US 6029195

US Patent 6,029,195, titled "System for customized electronic identification of desirable objects," was invented by Frederick S. M. Herz. The patent was filed on December 5, 1997, and issued on February 22, 2000. Current assignees include IREACTOR Inc and Pinpoint Inc.

Abstract:
The patent describes a system for customized electronic identification of desirable objects in an electronic media environment. It automatically creates a "target profile" for each object based on its descriptive attributes and a "target profile interest summary" for each user, built from their feedback. The system then estimates a user's interest in various objects by comparing the object profiles with the user's interest summary, generating a personalized, ranked list of objects most likely to be of interest. The user's interest summary is continuously updated to reflect changing preferences. The system's profile processing module facilitates this estimation and ranking by comparing target object profiles against user-specific search profiles.

Plain-Language Overview of Independent Claims:

• Claim 1: This claim describes a system that identifies desirable objects for users. It works by automatically creating a "target profile" for each object (based on its characteristics) and a "target profile interest summary" for each user (based on what they've shown interest in). The system then compares these profiles to guess what objects a user might like and creates a personalized, ranked list of these objects for the user.
• Claim 25: This claim describes a method (a set of steps) for achieving the same outcome as Claim 1. It involves the steps of automatically creating target profiles for objects, creating user interest summaries from user feedback, using these to estimate user interest in objects, and then generating a customized, ranked list of desirable objects for each user.
• Claim 30: This claim focuses on the components of a system for customized object identification. It includes a "target profile generation module" for creating object profiles, a "user profile generation module" for creating user interest summaries from feedback, and a "profile processing module" that estimates user interest by comparing these profiles and generates the personalized, ranked lists.
• Claim 48: This claim details a system for identifying desirable objects accessible via a computer network. It includes storing object profiles on electronic media, receiving user feedback about objects, building user interest summaries from this feedback, estimating user interest by comparing object profiles with user summaries, and then creating a personalized, ranked list of objects for each user.
• Claim 51: Similar to Claim 48, this claim outlines a method for customized electronic identification of objects through a data communication network. The steps involve storing object profiles, gathering user feedback, building user interest summaries, comparing profiles to estimate interest, and producing a ranked list of objects for each user.
• Claim 60: This claim describes a system for identifying objects for a user using simpler terms. It involves providing object profiles and a user's interest summary, comparing them to get a "relevance score" for each object, and then presenting a prioritized list of objects to the user based on these scores.
• Claim 68: This claim is a method counterpart to Claim 60. It includes the steps of providing object profiles and a user's interest summary, comparing them to determine a relevance score for each object, and then providing a prioritized list of objects to the user based on these scores.
• Claim 76: This claim specifies a system for identifying objects in an electronic media environment, explicitly mentioning hardware components. It includes a database to store object profiles, a user interest profile, a processor to compare profiles and determine relevance scores, and a display to show a prioritized list of objects to the user.
• Claim 82: This claim is a method counterpart to Claim 76. It involves storing object profiles and a user interest profile in a database, comparing them with a processor to determine relevance scores, and then presenting a prioritized list of objects to the user via a display.
• Claim 85: This claim describes a system similar to Claim 1, but with an added crucial feature for privacy. It includes the components for automatically constructing target profiles and user interest summaries, estimating user interest, and generating ranked lists, and it incorporates a "proxy server." This proxy server uses cryptographic techniques to separate a user's real identity from a pseudonym, thereby ensuring the privacy of the user's interest summary.

No active dockets for US Patent 6,029,195 were found in the CAFC 2026 dockets. The patent's status is listed as "Expired - Lifetime" on Google Patents, indicating it is no longer in force.