Patent Document ID: 7509230
Application ID: 11601097
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for rating an entity, the method comprising steps of: receiving a bounded rating of the entity from a rater, wherein the bounded rating is a first number selected from a bounded interval of real numbers; retrieving a bounded current rating for the entity from a persistent storage, wherein the bounded current rating is a second number selected from the bounded interval of real numbers; transforming the bounded rating into an unbounded rating by applying a functional transformation; transforming the bounded current rating into an unbounded current rating by applying the functional transformation; retrieving a reliability score for the rater from the persistent storage; retrieving a reliability score for the current rating of the entity from the persistent storage; computing a new unbounded rating as a weighted average of the entity's unbounded current rating and unbounded rating, wherein a first weight is equal to the current rating's reliability score and a second weight is equal to the rater's reliability score; computing a new reliability score for the new unbounded rating by adding the rater's reliability score to the current rating's reliability score; converting the new unbounded rating into a new bounded rating by applying an inverse of the functional transformation used to convert a bounded value into an unbounded value; setting the bounded current rating for the entity equal to the new bounded rating; setting the reliability score for the entity equal to the new reliability score; storing the new reliability score in the persistent storage; and storing the new bounded rating in the persistent storage.