Patent Document ID: 9104718
Application ID: 13927513

Base Claim:
1. A recommendation system for generating recommendations of alternative unique items, the recommendation system comprising: an items information database configured to store data relating to unique items; a penalty computation engine configured to calculate a dissimilarity penalty, the dissimilarity penalty at least partially generated based on a magnitude of dissimilarity between a selected item and an alternative item, the penalty computation engine comprising: a customizations filter configured to calculate a customization score, the customization score representing an estimated preference impact of a difference between at least one customization attribute of the selected item and at least one customization attribute of the alternative item; a condition filter configured to calculate a condition score, the condition score representing an estimated preference impact of a difference between at least one condition attribute of the selected item and at least one condition attribute of the alternative item; wherein data representing the at least one customization attribute and the at least one condition attribute of the alternative item is configured to be stored in the items information database; and a dissimilarity penalty calculator configured to generate the dissimilarity penalty by combining at least the customization score and the condition score; a recommendation compilation engine configured to generate a recommendation of alternative unique items, wherein the recommendation compilation engine is configured to electronically communicate with the penalty computation engine to calculate dissimilarity penalties for each of a plurality of alternative unique items, the recommendation of alternative unique items comprising a ranking of at least a portion of the plurality of alternative unique items, the ranking based at least partially on the calculated dissimilarity penalties; and one or more computers configured to operate the recommendation compilation engine, wherein the one or more computers comprises a computer processor and an electronic storage medium.

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Claim 3:
3. The recommendation system of claim 1 , wherein the recommendation compilation engine is further configured to receive selected item data, the selected item data being related to a plurality of attributes of the selected item, the plurality of attributes comprising at least the at least one customization attribute of the selected item and the at least one condition attribute of the selected item.