Patents by Inventor Robert William Cathcart

Robert William Cathcart has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 11487769
    Abstract: A social networking system generates a newsfeed for a user to view when accessing the social networking system. Candidate stories associated with users of the social networking system are selected and an expected value score for each candidate story is determined. An expected value score is based on the probability of a user performing various types of interactions with a candidate story and a numerical value for each type of interaction. The numerical value for a type of interaction represents a value to the social networking system of the type of interaction. Based on the expected value scores, the candidate stories are ranked and the ranking used to select candidate stories for the newsfeed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2016
    Date of Patent: November 1, 2022
    Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc.
    Inventors: Yigal Dan Rubinstein, David Vickrey, Robert William Cathcart, Lars Seren Backstrom, Romain Jean Thibaux
  • Patent number: 10438300
    Abstract: A social networking system prices advertisements presented to a user of a social networking system via a client device in a state that provides the user with limited functionality by applying discount factors to bid amounts associated with advertisements selected for presentation. A discount factor is based on the likelihood of the user viewing or interacting with an advertisement via the social networking system presented while the client device is in the state providing the user with limited functionality. This likelihood is determined based on information including a history of user interaction with the client device and contextual information indicating whether the client device is in use.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 19, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Hong Ge, Robert William Cathcart, Nimrod Hoofien
  • Patent number: 10356135
    Abstract: A social networking system generates stories based on actions taken by entities of the social networking system. The system applies a set of rules to the stories to categorize each story and displays the news feed as multiple sections, each displaying a category of generated stories. A story may be categorized according to its content and/or the user associated with the story. In addition to stories about a user's direct connections, stories may be generated by the user's soft connections. Supplemental content may be generated based on a section of the newsfeed currently being accessed and displayed in a related content unit adjacent to a news feed section.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 22, 2013
    Date of Patent: July 16, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Xiao Ou Wang, Chris Struhar, Robert William Cathcart, Robyn David Morris, Laney Kuenzel
  • Patent number: 10311063
    Abstract: Embodiments improve the ability of users of a social networking system to search for information that is likely to be relevant to them by learning and/or applying a search context associated with selector components used to search for objects of the social networking system. The search context is specific to the use of an individual selector and thus need not be as general as the context of an entire page or set of pages in which selectors can be embedded. The social networking system may learn the context of a selector by monitoring user selections from prior search results performed using the selector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Cameron Alexander Marlow, Robert William Cathcart, Jeffrey Scott Dunn, Rafael Linden Sagula, Venkataramanan Iyer Nandagopal, Siddharth Kar, Eric Sun
  • Patent number: 10303696
    Abstract: Equivalent concepts expressed across multiple domains are matched and associated with a metapage generated by a social networking system. User preferences expressed on multiple domains, represented as pages in a social networking system, may be organized by concept and shared with advertisers, third-party developers, and other users of the social networking system using the metapages generated for the concepts. Aggregated social information may be presented to users of the social networking system viewing a page associated with a metapage. In one embodiment, a best page may be determined for a user based on information about the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 28, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Rafael Linden Sagula, Cameron Alexander Marlow, Jonathan Chang, Siddharth Kar, Eric Sun
  • Patent number: 10210465
    Abstract: Equivalent concepts expressed across multiple domains are matched and associated with a metapage generated by a social networking system. User preferences expressed on multiple domains, represented as pages in a social networking system, may be organized by concept and shared with advertisers, third-party developers, and other users using the metapages generated for the concepts. Aggregated social information may be presented to users viewing a page associated with a metapage. Information presented on external websites may be used to link pages across multiple domains with a metapage generated on the social networking system. Information on other external websites associated with the metapage may be presented as links on the pages associated with the metapage. Feedback from users may be used to include or exclude pages from being associated with a generated metapage. A best page for a concept embodied in multiple pages may be determined using a hierarchy of rules.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 19, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Rafael Linden Sagula, Cameron Alexander Marlow, Jonathan Chang, Siddharth Kar, Eric Sun
  • Patent number: 10178197
    Abstract: A social networking system leverages user's social information to evaluate content submitted for inclusion in objects. If the evaluated submission is accepted, the submission is added to the content of an object. Accepted submissions are also used to predict associations between metadata and objects. Metadata is used to predict which objects will match user searches for information. The social networking system also provides a user interface configured to prompt users to submit information to objects. When a user completes a submission to an object, the user is provided with other options for groups of objects to contribute to. The objects offered are chosen to increase the likelihood that the user will choose to provide submissions to one of the provided objects.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 30, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Jeffrey Scott Dunn, Robert William Cathcart, Cameron Alexander Marlow, Mukund Narasimhan, Yuankai Ge, Venkataramanan Iyer Nandagopal, Chad Little
