PATROLL Winning Submission

U.S. Patent 7,590,636

U.S. Patent 7,590,636 (“Gravel” or the “patent-at-issue”) was filed on February 6, 2006
and claims priority to October 8, 1999. Claims 1, 4, 5, 8, and 9 of the patent-at-issue are
generally directed to a knowledge sharing method and system that comprises receiving
information input and organizing items of information in a database. Accordingly, a knowledge
sharing system and interface are provided which allows every member of a knowledge sharing
group to benefit from aggregate knowledge, experience, and opinions of other members of the
group. The system and method allow individual members to easily locate the information from a
collectively generated knowledge base that is most consistent with that individual's personal
measures of value in the information. More specifically, it is a system and apparatus for allowing
groups of individuals connected to a computer network such as the Internet to collaboratively
build a self-organizing knowledge base that uses ratings and commentary provided by a plurality
of users to rank, sort, and deliver the information from the knowledge base which best matches
each individual user's personal criteria for value in information.

The primary reference, the PCT application published as Publication WO 95/29451

(“Apple”), was filed on April 24, 1995. According to its cover page, the publication claims a
priority date of April 25, 1994 on the basis of a prior application. The publication is directed to
information access in multiuser computer systems, and more particularly to a system
for ranking the relevance of information that is accessed via a computer. A profile of interests is
stored for each user having access to the system. Using this profile, items of information to be
presented to the user are ranked according to their likely degree of relevance and displayed with
an indication of their relative ranking. More specifically, the prediction of relevance is carried
out by combining data pertaining to one or more attributes of each item of information with other
data regarding correlations of interests between users, to produce a ranking score for a document.

The secondary reference, U.S. Patent 6,438,579 (“Microsoft”), was filed on July 14,
2000. According to the first paragraph in the specification, the patent claims the priority of a
prior application filed on July 16, 1999. The patent is directed to a content and
collaborative filtering system for recommending entertainment-oriented content items, such as
music and videos, and other media content to a user. More specifically, the system stores implicit
and explicit ratings data from the user and other users for such content items. Upon user request,
the system accesses the user's profile and corresponding content interests database and uses the
relationships between the content items to determine a subset of the content items to be referred
to the user. The system also correlates a similarity between the ratings of the content items from
the user and other users. From this, a subset of other users is selected to provide
recommendations to the user. As a result, the recommended items have a high probability of
being subjectively appreciated by the user, who is allowed to explore related items.

A sample claim chart comparing claims 1, 4, 5, 8, and 9 of Gravel to Apple and Microsoft
is provided below.

