Patent US 7,953,646

An automated auctioning system includes a customer, a web services register server (such as an Extended Markup Language (XML)-based registry server like an Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) registry) and a number of web service providers. Automated auctioning processes of a web service desired by the customer are undertaken between the potential customer and the web service providers. The potential customer issues a bid request, and each web service provider determines whether the value of a bid in response to the bid request is below a value warranted by market demand and issues the bid if the value is higher. The potential customer assesses the bid, creating a bid assessment score. The potential customer performs an iteration on the bid assessment score using a new bid request if the score has improved since a last iteration, while engaging the web service if the score has not improved.