Ariba, Inc.

Digitalscirocco, Inc.

University of Michigan

Michael Wellman

Bruce Douglass D'Ambrosio

Yoav Shoham

Eithan Ephrati

Peter R Wurman

Embodiments include methods, apparatus, and systems associated with providing request-time auctioning of web content and web services. The auction may be performed by a request-time web content auctioning service, which may accept bids of content and/or services from content and/or service providers, and may auction these bids against offers of space on webpages in websites. The auction may, in various embodiments, be performed in real time, such as, for example, during generation of a webpage in response to a request to view a webpage from a visitor to the webpage. The auction service may, in various embodiments, also provide for the auctioning of web services for webpages, such as, for example, content filtering. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Dynamic webpage generation including request-time auctioned web content

Embodiments may provide for multi-attribute auctioning. Bids and offers which comprise non-price attributes may be received by an auction service, such as web content bids and offers for space on webpages. The service may evaluate attributes of bids and offers in a quantitative manner, developing a value for the bid and offer that includes both price information and other non-price attributes. Valuation may be performed through the use of willingness-to-pay functions which, based on a knowledge of an agent, may determine a numerical value for that agent's willingness to pay according to the non-price attributes. The result from evaluating this function may then be used to determine which auction bids and offers may be matched. The bid or offer can include one or more probability distributions for future performance, based on the published statistics about past performance of agents. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Multi-attribute web content auctions

A universal or special-purpose auction system and method are disclosed wherein at least one auction allocation policy is implemented which results in adjusting a bid submitted by a trader or a clearing calculation is modified to incorporate a constraint.

Method and an apparatus for a trading market design and deployment system

A system and method for managing multilateral negotiations are disclosed. The method generally includes sending a negotiation initiating offer object to a first negotiating party for specifying rules of the negotiation and for forming a negotiation initiating offer including specification of at least one attribute. The method also includes receiving the negotiation initiating offer from the first negotiating party, sending a counter offer object to a second negotiating party for forming a counter offer to the first negotiating party, receiving the counter offer from the second negotiating party, validating the counter offer if the counter offer complies with the rules of the negotiation, and sending the validated counter offer to the first negotiation party to engage the negotiation parties in an active negotiation. The counter offer object is adapted for specification of at least one additional attribute. A negotiation facilitator system for managing an electronic negotiation and a computer program product for managing a multilateral negotiation are also disclosed.

Electronic multilateral negotiation system

A method and computer system for conducting a progressive, price-driven combinatorial auction wherein equilibrium prices supporting optimal allocation are provided. The auction mechanism allows bids on bundles and uses an innovative price setting mechanism that ensures that the bundle prices reported by the auction have the property that each participant's or bidder's tentative allocation maximizes the value reported in the participant's bid. The auction is progressive, and requires that a participant's new bid improves his previous bid in a precisely defined manner. The auction terminates when no participant submits a new bid, or according to some other specified criterion.

Method and computer system for conducting a progressive, price-driven combinatorial auction

A system and a method for matching multi-attribute auction bids are disclosed. A set of multi-attribute bids or bid values are collected from one or more buyers and one or more sellers. The set of bid values may include variances from nominal bid values. Buyer and seller bids are generated from the set of buyer and seller multi-attribute bid values after predetermined attribute values, if any, are added. A pair of bids between each buyer and each seller having a highest surplus is selected. The method generates a weighted bipartite graph having buyer nodes and seller nodes and an edge between each buyer node and each seller node, each edge having the highest surplus of the pair of bids between the buyer and seller as a weight. The maximal weighted matching bids from the highest surplus pairs of bids are determined using the weighted bipartite graph.

Growing community of inventors

Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America

Michael Wellman