1

US7590636 (“Gravel”)
1. A computer-implemented method,
comprising:
a computer system storing items of
information in a database, wherein
the items are received from a first set micro, mini or mainframe computer having sufficient storage
of two or more of a plurality of remote capacity to accommodate all of the items of information to
computer systems coupled to the
computer system via a computer
network;
the computer system receiving, via the
computer network, submissions
regarding two or more particular
ones of the stored items of
information, wherein each submission
is received from a corresponding one
of a second set of two or more of the
plurality of remote computer systems,
wherein each of said submissions
includes a rating and/or a comment
regarding a corresponding one of the
stored items that has been transmitted
to the corresponding remote computer
system via the computer network by
the computer system;
A. WO1995029451 (“Apple”)
B. US6438579 (“Microsoft”)
A. WO1995029451
“The illustrated architecture comprises a client-server
arrangement, in which a database of information is stored at
a server computer 10, and is accessible through various
client computers 12, 14. The server 10 can be any suitable
be presented to users. The client computers can be suitable
desktop computers 12 or portable computers 14, e.g., notebook
computers, having the ability to access the server computer 10.
Such access might be provided, for example, via a local area
network or over a wide area through the use of modems,
telephone lines, and/or wireless communications.” Apple at
5:27-6:5.
B. US6438579
“5. A method of providing media content recommendations
through a computer server system connected to a network
communications system, wherein said computer server
system has access to a first database of media content items
including media content and related information....” Microsoft
at Microsoft at 17:22-26.
A. WO1995029451
“The contents of the message, e.g., its text, is displayed in the
main portion of the window...the header can contain the same
information as provided in the columns shown in the interface
of Figure 3, i.e., author, date and title. Located to the right of
this information are two icons which permit the user to
indicate his or her interest in that particular message. If
the user found the message to be of interest, a "thumbs-
up" icon 38 can be selected. Alternatively, if the message
was of little of no interest to the user, a "thumbs-down"
icon 40 can be selected. When either of these two icons is
selected, the indication provided thereby is forwarded to
the server 10, where it is used to update the user profile. In the
example of Figure 4, the user is provided with only two
possible selections for indicating interest, i.e., "thumbs-up"
or "thumbs-down", resulting in very coarse granularity for
the indication of interest. If desired, finer resolution can be
obtained by providing additional options for the user. For
example, three options can be provided to enable the user
2
(cont.)
the computer system receiving, via the
computer network, submissions
regarding two or more particular
ones of the stored items of
information, wherein each submission
is received from a corresponding one
of a second set of two or more of the
plurality of remote computer systems,
wherein each of said submissions
includes a rating and/or a comment
regarding a corresponding one of the
stored items that has been transmitted
to the corresponding remote computer
system via the computer network by
the computer system;
the computer system storing the
received submissions in the database;
to indicate high interest, mediocre interest, or minimal
interest.” Apple at 8:11-28.
B. US6438579
“The process 36 operates to encourage users 38 to provide
source information 40 as at least the initial basis for directing
the production of a recommendation set. This information 40
may provide express indications of the interest level in
different types and instances of media content and media
content items, Such as media tracks, artists, and collections.
These indications or ratings are stored for both general use
in connection with the production of recommendation sets
for all users and specifically in regard to productions for the
respective users. The ratings are preferably stored as user
profiles 24.” Microsoft at 6:7-18.
“2. Ongoing Ratings A specific ratings request presented
whenever a particular content item is considered by a user;
provided to allow the user to continually update and refine the
user's profile.
3. Rating of Specific New Content Spot-light type quick
rating poll presented to user regarding new or special content
items.
4. Review Ratings Rating of perceived value of opinions
expressed by particular analysts, periodicals, and other
information resources.
5. Post Purchase Ratings Prompted rating of prior content
purchases.” Microsoft at 10:27-35.
A. WO1995029451
“In the embodiment illustrated in Figures 1 and 2, all items of
information available to users can be stored in a single
database 22. If desired, multiple databases directed to
specific categories of information can be provided. For
example, a separately accessible database of movie
descriptions can be provided, to make movie recommendations
to users. Each separate database can have its own profile
for users who access that database. Thus, each time a user
sees a movie, he or she can record his or her reaction to it,
e.g., like or dislike. This information is used to update the
user's profile for the movie database, as well as provide
information to rank that movie for viewing by other users
whose interests in movies are similar or opposed.” Apple at
9:12-22.
3
(cont.)
the computer system storing the
received submissions in the database;
