SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF MAPPING ATTENTION

• US 20090177644A1
• Filed: 01/04/2008
• Published: 07/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/04/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Excalibur IP, LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Inventors: Davis, Marc Eliot, Higgins, Christopher William, Martinez, Ronald, O'Sullivan, Joseph James
• Granted Patent: US 9,626,685 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24575 using context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/444 Spatial browsing, e.g. 2D maps, 3D or virtual spaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data

Abstract

The disclosure describes systems and methods of ranking user interest in physical entities based on the attention given to those entities as determined by an analysis of communications from devices over multiple communication channels. The attention ranking systems allow any “Who, What, When, Where” entity to be defined and ranked based, at least in part, on information obtained from communications between users and user proxy devices. An entity rank is generated for entity known to the system in which the entity rank is derived from the information in communications that are indicative of user actions related to the entity. The entity ranks are then used to modify the display of information or data associated with the entities. The system may also generate a personal rank for each entity based on the relation of the entity to a specified user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a request to display information related to a physical entity;

transforming the request into search data;

applying the search data to a set of predefined physical entities known to a network to derive a subset of physical entities matching the search data;

ranking the physical entities in the subset of physical entities to form a ranked subset of physical entities; and

presenting information related to the ranked subset of physical entities to a first user, the presenting of the ranked physical entities information being dependent upon user information stored in the network, the user information comprising data generated by the user, data associated with the user, and data associated with the request.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the first user can interact with the ranked physical entities information to access further ranked physical entities information.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the first user is presented with information related to commercial incentives; and

the presenting of the commercial incentives information being dependent upon user information stored in the network, the user information comprising data generated by the user, data associated with the user, and data associated with the request.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the first user can interact with the commercial incentives information.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the presenting of the ranked physical entities information is dependent upon data associated with the user'"'"'s location.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the presenting of the ranked physical entities information is dependent upon data associated with the time of the request.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the presenting of the ranked physical entities information is dependent upon data associated with the user'"'"'s present and past activities.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

analyzing communications from entity proxies for references to physical entities in the set of predefined physical entities; and

generating an entity rank for each physical entity in the set of predefined physical entities based on the references contained in the communications from the entity proxies.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

collecting data indicative of user actions from a plurality of user proxy devices; and

generating an entity rank for each physical entity of the subset of physical entities based on data from the user proxy devices.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

identifying, based on the data, a plurality of user actions;

for each user action, identifying a user and at least one physical entity associated with the user action; and

generating the entity rank for each physical entity in the subset of physical entities based on a number of user actions associated with each physical entity.

11. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

collecting the data from messages transmitted between two user proxy devices.

12. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

identifying a first user action, the data corresponding to the first user action including an identification of a first location;

determining that the first location is a first physical entity; and

associating the first user action with the first physical entity.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

identifying a second user action, the data corresponding to the second user action including an identification of an event defined by a second location and a time;

determining that the event is a second physical entity; and

associating the first user action with the second physical entity.

14. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

identifying a third user action, the data corresponding to the third user action including an identification of a business;

determining that the business is a third physical entity; and

associating the third user action with the third physical entity.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the request comprises:

data provided by the first user.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the request comprises:

data provided by an autonomous source.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein attention rank is used to rank the physical entities.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein personal rank is used to rank the physical entities.

19. A system comprising:

a physical entity request engine comprising;

a request sub-module that receives one or more requests to display information related to a physical entity;

a transform sub-module that transforms the request into search data;

a subset generation and matching sub-module that applies the search data to a set of predefined physical entities known to a network to derive a subset of physical entities matching the search data; and

an attention rank engine for ranking the subset of physical entities to form a ranked subset of physical entities after having generated entity rank, attention rank, and personal rank; and

a mapping manager module for presenting information related to the ranked subset of physical entities to a first user, the presenting of the ranked physical entities information being dependent upon user information stored in the network, the user information comprising data generated by the user, data associated with the user, and data associated with the request.

20. The system of claim 19 further comprising:

a web rank module that collects web data produced by user interactions with web pages; and

a world rank module that generates an entity rank for each physical entity in the set of predefined physical entities.

21. The system of claim 19 further comprising a request initiation module that initiates a request to display information related to the one or more physical entities.

