Expedia Books its First Patent

theodp writes "Courtesy of a Microsoft patent reassignment, MS spin-off Expedia was awarded its first patent Tuesday for Matching an offer with a quote, which essentially consists of pairing a customer with the supplier quoting the lowest rate. Prior to this invention, Microsoft explained, 'An effective electronic exchange system for satisfying an offer by a purchaser with a quote from a supplier has eluded those skilled in the art.'"

Comments

Did anyone actually read the patent?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did. It basically says that you provide a high and a low bid for what you want, and the "system" provides the lowest bidder that's closest to your high point.

In eBay terms, it knows what your reserve bid is, and tries to suck as much of it up as it can, calling it "reasonable profit."

There's a lot of prior art on this, namely the airlines. They've been doing this for at least a decade, and it's part of why tickets bought at the last minute departure are more expensive.