Compound buy-buy auctions

An electronic medium, comprising computer or machine readable program elements translatable for implementing a method including:

• participating in a compound buy-buy auction having contingent bidding on a plurality of heterogeneous items substantially simultaneously contingent on buying one or more other items in another auction,
• wherein a composite reverse auction, defined by a bid set including a first contingent bid on a first of the plurality of heterogeneous item auctions and a second contingent bid on a second of the plurality of heterogeneous item auctions, is ended when i) the first contingent bid from the bid set is recognized as a winning bid and substantially simultaneously ii) the second contingent bid from the bid set is withdrawn as a remaining bid.

An apparatus, comprising a computer network including at least one auction server, at least one seller client and at least one buyer client,

• wherein the at least one auction server, the at least one seller client and the at least one buyer client are participating in a compound buy-buy auction having contingent bidding on a plurality of heterogeneous items substantially simultaneously contingent on buying one or more other items in another auction, and
• wherein a composite reverse auction, defined by a bid set including a first contingent bid on a first of the plurality of heterogeneous item auctions and a second contingent bid on a second of the plurality of heterogeneous item auctions, is ended when i) the first contingent bid from the bid set is recognized as a winning bid and substantially simultaneously ii) the second contingent bid from the bid set is withdrawn as a remaining bid.

A data structure, comprising a bid set defining at least in part a compound buy-buyl auction, the bid set including a first contingent bid on a first of the plurality of heterogeneous item auctions and a second contingent bid on a second of the plurality of heterogeneous item auctions,

• wherein the compound buy-sell auction is ended when i) the first contingent bid from the bid set is recognized as a winning bid and substantially simultaneously ii) the second contingent bid from the bid set is withdrawn as a remaining bid.

Signal transmission or receiving apparatus embodying a computer program product comprising computer program means adapted to perform the steps of participating in an auction when the program is run on a computer,

• characterized in that participating in an auction includes participating in a compound buy-buy auction having contingent bidding on a plurality of heterogeneous items substantially simultaneously contingent on buying one or more other items in another auction, wherein a composite reverse auction, defined by a bid set including a first contingent bid on a first of the plurality of heterogeneous item auctions and a second contingent bid on a second of the plurality of heterogeneous item auctions, is ended when i) the first contingent bid from the bid set is recognized as a winning bid and substantially simultaneously ii) the second contingent bid from the bid set is withdrawn as a remaining bid.