market conditions

• US 20070208630A1
• Filed: 03/03/2006
• Published: 09/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Peak Silver Advisors LLC
• Original Assignee: neoSaej Corp.
• Inventors: Chatter, Mukesh, Chatter, Priti, Goyal, Rohit
• Granted Patent: US 7,778,882 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0611 Request for offers or quotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A method of communications network shopping by buyers of products and services for purchasing such from sellers in which buyers request an automatic reverse auctioneer or auction controller to initiate a reverse auction in real time amongst willing sellers and to solicit their automatic real-time iterative bidding price quotations for such products and services to be returned automatically over the network back to the controller under the iterative processing guidance of the controller to assure a best bid price quotation for the buyer; and automatically effecting buyer notification or purchase at such best price, all while the buyer may remain on-line, and without any manual intervention.

Claims

1. A method of automatically conducting a reverse auction in real-time and on-line over a communication network for buyers and sellers of products and services, that comprises:

submitting buyer requests for seller price quotation bids over the network to the sellers through an intermediate reverse auction controller; and

automatically processing seller price quotations received back over the network at the controller and successively returning the better price quotations to the sellers for iterative further automatic price bid further bettering amongst the sellers, until a best price quotation is received; and

communicating such back to the buyer for purchase at such best price quotation.

2. The method of claim 1 and in which the reverse auction may be conducted at any time, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and on a global basis.

3. The method of claim 2 and in which the reverse auction may be conducted and completed while the buyer remains on-line.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said buyer requests include a targeted price watch request;

and, upon the controller automatically finding a seller price bid match of said targeted price, automatically so notifying the buyer and/or effecting said purchase.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein there is no manual intervention in the conducting of the reverse auction.

6. A method of automatically conducting a reverse auction in real-time and on-line over the Internet for buyers and sellers of products and services, that comprises:

submitting buyer requests over the Internet to the sellers through an intermediate reverse auction controller and accompanied by respective buyer-specific personal profile information;

receiving over the Internet at the controller and processing the seller price quotations, each automatically tailored by the seller to the respective buyer'"'"'s specific profile information;

automatically successively returning to the sellers the better of such price quotations received at the controller for seller-iterative further automatic bettering of the price bids amongst the sellers, each also based upon each seller-specific predetermined marketing strategy and market conditions;

continuing the iterative bidding until a best price bid quotation is received at the controller; and

thereupon automatically notifying the buyer of such best price quotation and/or effecting purchase.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the reverse auction is conducted and completed while the buyer remains on-line on the Internet.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein there is no manual intervention in the conducting of the reverse auction.

9. A method of conducting real-time commercial transactions between buyers and sellers of products and services through an intermediate reverse auction controller communicating on-line with both buyer and seller over the Internet,

the method comprising,

submitting on-line buyer requests for seller price quotations accompanied by respective buyer-specific personal profile and optionally shopping portfolio information, through the intermediate controller, to sellers each equipped with an automatic seller engine storing that seller'"'"'s specific predetermined marketing strategy and market condition information;

automatically processing at the controller the price quotations received back from the sellers to initiate iterative rounds of real-time automatic seller engine competitive bettering of the price quotations within each seller'"'"'s respective specific predetermined marketing strategy and market conditions, and until a best price quotation is received; and

thereupon automatically notifying the buyer of such best price quotation.

10. A method of conducting a fully automated on-demand instantaneous and real-time reverse auction for products and services over the Internet wherein buyers request a reverse auction controller to solicit from sellers quotes and iterative automatic competitive bidding amongst the sellers in order to become the best-price supplier for the buyer,

the method comprising:

buyers initiating on-line Internet requests to the controller for soliciting quotations on identified products or services and/or for conducting a reverse auction amongst the sellers and including in such request, specific unique individual buyer profile information and optionally including information as to the buyer'"'"'s shopping portfolio;

automatically processing such requests at the reverse auction controller and immediately forwarding the same together with the buyer-specific profile information over the Internet to a plurality of sellers each having respective automated seller engines containing information data unique to the seller'"'"'s individual business model-driven constraints and to market data;

upon receipt from the controller of a buyer'"'"'s request and profile, dynamically and automatically generating in each seller'"'"'s respective engine, a unique bid quotation tailor-made for that buyer and based upon that buyer'"'"'s specific profile, the prevailing market conditions and the competitive environment, and transmitting the bid quotation automatically back to the controller over the Internet;

causing the controller thereupon to process the bid quotations received from the sellers, and to set the seller engines into automatically competing amongst themselves, for iterative better bids using the current best bid quotations as a basis for further successive automated rounds until only a best bid quotation remains, and with the controller matching the best bid with the buyer'"'"'s request in real-time and without any manual intervention; and

automatically notifying the buyer of the best bid.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein said buyer shopping portfolio is for multiple similar or dissimilar products.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the controller initiation of the reverse auction process and the real-time matching of seller automated engines bid quotations in response to the desired buyer request is conducted while the buyer remains on-line.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein said process is effectible 24 hours a day, seven days a week

