Approach for estimating user ratings of items

(54) APPROACH FOR ESTIMATING USER
RATINGS OF ITEMS

(75) Inventors: W. Reed Hastings, Santa Cruz, CA
(US); Neil Duncan Hunt, Mountain
View, CA (US); Marc B. Randolph,
Santa Cruz, CA (US); John Robert
Ciancutti, Mountain View, CA (US);
Stanley Miguel Lanning, La Honda, CA
(US)

(73) Assignee: Netflix, Inc., Los Gatos, CA (US)

( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 601 days.

(21) Appl.No.: 09/884,816

(22) Filed: Jun. 18, 2001

Related U.S. Application Data

(63) Continuation-in-part of application No. 09/561,041, filed on Apr. 28, 2000, now Pat. No. 6,584,450.

(60) Provisional application No. 60/244,793, filed on Oct. 31, 2000, provisional application No. 60/212,193, filed on Jun. 16, 2000.

(51) Int. CI.

G06Q 30/00 (2006.01)

(52) U.S. CI 705/26

(58) Field of Classification Search 705/26

See application file for complete search history.

(56) References Cited

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 5,095,195 A 3/1992 Harman et al.

According to another embodiment of the invention, an approach is provided for estimating how a user would rate an item that the user has not yet rated. The approach is applicable to any type of items, including rental items such as movies and games, and the invention is not limited to any particular type of item. The approach is applicable to a wide variety of contexts and is ideally suited for automatically selecting rental items to be recommended for rental. One or more items that have been rated by the user are identified. Then, one or more other users are identified that have rated the one or more items and given ratings to the one or more items that are substantially similar to ratings given by user to the one or more items. Finally, an estimation is made how the user would rate the item that the user has not yet rated based upon how the one or more other users rated the item.

18 Claims, 13 Drawing Sheets

700

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