JOHN W. ROPER, M.D.
Osteopathic Medicine at 156 Ave, Redmond, WA

2011023, Sep 29, 2011

Mar 28, 2011

13/073926

Naren Chittar - San Jose CA, US
Sanjay Pundlkrao Ghatare - San Jose CA, US
Richard D. Henderson - San Jose CA, US
Ryan McDonald - San Francisco CA, US
John Roper - Sammamish WA, US

eBay Inc. - San Jose CA

G06F 17/30

707724, 707769, 707723, 707E17019, 707E17069

Using a processor, receiving, a query including a query image. A database is searched for a set of images similar to the query image, using a two-pass search. The results of the searching are then provided, the results including image members of the set of images similar to the query image. The first pass may be performed using a TF-IDF algorithm and the second pass ranks a predetermined number of results from the first pass by a best match algorithm or other type of algorithm. The type of second pass algorithm may be selectable by a user. If an end signal is not detected, a further two-pass search may be made based on a subsequent query having a subsequent query image. The subsequent query image may one of the results of the previous two pass search. A subsequent query image may change from an image of a product of a first product category to an image of a product of a second product category.

2011023, Sep 29, 2011

Mar 28, 2011

13/073911

Naren Chittar - San Jose CA, US
Sanjay Pundlkrao Ghatare - San Jose CA, US
Ryan McDonald - San Francisco CA, US
John Roper - Sammamish WA, US
Michael Schmitz - Everett WA, US

eBay Inc. - San Jose CA

G06K 9/00

382162

A system and method, which may be an offline method, extracts relevant image features about listing items in a network-based publication system for enabling image similarity searching of such listing items. When a seller lists an item, an image of the item is uploaded and may be sent to a picture processing service, which generates several digests. The digests are compressed data structures each representing a particular image feature such as edge, color, texture, or words. These digests are then stored in a search database, where the digests can be used to retrieve listings by image similarity at scale. A similar process can be performed for a query listing for searching the search database for items similar to the query listing.

2011031, Dec 22, 2011

Mar 28, 2011

13/073936

Naren Chittar - San Jose CA, US
Sandip Gaikwad - Sunnyvale CA, US
Sanjay Pundlkrao Ghatare - San Jose CA, US
Ryan McDonald - San Francisco CA, US
John Roper - Sammamish WA, US

eBay Inc. - San Jose CA

G06F 17/30

707749, 707E17019

A weighted combination of attributes including but not limited to color, shape, pattern, brand, style, size, and material may be used to rank items when searching for similar items of a given category on an ecommerce system website. The weights on each attribute may be optimized by using feedback from users, the feedback indicating the importance of each attribute to a purchaser when searching for similar items of various categories. Alternatively, click-through patterns from the ecommerce system website can be mined and used to optimize the importance of each attribute to users by item category. The optimum attribute weights for that items category are used to rank the results in a search for similar items in that category.

6986100, Jan 10, 2006

Sep 29, 2000

09/676364

John D. Roper - Redmond WA, US
Steven D. Copson - Seattle WA, US
Daniel B. Cook - Seattle WA, US
Peter H. Brussard - Seattle WA, US
Mark Ugar - Seattle WA, US
Arnold N. Blinn - Bellevue WA, US
Kathryn L. Sparr - Seattle WA, US

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

G06F 17/24, G06F 17/27

715511, 715513, 715530, 715539, 715540, 715908, 705 14

A method for balancing the allocation of available display slots on a Web page among a plurality of different sources of display items comprises (a) defining for each source a set of candidate items to be displayed, (b) selecting items from a pool of all candidate sets, in a manner that normalizes the probability that the items of any one candidate set will be selected in relation to the items of the other candidate sets, and (c) inserting the selected items into the available display slots of the Web page.

7152202, Dec 19, 2006

Jun 3, 2005

11/144367

John D. Roper - Redmond WA, US
Steven D. Copson - Seattle WA, US
Daniel B. Cook - Seattle WA, US
Peter H. Brussard - Seattle WA, US
Mark Ugar - Seattle WA, US
Arnold N. Blinn - Bellevue WA, US
Kathryn L. Sparr - Seattle WA, US

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

G06F 17/24, G06F 17/27

715511, 715513, 715539, 715540, 705 14

A method for balancing the allocation of available display slots on a Web page among a plurality of different sources of display items comprises (a) defining for each source a set of candidate items to be displayed, (b) selecting items from a pool of all candidate sets, in a manner that normalizes the probability that the items of any one candidate set will be selected in relation to the items of the other candidate sets, and (c) inserting the selected items into the available display slots of the Web page.

2011025, Oct 20, 2011

Apr 15, 2010

12/761272

John Roper - Sammamish WA, US
Dane Glasgow - Los Altos CA, US

G06F 17/00

715234

A method and system for removing chrome from a web page is provided. An example system includes a parsing module, a text density analyzer, a content node selector , and a text extractor. The parsing module may be configured to parse a web page into a tree structure. The text density analyzer may be configured to determine a text density score value for each node from the tree structure. The content node selector may be configured to identify one or more nodes from the tree structure as content nodes based on their respective text density score values. The text extractor may be configured to extract text from the content nodes only.