14. The method of claim 10 wherein said buyer information includes one or more of buyer'"'"'s prior purchasing volumes and price ranges, willingness to accept seller or reverse auction service provider promotions and/or advertisements, particular classes of desired sellers, and price limits.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein said best bid represents the lowest price.

16. The method of claim 10 wherein said best bid represents the highest rate.

17. The method of claim 10 wherein said automatic reverse auction obviates the requirement and expense of manual tracking and comparisons across many seller competitors.

18. The method of claim 10 wherein the buyer obtains not only instantaneous on-demand non-stale response to its request, but also benefits by the forced real-time iterative competition amongst the sellers.

19. The method of claim 10 wherein the buyer requests that certain class/classes of sellers only participate in the iterative competitive seller bidding.

20. The method of claim 10 wherein the buyer sets a desired price limit for its shopping portfolio and desired product(s).

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the buyer requests an automatic price watch, and if and when the controller finds that such price is matched by a bid, the buyer is automatically so notified.

22. The method of claim 20 wherein the buyer requests an automatic price watch, and if and when such price is found by the controller to be matched by a bid, the requested product or service is automatically purchased.

23. The method of claim 22 wherein should the bid price drop further within a certain time frame, automatically notifying the buyer as for credit.

24. The method of claim 10 wherein said reverse auction allows the buyer to obtain the best possible price from multiple sellers, but also enables the seller to compete iteratively in real-time for the buyer'"'"'s business.

25. The method of claim 10 wherein each seller automated engine maintains its own pricing data therein, thereby enabling dynamically generating a unique price tailor-made for each buyer based on the buyer'"'"'s said profile, prevailing market conditions and the competitive environment.

26. The method of claim 10 wherein said buyer profile contains details for the controller to develop a unique buyer consumer index to assist the seller automated engines in offering bid prices better than are available to buyers generally and are commensurate with and specific to the buyer profile.

27. The method of claim 26 where said consumer index also enables the seller automated engines to do targeted advertising and/or promotions of buyer interest.

28. The method of claim 25 wherein the buyer may designate sub-buyers and their respective profiles on the account of the buyer.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein the buyer and its sub-buyers pool their buying power to obtain optimum seller automated engine pricing and/or obtain group discount eligibility.

30. The method of claim 10 wherein a private reverse auction is requested and conducted amongst preselected sellers only.

128. The method of claim 10 wherein the controller subdivides groups of dissimilar products among corresponding groups of matching sellers.

129. The method of claim 10 wherein sellers return bids contingent upon predetermined circumstances.

130. The method of claim 129 wherein the sellers bid may be a bid quotation contingent upon buyer credit approval.

31. A method of communications network shopping by buyers of products and services for purchasing such from sellers comprising

buyers requesting an automatic reverse auction controller over the network to conduct a reverse auction in real time amongst willing sellers and to solicit their automatic real-time iterative bidding price quotations for such products and services, to be returned automatically over the network back to the controller under the iterative processing guidance of the controller to assure a best bid price quotation for the buyer;

and

automatically effecting buyer notification or purchase at such best price, all without any manual intervention.

32. The method of claim 31 wherein said iterative automatic price bidding amongst the sellers is effected by each seller being provided with a seller automatic engine containing an automatically operating programmable, feedback driven, closed-loop adaptive and time-iterative computation engine controlled by input data of both long- and short-term market information and responsive to the buyer request, thereby to enable the dynamic automatic computation and generation of pricing bid quotations by the computation engine.

33. The method of claim 32 wherein the buyers in their requests to the controller for a reverse auction include respective buyer-specific profile and optionally shopping portfolio information also forwarded to the seller computation engines by the controller to enable the computation-engine price quotations to reflect the buyer-specific information and automatically to service the reverse auction controller for a further round(s) of better price quotations in the light of the buyer-specific information and also in the light of constantly evolving market conditions and environment, thereupon to provide appropriate automatic changes in bettering of the price quotations in iterative steps, while staying within respective seller-specific predetermined marketing strategy and constraints of the respective sellers.

