Patent Document ID: 9405835
Application ID: 12874956

Base Claim:
1. A method comprising: receiving a plurality of factors, a test set of items, and an ordering solution representing a preferred ordering of the test set of items; generating a potential ranking function based on the plurality of factors; applying, using a processor, the potential ranking function to each item in the test set of items to generate an ordering of items associated with the potential ranking function; comparing the ordering of items with the ordering solution; identifying, based on the result of the comparing, the potential ranking function as a solution ranking function; and assigning a ranking score to items in a set of active items, the ranking scores assigned to the items determined based on the solution ranking function.

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Claim 2:
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving a query; processing the query to obtain a result set of items that satisfy the query, the result set of items being a subset of the set of active items; ordering items in the result set of items based on respective ranking scores assigned to the items to generate an ordered result set of items; and transmitting the ordered result set of items to a computer system associated with a source of the query.