Patent Document ID: 7574382
Application ID: 10910457
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method of detecting anomalous user activity associated with items in an electronic catalog, the method comprising: storing order data descriptive of orders placed by users for items from an electronic catalog of items; identifying, from the order data, a set of items ordered by users from the electronic catalog during a current time period; via execution of instructions by a computing device, selecting, from the set of items, a subset of items for which to conduct an anomaly analysis, so as to control a computational processing load associated with the anomaly analysis; for each item in the subset, (a) calculating a forecasted demand for the respective item in the current time period based on observed demand for the respective item in prior time periods, as reflected by said order data, and (b) evaluating whether order activity for the respective item is anomalous based on at least the forecasted demand for the respective item and an observed demand for the respective item in the current time period; and in response to detection of anomalous order activity in (b), generating an alert message that identifies an item associated with the anomalous order activity.