[BubbleRings]

I filed my collaborative filtering patent in 1995, describing the core basic way that your “desert island 5 favorite albums”, and the 5 favorites list from many other people, could be used to recommend music you would like. The patent is a nice tutorial on how it is done, check it out here if you’d like:

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9d/f9/19/08ac5ef...

Here is part of the story on my website… I’ll write it up better one of these days:

https://www.whiteis.com/similarities-engine

Yeah yeah it was a software patent. If that bugs you, you can take solace in the fact that I blew it executing on monetizing it. Microsoft ended up owning it and I went on to other adventures.

Here’s a list of the 456 US Patents that cite the Similarities Engine patent as prior art: https://www.whiteis.com/cites-to-se-patent