34. The method of claim 32 wherein the buyer request includes buyer-specific profile information, and the seller price quotation generated by each computation engine reflects consideration of such buyer-specific profile information in the automatic generating of the price quotation by the computation engine.

35. The method of claim 34 wherein each said seller computation engine generates a unique buyer profile-specific ‘

Modulating Base Value Signal’

for a buyer-selected requisite ‘

Seller Class’

of the desired product, such signal representing the changes in a ‘

Base Value Signal’

required as a function of a Consumer Index Number (CIN), indicating the buyer'"'"'s willingness to accept promotions from winning sellers and/or advertisements from a ‘

Reverse Auctioneer Service Provider’

for various categories.

36. The method of claim 35 wherein categories include one or more of recent short-term changes (of programmable duration) in market dynamics that impact the price.

37. The method of claim 36 wherein category short-term changes include one or more of newly introduced competitor generic promotions;

supply-versus-demand transients;

a competitor seller'"'"'s attempt to aggressively unload inventory;

a newcomer seller in the market wanting to grow aggressively;

the termination of a seller competitor'"'"'s promotion;

the performance of all the competing sellers who won bids in the recent past;

price differences in winning bids versus the accepted bids in the recent past;

the last few minutes of processed bids history; and

/or the last round “

best”

bid.

38. The method of claim 35 wherein said computation engine extracts, processes, and feeds back into the engine such category information of recent vintage and further processes the computation engines own recent performance data statistics.

39. The method of claim 38 wherein said recent performance data statistics include one or more of the winning ratio in ‘

Reverse Auctions’

, the percentage of quotes with “

best”

price compared to the number of times quoted, the amount of volume shipped for the product, the overall revenue status in the month/quarter etc. versus expectations, and/or inventory status.

40. The method of claim 35 wherein said ‘

Base Value Signal’

is modulated to produce a buyer-specific and finely market tuned ‘

Value Signal’

, then compared against the hard constraints or rails established by the respective seller in its seller-specific predetermined marketing strategy and driven by its business model; and

wherein the ‘

Base Value Signal’

is also modified by a modulation executed by long term market trends.

41. The method of claim 40 wherein, in the event that said modulated ‘

Value Signal’

does not stay within such constraints and should saturate the rails, the bid is not renewed and a record is kept of such event.

42. The method of claim 40 wherein, in the event that said modulated signal is not saturated, causing another modulation to occur in the form of a ‘

Promotion Event Modulating Signal’

, with the resulting signal then being used to compute the next round bid value; and

subsequently communicating such to the reverse auction controller.

43. The method of claim 40 wherein the computation engine is provided with ‘

Price Watch &

Automated Notification’

(RFPWAN) and ‘

Price Watch &

Automated Purchase’

(RFPWAP) lists, periodically checked to compute the potential volume and the corresponding offered price for a product and an opportunity for advantage.

44. The method of claim 43 wherein said opportunity of advantage is accepted by offering a short term promotion represented in the computation engine by generating an ‘

Opportunistic Promotion’

signal as an input to a ‘

Promotional Event Modulating Signal’

while also pro-actively notifying the controller of the intention to meet the ‘

Price Watch’

goals.

112. The method of claim 32 wherein each of the buyer, seller automated engine and reverse auction controller uses an individual state machine to ensure the correctness and completion of each reverse auction, employing separate memory-protected domains for fault isolation.

113. The method of claim 112, wherein a reverse auctioneer system—

assisted recovery technique is provided for the buyer, sending pending reverse auction list messages to the buyer with an id identifying the state of the reverse auction, causing the buyer'"'"'s reverse auction state machine to go from an initial state to the correct state for syncing up with the controller so as to enable recovery from a buyer failure.

114. The method of claim 112 wherein, to ensure progress of the reverse auction in the presence of a seller system fault and communication network faults, a clock-tick-based timeout is instituted based on the clock tick value.

115. The method of claim 112 wherein all the distributed databases associated with the reverse auction controller are replicated to multiple copies, stored at different sites, with concurrency control algorithms used, such as lock-based for static locking, two-phase locking and time-stamp-based locking to ensure each copy of data is itself consistent and that all copies are mutually consistent.

116. The method of claim 115 wherein a distributed database is used to store and locate buyer, seller and product information.

117. The method of claim 32 wherein the seller automatic engine architecture is highly available and error free in operation through using on-board diagnostics, mirrored storage and redundant engines.

118. The method of claim 117 wherein three engines receive the same customer data packets with a majority vote determining the bid value sent to the controller.

119. The method of claim 117 wherein two copies of the engine logic are run in lock-step and their results compared, with flagging if the results differ.