the computer system receiving a
request from a given one of the
plurality of remote computer systems
to view a listing of the stored items
of information according to an
ordering consistent with a selected
criterion that pertains to the stored
submissions; and
B. US6438579
“Explicit profiling data provided by the user and implicitly
derived from referral system 20 processes are preferably
processed 22 and stored 24 by the server system 18.”
Microsoft at 4:46-49.
“These indications or ratings are stored for both general use
in connection with the production of recommendation sets for
all users and specifically in regard to productions for the
respective users. The ratings are preferably stored as user
profiles 24.” Microsoft at 6:14-18.
A. WO1995029451
“Each client computer is associated with one or more users of
the information access system. It includes a suitable
communication program that enables the user to access
messages stored at the server machine.” Apple at 6:6-8.
“A list of the ranked messages is provided to the client
program, which displays some number of them through a
suitable interface. Preferably, the messages are sorted and
displayed in order from the highest to the lowest ranking.”
Apple at 7:15-18.
B. US6438579
“The referral system 20 thus operates from a user provided
request, typically identifying some media content item or
artist, individual and collaborative profiles 24, and the content
relations 26 to provide a set of recommended media content
items that are believed likely to be of particular interest to
the user.” Microsoft at 5:20-25.
“Thus, normalized, traversals that complete may then be
ranked and sorted based on whatever criteria selected by
the user, whether alphabetically by artist, total strength rating,
or level of confidence.” Microsoft at 13:3-6.
4
responsive to the request, the computer
system providing a first set of data to
the given remote computer system,
wherein the first set of data is usable
on the given remote computer system
to display said listing of the stored
items according to said ordering.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the
database includes an extensible
hierarchy of information categories,
wherein the method further comprises
permitting said given remote
computer system to navigate
through the extensible hierarchy.
A. WO1995029451
“A list of the ranked messages is provided to the client
program, which displays some number of them through a
suitable interface. Preferably, the messages are sorted and
displayed in order from the highest to the lowest ranking.”
“Other display techniques can be employed in addition to, or in
lieu of, sorting the messages in order of rank. For example, the
color, size and/or intensity of each displayed message can be
varied in accordance with its predicted relevance. When the
user desires to view any particular message, the desired
message is selected within the window, using any suitable
technique for doing so. Once a message has been selected by
the user, the client program informs the server 10 of the
selected message. In response thereto, the server retrieves the
complete text of the message from the stored file 22, and
forwards it to the client, where it is displayed.” Apple at
7:15-18, 7:30-8:5.
B. US6438579
“The referral system 20 thus operates from a user provided
request, typically identifying some media content item or artist,
individual and collaborative profiles 24, and the content
relations 26 to provide a set of recommended media content
items that are believed likely to be of particular interest to
the user.” Microsoft at 5:20-25.
A. WO1995029451
“In the embodiment illustrated in Figures 1 and 2, all items of
information available to users can be stored in a single
database 22. If desired, multiple databases directed to
specific categories of information can be provided . . . . Each
separate database can have its own profile for users who
access that database.” Apple at 9:12-18.
B. US6438579
“The system and methods of the present invention preferably
provide for a user, operating a user computer system 12
with a network access supported interface 14, such as a
conventional Web browser application, to access and
navigate, via a communications network 16, through
information presented by a server computer system 18.”
Microsoft at 4:33-38.
5
(cont.)
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the
database includes an extensible
hierarchy of information categories,
wherein the method further comprises
permitting said given remote
computer system to navigate
through the extensible hierarchy.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the
request is received from the given
remote computer system after
receiving information from the given
remote computer system indicating
that a user of the given remote
computer system has elected to
navigate to a particular one of the
information categories within the
extensible hierarchy, wherein said
stored items of information are
associated with the particular
information category.
“As preferably presented in the browser 14, the user may
variously navigate the set of recommendations, including
requesting samples of particular content items. A database of
content samples 28 may be provided as part of the server
computer system 18 directly...” Microsoft at 5:25-29.
“This database 26 preferably specifies logical connections
between different media content items based on the sharing
or similarity of characterizing attributes. In the case of
music-type audio media content, these characterizing attributes
maybe recognized as the empirically defined genre distinctions
that occur between different music content items. These
distinctions may be identified as belonging within some
