Systems and methods of mapping attention

• US 9,626,685 B2
• Filed: 01/04/2008
• Issued: 04/18/2017
• 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: Martinez, Ronald, Davis, Marc Eliot, Higgins, Christopher William, O'Sullivan, Joseph James
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain
• Assistant Examiner(s): PHAN, TUANKHANH D
• Application Number:
  US11/969,751
• Publication Number:
  US 20090177644A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,392 Days
• Field of Search: None
• 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, at a computing device, a request to display information related to a first physical entity;

transforming, via the computing device, the request into search data;

dynamically applying, via the computing device, the search data to descriptive information related to a set of other physical entities known to a network, said application of the search data comprising deriving a subset of other physical entities matching the search data from the descriptive information related to the set of other known physical entities, the descriptive information corresponding to the other physical entities is analyzed as part of said deriving the subset of other physical entities that match the search data;

ranking, via the computing device, the physical entities in the subset of other physical entities to form a ranked subset of physical entities, the ranked subset based upon the applied search data, the ranked subset comprising the descriptive information corresponding to the other physical entities of the subset; and

presenting, via the computing device over the network, information related to the ranked subset of physical entities to a first user associated with a user computing device, 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,

wherein the first user can interact with the commercial incentives information.

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

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the presenting of the ranked physical entities information is dependent upon data associated with at least one of the time of the request, and the user'"'"'s present and past activities.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

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

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

7. 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.

8. The method of claim 7 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.

9. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

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

10. The method of claim 7 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 the first physical entity; and

associating the first user action with the first physical entity.

11. The method of claim 7 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.

12. The method of claim 7 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.

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

data provided by at least one of the first user, and an autonomous source.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the ranked subset of physical entities includes the first physical entity.

14. A system comprising:

a plurality of processors;

a physical entity request engine implemented by at least one of said plurality of processors comprising;

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

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

a subset generation and matching sub-module that dynamically applies the search data to descriptive information related to a set of other physical entities known to a network, said application comprising deriving a subset of other physical entities matching the search data from the descriptive information related to the set of other known physical entities, the descriptive information corresponding to the other physical entities is analyzed as part of said deriving the subset of other physical entities that match the search data; and

an attention rank engine for ranking the subset of other physical entities to form a ranked subset of physical entities after having generated entity rank, attention rank, and personal rank, the ranked subset based upon the applied search data, the ranked subset comprising the descriptive information corresponding to the other physical entities of the subset; and

a mapping manager module implemented by at least one of said plurality of processors 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.

15. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

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

a world rank module that generates an entity rank for each physical entity in the set of other physical entities; and

a request initiation module that initiates a request to display information related to the one or more physical entities.

16. The system of claim 14 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.

17. The system of claim 14 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.

18. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

a personal rank module that generates, for the 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.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein each physical entity is one of a user, a user proxy device, a location, a legal entity, or a physical object.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium tangibly encoded with computer-readable instructions, that when executed by a processor associated with a computing device, perform a method comprising:

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

transforming the request into search data;

dynamically applying the search data to descriptive information related to a set of other physical entities known to a network, said application of the search data comprising deriving a subset of other physical entities matching the search data from the descriptive information related to the set of other known physical entities, the descriptive information corresponding to the other physical entities is analyzed as part of said deriving the subset of other physical entities that match the search data;

ranking the physical entities in the subset of other physical entities to form a ranked subset of physical entities, the ranked subset comprising the applied search data, the ranked subset comprising the descriptive information corresponding to the other 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.