120. The method of claim 32 wherein if a controller times out, the bidding round may continue with the other engines, and if the seller engine wishes to rejoin the reverse auction that preceded the next round of bidding after losing connectivity or after voluntarily leaving, the engine is allowed to do so based upon a predetermined policy implementation.

121. The method of claim 120 wherein the buyer is protected from an engine failure by the controller guaranteeing that, on the engine recovery, the transaction is initiated based on the best bid.

122. The method of claim 120 wherein the seller is protected from buyer system failure after the controller has received the buyer'"'"'s bid acceptance, by the controller guaranteeing that the transaction between buyer and seller is initiated with the buyer'"'"'s acceptance being binding.

123. The method of claim 120 wherein the reverse auction is tolerant to seller engine failures by using a clock-tick timeout that ensures that a failed engine does not stall the active reverse auction.

45. For use in methods of automatically providing buyers with real-time on-demand price quotations on-line over communication networks, an automatic seller engine apparatus for enabling receiving and automatically responding to buyer requests for pricing quotations over the networks,

the engine apparatus having

a programmable feedback-driven, closed-loop adaptive and real-time time-iterative automatic computation engine provided with inputs for receiving both long- and short-term market data;

the computation engine having a processor for coupling said data with network-received input buyer requests for specified seller product or service price bid quotations, sometimes accompanied by buyer-specific personal profile and shopping portfolio information, the processor thereupon automatically generating buyer-specific price quotations based upon said information and also upon its own seller—

specific predetermined marketing strategy guidelines stored in and/or inputted to the computation engine, and adapted to constantly evolving market conditions; and

the processor being also automatically responsive to further network requests to better the seller'"'"'s price quotation, as in the light of a round of competitive seller price quotations, and for thereupon automatically adapting its price quotation to provide appropriate changes in the same in iterative steps to better its price quotation, all while staying within said predetermined marketing strategy guidelines, and all automatically without requiring any manual intervention.

46. The apparatus of claim 45 wherein said long- and short-term inputted market data includes one or more of a plurality of data on pricing, competitive impact, demand and supply, market trendlines, types of competing sellers, and other market condition environment data.

47. The apparatus of claim 45 wherein the computation engine apparatus is provided with a signal generator for generating a unique buyer profile-specific “

Modulating Base Value Signal”

for a buyer-selected requisite “

Seller Class”

of the desired product, such signal representing the changes in a “

Base Value Signal”

required as a function of a Consumer Index Number (CIN), indicating the buyer'"'"'s willingness to accept promotions from winning sellers and/or advertisements from a “

Reverse Auctioneer Service Provider”

for various categories.

48. The apparatus of claim 47 wherein said categories include one or more of recent short-term changes (of programmable duration) in market dynamics that impact the price.

49. The apparatus of claim 48 wherein said short-term changes include one or more of newly introduced competitor generic promotions;

supply-versus-demand transients;

a competitor seller'"'"'s attempt to aggressively unload inventory;

a newcomer seller in the market wanting to grow aggressively;

the termination of a seller competitor'"'"'s promotion;

the performance of all the competing sellers who won bids in the recent past;

price differences in winning bids versus the accepted bids in the recent past;

the last few minutes of processed bids history; and

/or the last round “

best”

bid.

50. The apparatus of claim 48 wherein said computation engine processor extracts, processes, and feeds back into the engine such category information of recent vintage and further processes the computation engine'"'"'s own recent performance data statistics.

51. The apparatus of claim 50 wherein said recent performance data statistics include one or more of the winning ratio in ‘

Reverse Auctions’

, the percentage of quotes with “

best”

price compared to the number of times quoted, the amount of volume shipped for the product, the overall revenue status in the month/quarter etc. versus expectations, and/or inventory status.

52. The apparatus of claim 47 wherein a modulator is provided for modulating said ‘

Base Value Signal’

to produce a buyer-specific and finely market tuned ‘

Value Signal’

, for then comparing against the hard constraints or rails established by the respective seller in its seller-specific predetermined marketing strategy and driven by its business model.

53. The apparatus of claim 52 wherein, in the event that said modulated ‘

Value Signal’

does not stay within such constraints and should saturate the rails, the processor does renew the bid and a record is kept of such event.

54. The apparatus of claim 52, wherein, in the event that said modulated signal is not saturated, the modulator produces another modulation signal in the form of a ‘

Promotion Event Modulating Signal’

, with the resulting signal then being used to compute the next round bid value;

the processor subsequently communicating such to the reverse auction controller.