generic categories or styles, such as orchestral, blues, and
pop, and perhaps within somewhat more descriptive
categories, such as 1980s Dance, Rock Anthems, and Techno-
Ambient Synth Mixes.” Microsoft at 4:59-5:2.
A. WO1995029451
“13. The method of claim 1 wherein said information access
system is an electronic bulletin board system, and said method
is employed to rank items of information in a topic category
selected by a user.” Apple at 16:21-23.
“In accordance with the invention, a combination of
attribute-based and correlation-based prediction is
employed to rank the relevance of each item of
information. For example, a weighted sum of scores that are
obtained from each of the content and correlation predictors
can be used, to determine a final ranking score.” Apple at
12:13-17.
“Depending upon the particular information access system that
is being used, the type of information presented to the user
may vary. In the embodiment illustrated in Figures 1 and 2, all
items of information available to users can be stored in a single
database 22. If desired, multiple databases directed to
specific categories of information can be provided.” Apple
at 9:11-15.
B. US6438579
“In accordance with the present invention, the user navigation
of a presented recommendation set and the user actions in
reviewing and considering individual and groups of media
content items are utilized in the progressive modification and
6
(cont.)
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the
request is received from the given
remote computer system after
receiving information from the given
remote computer system indicating
that a user of the given remote
computer system has elected to
navigate to a particular one of the
information categories within the
extensible hierarchy, wherein said
stored items of information are
associated with the particular
information category.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the
computer system maintains at most
one rating per contribution source
for any given one of the stored items of
information.
refinement of the profiles data 24.” Microsoft at 5:42-46.
“2. Target Clusters Internally contains categorization
details of user groups preferably on the basis of the strength of
interest relative to some distinguishing characterizing
attributes.” Microsoft at 8:12-13.
“The preferred uses of the system can be grouped into two
main classes. The first class relates to uses where the system
assists the user in narrowing down the number of choices that
the user is faced with, at which point the user begins
exploring the recommendations and related items using the
navigation aids provided by the system before selecting an
item to purchase or consume. An example of a use of this first
group would be to help users identify compact discs that they
may be interested in purchasing. The system would suggest a
list of compact discs, and the user would then look at the
details of the albums individually, and may listen to some
preview samples of the tracks on the album. Alternatively, the
user may navigate to related items (albums, artists, genres
etc.) using the relationship navigation tools. Either way they
would eventually decide on which item to purchase based on
the information provided to them.” Microsoft at 13:34-50.
A. WO1995029451
“An example of an interface for the display of a message is
illustrated in Figure 4. Referring thereto, the message can be
displayed in an appropriate window 34. The contents of the
message, e.g., its text, is displayed in the main portion of the
window. Located above this main portion is header 36 which
contains certain information regarding the message. For
example, the header can contain the same information as
provided in the columns shown in the interface of Figure 3,
i.e., author, date and title. Located to the right of this
information are two icons which permit the user to indicate
his or her interest in that particular message. If the user
found the message to be of interest, a "thumbs-up" icon 38
can be selected. Alternatively, if the message was of little of
no interest to the user, a "thumbs-down" icon 40 can be
selected.” Apple at 8:9-21.
7
(cont.)
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the
computer system maintains at most
one rating per contribution source
for any given one of the stored items of
information.
9. The method of claim 1 further
comprising: controlling said receiving
and said storing of the submissions to
prevent a given contribution source
from rating a given one of the stored
items of information more than
once.
B. US6438579
“The items in the result table are then compared with the users
favorite items table with any duplicates removed from the
result table. This ensures that the system does not display
items the user has already rated in the recommendations.”
Microsoft at 16:29-32.
A. WO1995029451
“In the example of Figure 4, the user is provided with only
two possible selections for indicating interest, i.e., "thumbs-
up" or "thumbs-down", resulting in very coarse granularity
for the indication of interest.” Apple at 8:23-25.
“To this end, the interface provided by the client program can
be designed such that the window 34 containing the content
of the message, as illustrated in Figure 4, cannot be closed
unless one of the options is selected. More particularly, the
window illustrated in Figure 4 does not include a
conventional button or the like for enabling the window to
be closed.” Apple at 8:31-9:5.
B. US6438579
“The items in the result table are then compared with the users
favorite items table with any duplicates removed from the
result table. This ensures that the system does not display
items the user has already rated in the recommendations.”
Microsoft at 16:29-32.