Patent ID: 7392231

Claim:
A method for determining a utility function based upon paired preferences amongst objects, the method comprising: inputting ordered pairs of said objects, wherein: each of said objects is represented by an attribute vector and associated with goods and services, a number of said objects inputted is less than a total number of objects being ordered; and ordering of each pair of said objects is determined by a user; initializing a neural network for training; computing a change in parameter weights of said neural network for each ordered pair of said objects inputted, wherein said change in parameter weights comprises an average change in said parameter weights for all possible pairs of said total number of objects; calculating an error measure associated with a utility function; revising said utility function in response to said error measure; performing the calculating of said error measure and the revising until said error measure results in a user-defined difference between an ordered output of the ordered pairs of said objects inputted; and automatically generating a ranked list of said total number of objects associated with numerical values of said ordered output and said goods and services, and based on the utility function as an output.