55. The apparatus of claim 52 wherein the computation engine is provided with ‘

Price Watch &

Automated Notification’

(RFPWAN) and ‘

Price Watch &

Automated Purchase’

(RFPWAP) lists, periodically checked to compute the potential volume and the corresponding offered price for a product and an opportunity for advantage.

56. The apparatus of claim 55 wherein said opportunity of advantage is accepted through offering a short term promotion represented in the computation engine by a generator of an ‘

Opportunistic Promotion’

signal as an input to a ‘

Promotional Event Modulating Signal’

;

while also pro-actively notifying the controller of the intention to meet the ‘

Price Watch’

goals.

57. A system for automatically conducting a reverse auction in real-time and on-line over a communications network for buyers and sellers of products and services, having in combination,

buyer and seller computers and an intermediate reverse auctioneer or auction controller communicating real time with said computers on-line over the network;

the buyer computer submitting buyer requests for prices quotation bids over the network to the sellers through the intermediate reverse auctioneer controller for the seller computers automatically to respond to the controller back over the network with such price quotations;

the reverse auctioneer controller being provided with a processor for processing the seller price quotations received back over the network at the controller and for successively returning them to the seller computer for iterative further automatic price bid bettering amongst the sellers, until a best price quotation is received; and

the controller thereupon enabling the automatic notifying of, or purchasing by, the buyer at such best price quotation.

58. The system of claim 57 and in which the reverse auction is adapted for being conducted at any time, twenty four hours a say, seven days a week, and on a global basis.

59. The system of claim 58 and in which the reverse auction is conducted and completed while the buyer may remain on-line on the network.

60. The system of claim 58 wherein there is no manual intervention in the conducting of the reverse auction.

61. A system for automatically conducting a reverse auction in real time and on-line over the Internet for buyers and sellers of products and services, that comprises:

buyer and seller computers and an intermediate reverse auctioneer controller communicating in real time with both computers on-line over the Internet;

the buyer computer submitting buyer requests over the Internet to the sellers through the intermediate reverse auction controller and accompanied by respective buyer-specific personal and optionally shopping portfolio information;

the controller being provided with a processor for receiving and processing the seller price quotations, automatically tailored to the respective buyer'"'"'s specific profile information, and for successively returning to the seller computers the better of such price quotations received at the controller for seller-iterative further automatic bettering of the price bids amongst the sellers, each based upon each seller-specific predetermined marketing strategy and the current market conditions until a best price bid quotation is received; and

the controller thereupon enabling the automatic notifying of, or purchasing by, the buyer at such best price quotation.

62. The system of claim 61 wherein the reverse auction is conducted and completed while the buyer may remain on-line on the Internet.

63. The system of claim 61 wherein there is no manual intervention in the conducting of the reverse auction.

64. A system for conducting real-time commercial transactions between buyers and sellers of products and services through an intermediate reverse auctioneer controller communicating on-line with both buyer and seller over the Internet,

the system having, in combination,

a processor contained in the intermediate reverse auctioneer controller for receiving over the Internet and automatically processing on-line buyer requests for seller price quotations accompanied by respective buyer-specific personal profile and optionally shopping portfolio information, and for thereupon communicating the same over the Internet to sellers;

each seller being equipped with a seller automatic engine storing that seller'"'"'s specific predetermined marketing strategy and market condition information and responsive to the buyer requests in order automatically to create and to respond to the controller with a price quotation based upon the buyer request and said buyer-specific profile information, and within the respective guidelines of seller-specific predetermined information stored in that seller'"'"'s automatic seller engine;

said processor automatically processing the price quotations received back over the Internet from the seller automatic engines to initiate an iterative real-time automatic seller engine competitive bettering of the price quotations within said respective guidelines, until a best price quotation is received; and

the controller thereupon enabling the automatic notifying of, or purchasing by, the buyer at such best price quotation.

65. The system of claim 64 wherein the system conducts said transactions totally automatically without any manual intervention.

66. The system of claim 64 wherein the reverse auctioneer controller initiation of the reverse auction process and the real-time matching of seller automated engines bid quotations in response to the desired buyer request is conducted while the buyer may remain on-line.

67. The system of claim 66 wherein said auction is effectible 24 hours a day, seven days a week

68. The system of claim 64 wherein the purchasing history and shopping portfolio includes one or more of buyer'"'"'s prior purchasing volumes and price ranges, willingness to accept seller or reverse auction service provider promotions and/or advertisements, particular classes of desired sellers and price limits.

