Today, there are a wide variety of Internet websites that employ online matching systems. Such websites might provide services related to online dating, job searching, shopping, and so forth. In a typical online matching system, a profile might be used that involves a set of attributes. For example, in the online dating context, the profile might include attributes such as age, education, and interests. In the online dating context, the descriptions of the attributes might be organized in an “about me” section that specifies a prospect's own attributes and an “ideal match” section that specifies a range of attributes that the prospect considers compatible.
A typical online matching system might provide algorithmic estimates of a compatibility of two participants, A and B, by comparing the “about me” values of each attribute in A's profile with the “ideal match” values for that attribute within B's profile, and vice versa. However, the typical online matching system has every participant provide a detailed profile that typically includes both the participant's “about me” and their “ideal match” descriptions. While this approach enables the online matching systems to base its compatibility estimates on complete data, many prospective participants are reluctant to provide such detailed profile information. As such, at least some of these prospective participants might select to provide false profile information instead. Still others might elect to not participate in the online matching system. In either instance, the prospective participant may either receive poor compatibility results (based at least in part on the false profile information), or fail to receive any results (based on a failure to participate at all).
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds