The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 08, 2003
Filed:
Dec. 17, 1999
Sam Dinkin, Austin, TX (US);
David LaPotin, Austin, TX (US);
Ramakrishnan Rajamony, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and system for controlling the purchase of fine-grained resource purchases, such as utility resources or access to limited highway lanes. Real time pricing based upon current demand and/or usage is periodically determined. Access to that real time pricing information is obtained by individual users via a distributed computing network or radio frequency broadcast system and utilization of those resources is then locally controlled based upon that pricing information. Access to limited highway lanes may be priced based upon current actual utilization and pricing information is then broadcast, permitting users to selectively access those lanes based upon real time pricing decisions by those users.