Abstract: A method and exchange for buying and selling rights in a legal contract or patent through an on-line exchange are disclosed. After obtaining a transfer of certain rights from the owner, and setting a transaction period during which the transferred rights can be bought and sold, the transferred rights are divided into fractions which can then be bought and sold, under buyer/seller exchange conditions. The bidding for fractions continues until a termination event occurs, which may be the expiration of the set transaction period or one of the participant buyer's acquiring a specified number of fractions of the transferred rights, in which case that participant can become the legal owner of the rights by acquiring all other ownership fractions in the rights at a predetermined price.