Patent ID: 8001132

Claim:
A system for estimating user ratings for items based on previous rating activity by the same user for different items and by different users for the same and different items, comprising: a processor; a memory for storing data and instructions for execution by the processor; a database stored in the memory, the database storing rating information for a plurality of items and a plurality of users; a rating computation module implemented as software stored in the memory and executable by the processor, the rating computation module estimating a rating r ui for an item i by a user u based on rating activity by the same and different users, the rating computation module selecting a predetermined number of neighboring ratings most closely associated with the rating r ui , the rating computation module assigning interpolation weights to the selected ratings, the interpolation weights being based on a matrix Â, each entry of the matrix Â comprising a summation of pairwise relationships of ratings of two neighboring items by neighboring users, and a vector {circumflex over (b)}, each entry of the vector {circumflex over (b)} comprising a summation of pairwise relationships of a neighboring item by a neighboring user and the item i by a neighboring user, each entry of the matrix Â and the vector {circumflex over (b)} being computed so as to take into account the support exhibited by each pair of ratings under consideration, the support including the number of users rating both items of a pair.