Patent Document ID: 7818200
Application ID: 11361284
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method in a trustworthiness assessment system for assessing trustworthiness of a plurality of participants in a collaborative environment, wherein the computer-implemented method comprises: modeling, via a network modeling module of the trustworthiness assessment system, all of the plurality of participants as network nodes; modeling, via the network modeling module, relationships between the plurality of participants as network paths; identifying, via the network modeling module, a set of network nodes and associated network paths representing neighboring participants connecting a network node of a source participant with a network node of a destination participant; computing with a trust ratings computation module of the trustworthiness assessment system, a trust rating that represents trustworthiness between the source participant and the destination participant, wherein the trust rating is based on an assessment of an inferred trust rating based on a level of trustworthiness between the destination participant and the neighboring participants connecting the source participant to the destination participant, and wherein the source participant and the destination participant have no prior established relationship directly between the source participant and the destination participant; and wherein computing the trust rating that represents trustworthiness between the source participant and the destination participant comprises computing the trust rating based on implementation of a function of C ij by the trust ratings computation module wherein a trust rating C between two participants i and j is a function of cumulated positive feedback pos[i,j], and cumulated negative feedback neg[i,j], and wherein the trust rating is further normalized by a number of total direct relationships established by the Cij = max [ ⁢ 0.001 , ⁢ pos ⁡ [ i , j ] - max ⁡ ( 1 , ∑ k = 0 l ⁢ ⁢ pos ⁡ [ i , k ] / ∑ k = 0 n ⁢ ⁢ neg ⁡ [ i , k ] ) · neg ⁡ [ i , j ] ∑ k = 0 n ⁢ ⁢ ( pos ⁡ [ i , k ] + neg ⁡ [ i , k ] ) ] ⁢ .