Patent 9953365 was granted and assigned to Ten-X on April, 2018 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method and system for auctioning an item over a network inside a virtual auction forum populated by graphical representations of users is described. Virtual profiles containing graphical representations are associated with each of the users of an auction forum, and the auction for the item is virtualized. The users of the auction forum participate as bidders in the virtual auction with their graphical representations, and some events in the virtual auction are represented through the users' graphical representations.