Patent Document ID: 8972419
Application ID: 13642024
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An item selecting apparatus comprising: item property storage configured to store an item identifier of each item and item time information representing a time point of creating the item or a time point of starting providing of the item, in an associated manner; a receiver configured to receive usage information from another apparatus, the usage information including a use subject identifier for identifying either a user or a terminal that the user has used and an item identifier for identifying an item used by the user; usage history storage configured to store a usage history which associates the use subject identifier with the item identifier contained in the usage information received by the receiver; a usage characteristics information calculator configured to calculate an elapsed value as a difference between the item time information corresponding to the item identifier contained in the usage history stored in the usage history storage and a given time point, the elapsed value being calculated for each usage history corresponding to the use subject identifier, and calculate usage characteristics information with respect to the use subject identifier based on a distribution of elapsed values calculated for the use subject identifier, the usage characteristics information being a numerical value that is determined for each use subject identifier; and an item selector configured to: calculate, with respect to a certain item identifier stored in the item property storage, a freshness value representing a degree of freshness of a desired item related to the certain item identifier, based on the item time information corresponding to the certain item identifier; determine a characteristic of a correspondence rule in accordance with the usage characteristics information; calculate a novelty index by applying the freshness value on the correspondence rule; calculate a priority of the desired item for the use subject identifier, based on the novelty index; and perform a selection of an item for the use subject identifier, based on priorities calculated for the use subject identifier, wherein the item property storage, the receiver, the usage history storage, and the item selector are hardware or a combination of hardware and software.