The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 03, 2015
Filed:
Jan. 06, 2012
Maria Florina Balcan, Atlanta, GA (US);
Christian H. Borgs, Boston, MA (US);
Mark Braverman, Princeton, NJ (US);
Jennifer T. Chayes, Boston, MA (US);
Shanghua Teng, Los Angeles, CA (US);
Maria Florina Balcan, Atlanta, GA (US);
Christian H. Borgs, Boston, MA (US);
Mark Braverman, Princeton, NJ (US);
Jennifer T. Chayes, Boston, MA (US);
Shanghua Teng, Los Angeles, CA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A technique for identifying overlapping clusters of items in a data set. The technique may be used in connection with a social network or other on-line environment in which users express approval for other users, such as through votes, tags or other inputs. These expressions of approval may be used to form clusters such that entities assigned to a cluster have a higher metric of approval from other entities within the cluster than from outside the cluster. Such clusters may be arrived at through a computationally efficient approach that involves randomly selecting one or more entities as a seed for a cluster. The cluster may be grown by testing other entities, similar to those already in the cluster, to determine whether they are more preferred by those already in the cluster than those outside the cluster. Once a cluster is grown to a desired size, it may be pruned.