22. The system of claim 19 further comprising:

an entity data collection module connected to the world rank module that collects user data from communications transmitted by the physical entities including identities of users associated with the communications, a number of communications and communication channels associated with the communications; and

wherein the world rank module generates the entity rank by mapping the user data.

23. The system of claim 19 further comprising:

a web page association module connected to the attention rank module that, based on the content of a web page, identifies at least one physical entity as associated with the web page; and

wherein the attention rank module when generating an attention rank for one or more of a set of web pages receives from the web page association module an identification of the at least one physical entity, if any, associated with each of the set of web pages.

24. The system of claim 19 further comprising:

a personal rank module that generates, for a first physical entity, a personal rank for each of the set of physical entities relative to the first physical entity; and

wherein the attention rank module, in response to a request associated with the first physical entity, generates the attention rank for the first physical entity based on the entity rank of physical entities associated with the first physical entity, and the personal rank of the physical entities associated with the first physical entity.

25. The system of claim 19, wherein each physical entity is one of a user, a user proxy device, a location, a legal entity, or a physical object.

26. A computer-readable medium comprising computer-readable instructions tangibly stored thereon, the instructions when executed by a computer carrying out a method of ranking physical entities, the method comprising:

receiving a request to display information related to a physical entity;

transforming the request into search data;

applying the search data to a set of predefined physical entities known to a network to derive a subset of physical entities matching the search data;

ranking the physical entities in the subset of physical entities to form a ranked subset of physical entities; and

presenting information related to the ranked subset of physical entities to a first user, the presenting of the ranked physical entities information being dependent upon user information stored in the network, the user information comprising data generated by the user, data associated with the user, and data associated with the request.

27. The computer-readable medium of claim 26 wherein the method further comprises:

analyzing communications from entity proxies for references to physical entities in the set of predefined physical entities; and

generating an entity rank for each physical entity in the set of predefined physical entities based on the references contained in the communications from the entity proxies.

28. The computer-readable medium of claim 26 wherein the method further comprises:

collecting data indicative of user actions from a plurality of user proxy devices; and

generating an entity rank for each physical entity of the subset of physical entities based on data from the user proxy devices.

29. The computer-readable medium of claim 28 further comprising:

identifying, based on the data, a plurality of user actions;

for each user action, identifying a user and at least one physical entity associated with the user action; and

generating the entity rank for each physical entity in the subset of physical entities based on a number of user actions associated with each physical entity.

30. The computer-readable medium of claim 28 further comprising:

collecting the data from messages transmitted between two user proxy devices.

31. The computer-readable medium of claim 28 further comprising:

identifying a first user action, the data corresponding to the first user action including an identification of a first location;

determining that the first location is a first physical entity; and

associating the first user action with the first physical entity.

32. The computer-readable medium of claim 28 further comprising:

identifying a second user action, the data corresponding to the second user action including an identification of an event defined by a second location and a time;

determining that the event is a second physical entity; and

associating the first user action with the second physical entity.

33. The computer-readable medium of claim 28 further comprising:

identifying a third user action, the data corresponding to the third user action including an identification of a business;

determining that the business is a third physical entity; and

associating the third user action with the third physical entity.

34. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein generating a relative entity rank further comprises:

calculating the relative entity rank for each physical entity based on how many references to each physical entity are contained in the analyzed communications.

35. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein generating a relative entity rank further comprises:

calculating the relative entity rank for each physical entity based on how many communications contain references to each physical entity.

36. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein the method further comprises:

generating, for the first user, a personal entity rank for each physical entity based on the references contained in communications associated with the first user; and

presenting information to the first user related to one or more of the plurality of physical entities based on the relative entity rank and the personal entity rank of the one or more physical entities.

37. The computer-readable medium of claim 28, wherein the method further comprises:

defining each identifiable person and each identifiable location referenced in the communications as one of the plurality of physical entities.

38. The computer-readable medium of claim 26 wherein the method further comprises:

data provided by the first user.

39. The computer-readable medium of claim 26 wherein the method further comprises:

data provided by an autonomous source.

40. A visibly depicted graphical user interface comprising:

a visible representation of a geographic region;

the visible representation further comprising visible indicators;

the visible indicators comprising a variable characteristic; and

the variable characteristic depending upon the attention rank of the physical entities that the visible indicators represent.