Patent Document ID: 8713001
Application ID: 12170343
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method, implemented by a computer system, relating to refining at least one search during at least one individual search session by at least one user searcher, relating to finding objects relevant to the at least one search of the at least one user searcher, comprising the steps of: a) presenting to the at least one user searcher at least one large collection of objects comprising at least one set of object characteristics during the at least one individual search session, each object comprising at least one subset of the at least one set of object characteristics; b) wherein the large collection of objects results from one search query of the at least one user searcher; c) gathering searcher overall evaluating relating to each single object of at least one sample subset of the at least one large collection of objects during the at least one individual search session; d) wherein the searcher overall evaluating comprises searcher-setting of at least one relevancy-value relating to each object of the at least one sample subset during the at least one individual search session; e) using the gathered searcher overall evaluating relating to each single object of the at least one sample subset of the at least one large collection of objects, identifying at least one user searcher evaluation subset of relevancy-ordered characteristics relating to the sampled objects during the at least one individual search session; f) using the identified at least one user searcher evaluation subset of relevancy-ordered characteristics relating to the sampled objects, identifying at least one relevancy order, approximating a preference function of the at least one user searcher, of the at least one large collection of objects resulting from the one search query, wherein the approximating the value function of the at least one user searcher comprises iterative application of the algorithm to maximize ε subject to: ∑ i = 1 M ⁢ w i ⁢ D k ⁢ ⁢ i - ∑ i = 1 M ⁢ w i ⁢ D j ⁢ ⁢ i ≥ ɛ , ∀ k ∈ S t , j ∈ S t + 1 , t = 1 , … ⁢ , T - 1 ∑ i = 1 M ⁢ w i ⁢ D ji P A - ∑ i = 1 M ⁢ w i ⁢ D ji P B ≥ ɛ , j = 1 , … ⁢ , R , ⁢ 0 ≤ w i ≤ 1 , i = 1 , … ⁢ , M ɛ ≥ 0 wherein i) i represents the valued object characteristic, ii) w represents the at least one overall relevancy weight value, iii) D represents an object described by an array of the valued object characteristics, and wherein D is at least one of additive form or multiplicative form, or any combination thereof, iv) ε represents the difference between the weighted values of all objects in the at least one large collection of objects, v) S t represents the set of objects within a scalar category t, vi) T represents the total number of scalar categories, vii) M represents the total number of the valued object characteristics within the at least one large collection of objects, viii) P A and P B indicate a air of relatively compared objects with P A indicating the more preferred, and ix) R represents the total number of direct preference statements; and g) presenting, to the at least one user searcher during the at least one individual search session, at least one first relevancy-ordered hierarchy comprising the at least one large collection of objects resulting from the one search query, using the identified at least one relevancy order of the at least one large collection of objects.