Abstract
The classical setting of query answering either assumes the existence of just one knowledge requester, or the knowledge requests from different parties are treated independently from each other. This assumption does not always hold in practical applications where requesters often are in direct competition for knowledge. We provide a formal model for this type of scenario scenario by proposing the Multi-Agent Knowledge Allocation (MAKA) setting which combines the fields of query answering in information systems and multi-agent resource allocation. We define a bidding language based on exclusivity-annotated conjunctive queries and succinctly translate the allocation problem into a graph structure allowing to employ a wide range of constraint solving techniques for optimal allocation.