  • Patent number: 10168853
    Abstract: A social networking system displays stories describing actions to a user in a news ticker. The stories may be selected so that a variety of types of stories, stories associated with a variety of users, or stories associated with a variety of actions are presented via the news ticker. Additionally, stories having a common characteristic, such as being associated with a common user, may be aggregated and a description of the aggregated stories is presented in the news ticker. For example, stories aggregated based on acting user may identify the user common to the stories and a description of the aggregated stories may be displayed. Further, the value to the social networking system of displaying different types of content may be used to modify how different types of content are displayed in the news ticker.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Ken Deeter, Robert William Cathcart
  • Patent number: 10007728
    Abstract: Equivalent concepts expressed across multiple domains are matched and associated with a metapage generated by a social networking system. User preferences expressed on multiple domains, represented as pages in a social networking system, may be organized by concept and shared with advertisers, third-party developers, and other users of the social networking system using the metapages generated for the concepts. Aggregated social information may be presented to users of the social networking system viewing a page associated with a metapage. Information presented on external websites may be used to link pages across multiple domains with a metapage generated on the social networking system, presenting the information on other external websites associated with the metapage as links on the pages associated with the metapage. Feedback from users may be used to include or exclude pages from being associated with a generated metapage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 12, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 26, 2018
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Rafael Linden Sagula, Cameron Alexander Marlow, Jonathan Chang, Siddharth Kar, Eric Sun
  • Patent number: 9826056
    Abstract: A social networking system displays stories describing actions to a user in a news ticker. The stories may be selected so that a variety of types of stories, stories associated with a variety of users, or stories associated with a variety of actions are presented via the news ticker. Additionally, stories having a common characteristic, such as being associated with a common user, may be aggregated and a description of the aggregated stories is presented in the news ticker. For example, stories aggregated based on acting user may identify the user common to the stories and a description of the aggregated stories may be displayed. Further, the value to the social networking system of displaying different types of content may be used to modify how different types of content are displayed in the news ticker.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2017
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Ken Deeter, Robert William Cathcart
  • Patent number: 9787620
    Abstract: A social networking system aggregates two or more stories having at least one common characteristic to create an aggregated story unit. Each story describes an action performed on an object over the social networking system or external to the social networking system. The aggregated story unit includes one or more input elements allowing a viewing user to interact with the aggregate story unit as a whole or with individual stories in the aggregated story unit. The input elements included in the aggregated story unit may be based on the types of the actions or of the objects described by stories in the aggregated story unit and on one or more input policies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 10, 2017
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Mark Tonkelowitz, Xiao Ou Wang
  • Publication number: 20170012914
    Abstract: A social networking system aggregates two or more stories having at least one common characteristic to create an aggregated story unit. Each story describes an action performed on an object over the social networking system or external to the social networking system. The aggregated story unit includes one or more input elements allowing a viewing user to interact with the aggregate story unit as a whole or with individual stories in the aggregated story unit. The input elements included in the aggregated story unit may be based on the types of the actions or of the objects described by stories in the aggregated story unit and on one or more input policies.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 26, 2016
    Publication date: January 12, 2017
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Mark Tonkelowitz, Xiao Ou Wang
  • Patent number: 9479347
    Abstract: A social networking system aggregates two or more stories having at least one common characteristic to create an aggregated story unit. Each story describes an action performed on an object over the social networking system or external to the social networking system. The aggregated story unit includes one or more input elements allowing a viewing user to interact with the aggregate story unit as a whole or with individual stories in the aggregated story unit. The input elements included in the aggregated story unit may be based on the types of the actions or of the objects described by stories in the aggregated story unit and on one or more input policies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2016
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2016
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Mark Tonkelowitz, Xiao Ou Wang
  • Publication number: 20160188607