69. The system of claim 64 wherein said best bid represents the lowest price.

70. The system of claim 64 wherein said best bid represents a highest rate.

71. The system of claim 64 wherein the operation of said automatic reverse auction obviates the requirement and expense of manual tracking and comparisons across many seller competitors.

72. The system of claim 64 wherein the buyer obtains not only instantaneous on-demand non-stale response to its request, but also benefits by the forced real-time iterative competition amongst the sellers.

73. The system of claim 64 wherein the buyer designates that certain class/classes of sellers only, participate in the iterative competitive seller bidding.

74. The system of claim 64 wherein the auction is a private auction involving only pre-selected invited sellers.

75. The system of claim 64 wherein the buyer sets a desired price limit for its shopping portfolio or desired product.

76. The system of claim 64 where the buyer requests multiple products for the auction.

77. The system of claim 64 wherein the buyer requests an automatic price watch, and if and when the reverse auction controller determines that such price is matched by a bid, buyer is automatically so notified.

78. The system of claim 75 wherein buyer requests an automatic price watch, and if and when the reverse auction controller automatically determines that such price is matched by a bid, the controller automatically effects the purchase of the requested product or service.

79. The system of claim 78 wherein if the bid price drops further within a certain time frame, the controller automatically so notifies the buyer as for credit.

80. The system of claim 64 wherein said reverse auction allows the buyer to obtain the best possible price from multiple sellers, but also enables the seller to compete iteratively in real-time for the buyer'"'"'s business.

81. The system of claim 64 wherein each seller automated engine maintains its own pricing data therein, dynamically generating a unique price tailor-made for each buyer based on the buyer'"'"'s said profile, prevailing market conditions and the competitive environment.

82. The system of claim 64 wherein said buyer profile contains details for the reverse auctioneer controller to develop a unique buyer consumer index to assist the seller automated engines in offering bid prices better than are generally available to buyers and are commensurate with and specific to the buyer profile.

83. The system of claim 82 wherein said consumer index also enables the seller automated engines to do targeted advertising and/or promotions of buyer interest.

84. The system of claim 82 wherein the buyer may designate sub-buyers and their respective profiles on the account of the buyer.

85. The system of claim 84 wherein the buyer and its sub-buyers pool their buying power to obtain optimum seller automated engine pricing and/or obtain group discount eligibility

86. The system of claim 64 wherein said automatic seller engine iterative bettering of the price quotations amongst the sellers in said round is effected by providing each seller automated engine with a programmable, feedback driven, closed-loop adaptive and time-iterative computation engine, such engine being automatically responsive to said buyer requests, as communicated by the reverse auctioneer controller, and being controlled by input data of both long- and short-term market information on evolving market conditions and environment, thereby enabling the automatic dynamic generating of said pricing bid quotations by said computation engine;

and the computation engine, being further adapted automatically to respond to the other seller price bid quotations received in said round of bidding for bettering its bid price quotation.

87. The system of claim 86, wherein each automatic seller engine computation engine is provided with a processor for coupling said information with network-received input buyer requests for specified seller product or service price bid quotations, sometimes accompanied by buyer-specific personal profile and shopping portfolio information, the processor thereupon automatically generating buyer-specific price quotations based upon said information and also based upon its own seller-specific predetermined marketing strategy guidelines stored in and/or inputted to the computation engine, and adapted to constantly evolving market conditions;

and

the processor being also automatically responsive to further network requests to better the seller'"'"'s price quotation, as in the light of a round of competitive seller price quotations, and for thereupon automatically adapting its price quotation to provide appropriate changes in the same and in iterative steps to better its price quotation, all while staying within the said predetermined marketing strategy guidelines and all automatically without requiring any manual intervention.

88. The system of claim 86 wherein said long- and short-term inputted market information includes one or more of a plurality of data on pricing, competitive impact, demands and supply, market trendlines, types of competing sellers, and other market condition environment data.

89. The system of claim 86 wherein the computation engine apparatus is provided with a signal generator for generating a unique buyer profile-specific “

Modulating Base Value Signal”

for a buyer-selected prerequisite “

Seller Class”

of the desired product, such signal representing the changes in a “

Base Value Signal”

required as a function of a Consumer Index Number (CIN), indicating the buyer'"'"'s willingness to accept promotions from winning sellers and/or advertisements from a “

Reverse Auctioneer Service Provider”

for various categories.

90. The system of claim 89 wherein said categories include one or more of recent short-term changes (of programmable duration) in market dynamics that impact the price.

