{
  "patent_number": "US 8606792",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How Google's Patent Scores Authors and Posts on Messaging Systems",
  "original_title": "Scoring authors of posts",
  "summary": "Google's 2013 patent describes a system for ranking authors and their posts on a messaging platform based on user interactions and subscriptions, influencing content visibility.",
  "what_it_does": "This patent describes a way for a messaging system, like a social media feed, to figure out how important authors and their posts are. It calculates a 'score' for each author based on how much other authors interact with their posts (like commenting or liking them). Crucially, an author's score can also be influenced by the scores of authors who subscribe to their posts. When a new post is made, it gets a score based on the author's score. This post is then sent to authors who have subscribed to that author. The system can even decide to show the post to authors who *haven't* subscribed, if the post's score meets certain criteria, essentially promoting popular or influential content.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Does not cover systems where author scores are determined solely by external factors, not by interactions within the messaging system.",
    "Does not cover methods that don't consider authors subscribing to other authors' posts when calculating scores.",
    "Does not cover systems that don't assign a score to individual posts.",
    "Does not cover the transmission of posts only to authors who have explicitly subscribed to a specific author's stream.",
    "Does not cover methods that don't evaluate if a post's score meets a criterion for wider distribution."
  ],
  "filed": "2010-04-07",
  "granted": "2013-12-10",
  "expires": null,
  "status": "active",
  "holder": "Google LLC",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/google-llc",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "Andrew A. Bunner",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/andrew-a-bunner"
    },
    {
      "name": "Todd Jackson",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/todd-jackson"
    },
    {
      "name": "John Pongsajapan",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/john-pongsajapan"
    },
    {
      "name": "Edward S. Ho",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/edward-s-ho"
    },
    {
      "name": "Matthew S. Steiner",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/matthew-s-steiner"
    },
    {
      "name": "Keith J. Coleman",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/keith-j-coleman"
    },
    {
      "name": "Sean E. McBride",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/sean-e-mcbride"
    },
    {
      "name": "Annie Tsung-I Chen",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/annie-tsung-i-chen"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jessica Shih-Lan Cheng",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/jessica-shih-lan-cheng"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 150,
  "tags": [
    "social_media",
    "software",
    "telecommunications",
    "consumer_electronics"
  ],
  "abstract": "In general, the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods, systems, and program products. A score for each of a plurality of authors of posts submitted to a server system is determined. The score for each individual author in the plurality is based on a score of one or more authors in the plurality that have requested to subscribe to a stream of posts that the individual author submits to the server system. A particular post submitted by a particular author in the plurality is received at the server system and from a computing device. A score is assigned to the particular post based on a score of the particular author. The particular post is transmitted from the server system to computing devices that are associated with authors who have requested to subscribe to posts by the particular author.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/8606792/facebook-timeline",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/8606792/facebook-timeline/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US8606792",
  "relatedPatents": []
}