US Patent 10162868 Data mining system for assessing pairwise item similarity

Data mining systems and methods are disclosed for evaluating pairwise substitutability relationships among items. For example, a pairwise similarity measure may correspond to a value quantifying the extent to which an item A is favored over an item B by a population of users. Given a base item selected by a user, the system may select a candidate item from a set of potential substitute items for the base item based on current estimates of corresponding pairwise similarities. The system may then present the candidate item to the user in a context of comparison against the base item and obtain an indication of user preference between the two. The system may then update corresponding pairwise similarities based on the indication of preference.