Patent ID: 7983926

Claim:
An automated method for providing personalised purchase recommendations to a user, the method carried out on a mobile computing device programmed to carry out the method in combination with a server, said method comprising the steps of: generating a global probabilistic purchase model on the server of purchases in a general population over an entire range of users, the model providing recommendations for future purchases based on purchase transactions of the general population; detecting on the mobile device, attributes of the user so as to identify personal characteristics relating to a behavior of the user; calculating at least one correction factor, based on the detected attributes of the user; and applying on the mobile device the correction factor to the global probabilistic purchase model to modify the recommendations of said model according to personal preferences of the user thereby generating a personalized recommendation list for future purchases for the user: wherein the mobile device applies the correction factor to convert an output P(y|X) of the global probabilistic purchase model to an output {circumflex over (P)}(y|X) of a personalized probabilistic model for the user using a personalized prior {circumflex over (P)}(y) of the user wherein {circumflex over (P)}(y|X) is computed either according to Eq (1) which assumes equal global priors, P ^ ⁡ ( y ❘ X ) = P ⁡ ( y ❘ X ) ⁢ P ^ ⁡ ( y ) P ⁡ ( y ❘ X ) ⁢ P ^ ⁡ ( y ) + [ 1 - P ⁡ ( y ❘ X ) ] ⁡ [ 1 - P ^ ⁡ ( y ) ] , Eq ⁢ ⁢ ( 1 ) or according to Eq (2) when specific global priors, P(y) are used P ^ ⁡ ( y ❘ X ) = P ⁡ ( y ❘ X ) ⁢ P ^ ⁡ ( y ) ⁡ [ 1 - P ⁡ ( y ) ] P ⁡ ( y ❘ X ) ⁢ P ^ ⁡ ( y ) ⁡ [ 1 - P ⁡ ( y ) ] + P ⁡ ( y ) ⁡ [ 1 - P ⁡ ( y ❘ X ) ] ⁡ [ 1 - P ^ ⁡ ( y ) ] , Eq ⁢ ⁢ ( 2 ) where P(y|X) is the probability of event y occurring for any user in the general population, given evidence X, {circumflex over (P)}(y|X) is the probability of event y occurring for the user, given evidence X, and {circumflex over (P)}(y) is the prior probability of event y occurring for the user.