    Abstract: A social networking system generates a newsfeed for a user to view when accessing the social networking system. Candidate stories associated with users of the social networking system are selected and an expected value score for each candidate story is determined. An expected value score is based on the probability of a user performing various types of interactions with a candidate story and a numerical value for each type of interaction. The numerical value for a type of interaction represents a value to the social networking system of the type of interaction. Based on the expected value scores, the candidate stories are ranked and the ranking used to select candidate stories for the newsfeed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 10, 2016
    Publication date: June 30, 2016
    Inventors: Dan Yigal Rubinstein, David Vickrey, Robert William Cathcart, Lars Seren Backstrom, Romain Jean Thibaux
  • Publication number: 20160191261
    Abstract: A social networking system aggregates two or more stories having at least one common characteristic to create an aggregated story unit. Each story describes an action performed on an object over the social networking system or external to the social networking system. The aggregated story unit includes one or more input elements allowing a viewing user to interact with the aggregate story unit as a whole or with individual stories in the aggregated story unit. The input elements included in the aggregated story unit may be based on the types of the actions or of the objects described by stories in the aggregated story unit and on one or more input policies.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 8, 2016
    Publication date: June 30, 2016
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Mark Tonkelowitz, Xiao Ou Wang
  • Patent number: 9378529
    Abstract: A social networking system generates a newsfeed for a user to view when accessing the social networking system. Candidate stories associated with users of the social networking system are selected and an expected value score for each candidate story is determined. An expected value score is based on the probability of a user performing various types of interactions with a candidate story and a numerical value for each type of interaction. The numerical value for a type of interaction represents a value to the social networking system of the type of interaction. Based on the expected value scores, the candidate stories are ranked and the ranking used to select candidate stories for the newsfeed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 28, 2016
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Yigal Dan Rubinstein, David Vickrey, Robert William Cathcart, Lars Seren Backstrom, Romain Jean Thibaux
  • Publication number: 20160132570
    Abstract: Equivalent concepts expressed across multiple domains are matched and associated with a metapage generated by a social networking system. User preferences expressed on multiple domains, represented as pages in a social networking system, may be organized by concept and shared with advertisers, third-party developers, and other users of the social networking system using the metapages generated for the concepts. Aggregated social information may be presented to users of the social networking system viewing a page associated with a metapage. In one embodiment, a best page may be determined for a user based on information about the user.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 28, 2015
    Publication date: May 12, 2016
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Rafael Linden Sagula, Cameron Alexander Marlow, Jonathan Chang, Siddharth Kar, Eric Sun
  • Patent number: 9336553
    Abstract: A social networking system generates a newsfeed for a user to view when accessing the social networking system. Candidate stories associated with users of the social networking system are selected and attributes of each story are determined. The candidate stories are ranked so that the ranking of a candidate story having one or more common attributes with another candidate story is modified. This reduces the likelihood of the newsfeed presenting candidate stories with common attributes proximate to each other.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 10, 2016
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Dan Yigal Rubinstein, David Vickrey, Robert William Cathcart, Lars Seren Backstrom, Romain Jean Thibaux
  • Patent number: 9319472
    Abstract: A social networking system aggregates two or more stories having at least one common characteristic to create an aggregated story unit. Each story describes an action performed on an object over the social networking system or external to the social networking system. The aggregated story unit includes one or more input elements allowing a viewing user to interact with the aggregate story unit as a whole or with individual stories in the aggregated story unit. The input elements included in the aggregated story unit may be based on the types of the actions or of the objects described by stories in the aggregated story unit and on one or more input policies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 5, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 19, 2016
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Mark Tonkelowitz, Vivian Wang
  • Patent number: 9251500
    Abstract: Equivalent concepts expressed across multiple domains are matched and associated with a metapage generated by a social networking system. User preferences expressed on multiple domains, represented as pages in a social networking system, may be organized by concept and shared with advertisers, third-party developers, and other users of the social networking system using the metapages generated for the concepts. Aggregated social information may be presented to users of the social networking system viewing a page associated with a metapage. Information presented on external websites may be used to link pages across multiple domains with a metapage generated on the social networking system. A best page may be determined for a concept embodied in multiple pages on the social networking system using a hierarchy of rules. A best page may also be determined for a user based on information about the user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 2, 2016
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert William Cathcart, Rafael Linden Sagula, Cameron Alexander Marlow, Jonathan Chang, Siddharth Kar, Eric Sun