91. The system of claim 90 wherein category short-term changes include one or more of newly introduced competitor generic promotions;

supply-versus-demand transients;

a competitor seller'"'"'s attempt to aggressively unload inventory;

a newcomer seller in the market wanting to grow aggressively;

the termination of a seller competitor'"'"'s promotion;

the performance of all the competing sellers who won bids in the recent past;

price differences in winning bids versus the accepted bids in the recent past;

the last few minutes of processed bids history; and

/or the last round “

best”

bid.

92. The system of claim 88 wherein said computation engine processor extracts, processes, and feeds back into the engine category information of recent vintage and further processes the computation engines own recent performance data statistics.

93. The system of claim 92 wherein said recent performance data statistics include one or more of the winning ratio in ‘

Reverse Auctions’

, the percentage of quotes with “

best”

price compared to the number of times quoted, the amount of volume shipped for the product, the overall revenue status in the month/quarter etc. versus expectations, and/or inventory status.

94. The system of claim 89 wherein a modulator is provided for modulating said ‘

Base Value Signal’

to produce a buyer-specific and finely market tuned ‘

Value Signal’

, for then comparing against the hard constraints or rails established by the respective seller in its seller-specific predetermined marketing strategy and driven by its business model.

95. The system of claim 94 wherein, in the event that said modulated ‘

Value Signal’

does not stay within such constraints and should saturate the rails, the processor does not renew the bid and a record is kept of such event.

96. The system of claim 90, wherein, in the event that said modulated signal is not saturated, the modulator produces another modulation signal in the form of a ‘

Promotion Event Modulating Signal’

, with the resulting signal then being used to compute the next round bid value;

the processor subsequently communicating such to the reverse auction controller.

97. The system of claim 96 wherein the computation engine is provided with ‘

Price Watch &

Automated Notification’

(RFPWAN) and ‘

Price Watch &

Automated Purchase’

(RFPWAP) lists, periodically checked to compute the potential volume and the corresponding offered price for a product and an opportunity for advantage.

98. The system of claim 97 wherein said opportunity of advantage is accepted through offering a short term promotion represented in the computation engine by a generator of an ‘

Opportunistic Promotion’

signal as an input to a ‘

Promotional Event Modulating Signal’

while also pro-actively notifying the controller of the intention to meet the ‘

Price Watch’

goals.

99. A method of automatically requesting and receiving in real-time and on-line over a communication network such as the Internet, twenty four hours a day and seven days a week, on a global basis, price quotations from sellers of products and services, that comprises:

submitting buyer requests for seller price quotation over the network to the sellers through an intermediate controller;

automatically generating a price quotation at the seller responsive to the buyer'"'"'s request and returning the quotation to the controller over the Internet;

automatically processing the seller price quotations received back over the network at the controller and thereupon communicating them back to the buyer, all with no manual intervention;

thereby enabling a buyers decision in real-time.

100. The method of claim 99 and in which the automatic processing at the controller includes seeking a match of a buyer'"'"'s price request and a seller'"'"'s price quotation and thereupon automatically notifying the buyer of such match or effecting the buyer purchase.

101. The method of claim 99 wherein the buyer request includes buyer-specific profile information, and the seller price quotation reflects consideration of such buyer-specific profile information in the automatic generating of the price quotation.

102. A method of conducting real-time commercial transactions between buyers and sellers of products and services through an intermediate controller communicating on-line with both buyer and seller over the Internet,

the method comprising,

submitting on-line buyer requests for seller price quotations, through the intermediate controller, to sellers each equipped with an automatic seller engine storing that seller'"'"'s specific predetermined marketing strategy and market condition information;

automatically generating in each seller automatic engine a price quotation responsive to the buyer'"'"'s request for quotation, and automatically returning the quotation to the controller over the Internet.

automatically processing at the controller the price quotations received back from the sellers and automatically communicating back to the buyer the better of the price quotations received from the sellers, all with no manual intervention;

thereby enabling a buyer'"'"'s purchasing decision.

103. A method of conducting real-time commercial transactions between buyers and sellers of products and services through an intermediate controller communicating on-line with both buyer and seller over the Internet,

the method comprising,

submitting on-line buyer requests for seller price quotations accompanied by respective buyer-specific personal profile and optionally shopping portfolio information, through the intermediate controller, to sellers each equipped with an automatic seller engine storing that seller'"'"'s specific predetermined marketing strategy and market condition information;

automatically generating in each seller automatic engine a price quotation responsive to the buyer'"'"'s request for quotation, tailored to the buyer'"'"'s said specific profile and within the respective seller'"'"'s said specific marketing strategy and market condition information and automatically returning the quotation to the controller;

automatically processing at the controller the price quotations received back from the sellers and automatically communicating back to the buyer the better of the price quotations received from the sellers, all with no manual intervention.

