Appeal No. 1999-1852
Application No. 08/701,242
the Internet. The inventive system browses the same search space as a user but does so
faster and guided by the user’s past behavior. Without interruption of the user’s activities
or explicit requests for stated preferences, the invention provides an observational, rather
than conversational, mode of assistance and identifies additional items likely to be of
interest to the user based on previous choices made by the user.
Representative independent claim 1 is reproduced as follows:
1. Apparatus for identifying electronically encoded data items of interest to
a user, the data items being stored on at least one computer and being
identified by an item identifier, at least some of the data items being linked
to at least one other data item by specifying the identifier of the at least one
other data item, the apparatus comprising:
a. a computer memory;
b. interactive retrieval means comprising:
i. means responsive to a user-provided identifier for
causing retrieval to the computer memory and display
of the data item specified by the identifier; and
ii. means responsive to a user's selection of an
identifier appearing in an already-retrieved data item
for causing retrieval to the computer memory of the
linked data item specified by the identifier appearing in
the already-retrieved data item;
c. observational means, responsive to the interactive retrieval
means, for identifying user preference criteria through analysis of a user's
operation of the interactive retrieval means to retrieve data items but without
interruption of said operation;
2
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