Appeal 2007-0325
Application 09/780,248
1 secret from those they were intended to uncover until such time as the
2 behavior triggered the rule and access was closed.
3 18. Also, as the Examiner indicated, eBay discloses the reserve price
4 auction at page 1"What Is a Reserve Price Auction," where the bidding
5 rule is that a reserve price is kept secret until a defined time (the time at
6 which bids meet or exceed the reserve price). It would have been
7 obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to
8 modify Shoham with a secret rule, such as that of eBay, because this
9 would allow a seller to not sell at an unacceptably low price (Answer 8).
10 19. Harrington describes a process of conducting an auction and of
11 comparing bids during the auction. In particular, Harrington states
12 The bidders' computers are provided with commercially available
13 browser software that communicates through the network with an
14 auctioneer's server. Auction terms and conditions, and a description of
15 the instruments to be auctioned, are broadcast or otherwise made
16 available by the auctioneer's server to the bidders' computers. During
17 the auction the auctioneer's server broadcasts or otherwise makes
18 available selected bid information such as bidder status (i e., leader or
19 not leader), or the current highest bid and, if desired, the identity of
20 the current highest bidder. Software on the server, or perhaps on the
21 bidders' computers in a JAVA implementation, guides the bidders
22 through the bidding process and provides computational assistance in
23 preparing their bids and comparing them to the current highest bid.
24 The bidder may prepare a tentative bid, review it and modify it before
25 submitting it. A confirmation step may be implemented to insure that
26 the bid is correct before it is submitted. When a bid is "submitted", it
27 is compared with the current highest bid. If the submitted bid is higher
28 than the current highest bid, it becomes the new current highest bid
29 and, if desired, is made available to all bidders. (Harrington, col. 5, ll.
30 14-36).
11
Page: Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013