124. The method of claim 103 wherein the buyer fills in elements of various fields of a data information packet, including requested product or service identification and personal buyer-specific profile information where appropriate, and providing such to the controller by way of a request for the initiation of a reverse auction amongst appropriate sellers in the controller database, or just a request for price quotations from such sellers;

and

the controller processes this buyer raw data information and adds additional information to fields of the submitted data packet such as an assigned consumer index, and, from its stored database of sellers, selects those that may match the buyer'"'"'s product requests and forwards this “

initialized”

packet to such sellers;

125. The method of claim 124 wherein at the seller end, initialized packet information is received and processed, and using the seller'"'"'s engine, automatically proceeds to update the packet by adding thereto the seller'"'"'s price bid quotation, thereupon returning this now “

intermediate”

packet to the controller.

126. The method of claim 125 wherein the controller automatically collects and processes the intermediate packets from the sellers, compares the received bids, and further updates the recently participating sellers for statistics to be added to their databases of competitive marketing information and packet processed completion;

and enabling refinements of the buyer using the packet to request target price and time frame in price watches, and for automated notification and/or automated purchase.

127. The method of claim 126 wherein the invention thus enables the same data packet to be used by all of the buyer, the controller and the seller for their respective needs, thereby minimizing an explosion of required data packets, minimizing network, and minimizing the time the buyer must spend online.

104. A system for automatically requesting and receiving in real-time and on-line over the Internet price quotations from sellers of products and services,

having, in combination,

buyer and seller computers and an intermediate controller communicating in real time with both computers on-line over the Internet;

the buyer computer submitting buyer requests for price quotations bids to the sellers, through the intermediate controller, for the seller computers automatically to respond to the controller with such price quotations;

the controller being provided with a processor for processing the seller price quotations received back at the controller and thereupon automatically communicating them back to the buyer computer, and all with no manual intervention.

105. The system of claim 104 and in which the buyer request includes buyer-specific profile information, and the seller quotation reflects consideration of such buyer-specific profile information in the seller automatic price quotation response.

106. The system of claim 105 wherein the automatic processing at the controller includes the processor seeking a match of a buyer'"'"'s price request and a seller'"'"'s price quotation and thereupon automatically notifying the buyer of such match or effecting the buyer purchase.

107. A system for conducting real-time commercial transactions between buyers and sellers of products and services through an intermediate controller communicating on-line with both buyer and seller over a communication network,

the system having, in combination,

a processor contained in the intermediate controller for receiving over the network and automatically processing on-line buyer requests for seller price quotations, optionally accompanied by respective buyer-specific personal profile and shopping portfolio information, and for thereupon communicating the same over the network to sellers;

each seller being equipped with a seller automatic engine storing that seller'"'"'s specific predetermined marketing strategy and market condition information and responsive to the communicated buyer requests in order automatically to create and to respond to the controller with a price quotation based upon the buyer request and said buyer-specific profile information where supplied and within the respective guidelines of the seller-specific predetermined information stored in that seller'"'"'s automatic seller engine;

said processor automatically processing at the controller the price quotations received back over the network from the seller automatic engines and automatically communicating back to the buyer the better of the price quotations received from the sellers, all with no manual intervention.

108. The system of claim 107 wherein each seller automated engine is provided with a programmable, feedback driven, closed-loop adaptive real-time iterative computation engine adapted to receive inputs of both long- and short-term market data and to couple said data with said respective buyer requests for seller price quotations and buyer-specific personal profile information, thereby to enable the computation engine dynamically to compute and generate the real-time pricing bid quotations;

and

the processor automatically adapting the computation engine price quotations to the constantly evolving market conditions and environment to provide appropriate changes including bettering of the price quotations, while staying within guidelines of the respective said seller-specific predetermined marketing strategy information and the constraints thereof.

109. The system of claim 108 wherein said long- and short-term market data inputted to the computation engine comprises one or more of data on pricing, competitive impact, demand and supply, market trend lines and types of seller'"'"'s data.

110. A method of automatically conducting a reverse auction in real-time and on-line over a communication network for buyers and sellers of products and services connected to the network, that comprises, interposing an intermediate controller in the network between the buyers and sellers and causing the controller automatically to respond to buyers requests and automatically to conduct iterative seller bidding to achieve a best price quotation for the buyer.

111. The method of claim 110 wherein the further steps are performed of automatically effecting buyer notification and/or purchase at such best price, and without any manual intervention.