Patent ID: 8340816

Claim:
A user preference inferring apparatus comprising: a receiving unit which receives information related to a plurality of articles from first tags attached to each of the plurality of articles and information identifying owners of each of the plurality of articles from second tags attached to each of the plurality of articles; a preference determining unit which infers the owners of the plurality of articles and an owner's preference on the basis of the information received by said receiving unit; a clustering processing unit which clusters, according to a predetermined standard, a plurality of said articles on which said receiving unit has received information related to said articles; and a position information obtaining unit which obtains position information of the plurality of said articles on which said receiving unit has read out information identifying said articles, wherein said preference determining unit infers, for each cluster divided by said clustering processing unit, the preference of the owner of the plurality of articles contained in the cluster, and wherein said clustering processing unit clusters said articles in accordance with relative position among the articles on the basis of the position information of said articles obtained by said position information obtaining unit.