Abstract
In a traditional auction, items are placed "up for bids" in an arbitrary sequence. For many bidders, this model is inadequate because the individual items increase in value when held in conjunction with other items. Combinatorial auctions allow bidders to bid upon multiple items simultaneously. While this resolves the problems for the bidders, it increases the problem of the auctioneer: determining the optimal selection of bids to maximize revenue in NP-complete.