US 2,014,129,942 · Filed 2011-05-25

The Patent That Described Social Media Feeds Before Instagram Blew Up

Imagine a system that watches what you do online—like the videos you watch, photos you post, or activities you perform—then automatically creates a personalized feed of similar stuff from people you follow, all filtered by your privacy choices. This patent describes the mechanics of how a platform would capture, organize, and show you that feed in real time.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a method for tracking and recording users' actions and activities across multiple sources, storing that data in a database with associated metadata, filtering it based on user preferences and privacy settings, and then dynamically generating and displaying customized feeds of video, images, or multimedia content to other users. What's protected here is the entire pipeline—from capture through filtering to presentation—of activity-based feeds that can be searched, played, paused, and navigated by viewers.

Why it matters

This patent captures the core architecture of modern social media platforms: the idea of monitoring user behavior, storing it with context, and then algorithmically serving related content to other users based on preferences. Filed in 2011, it predates or runs parallel to the explosive growth of activity feeds on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. The protection matters because any platform that automatically generates and displays user-activity feeds based on similar mechanics could potentially infringe on these claims.

Real-world use

Every time you open Instagram or TikTok and see a feed of videos from accounts you follow—filtered by what you've watched before and what the platform thinks you'll like—you're interacting with technology covered by this patent's core concepts.

Original USPTO abstract

The method of presenting and accessing visual, video, stream media or multimedia actions and activities feeds is described. A method includes monitoring, tracking, capturing & recording each user's sequences of a plurality of actions and activities with associate data and metadata from one or more sources based on one or more preferences, privacy settings and filtering of action or activity types, storing and processing each user's said plurality of actions and activities in a database in image frame(s), video, streaming media or multimedia data format with contextual, relevant and location & position specific one or more actions or activities items & associate data and metadata, generating visual, video, stream media or multimedia actions and activities feeds for one or more actions or activities for one or more determined receiving users based on one or more filters, preferences and privacy settings of sender(s) and/or receiver(s), dynamically presenting said visual or video actions and activities feeds from one or more sources or senders to one or more determined receiving or viewing users based on one or more filters, preferences and privacy settings of sender(s) and/or receiver(s), allowing viewing user to select, search, match, load, download, edit, filter, access, process and play, forward, backward, pause, stop said visual or video actions and activities feeds based on one or more preferences and settings, dynamically presenting current image frame(s), video, stream or multimedia data position specific or action or activity item(s) video clip specific one or more contextual, associate and relevant action or activity item(s) with associate data and metadata and allowing user to dynamically access said one or more presented dynamic, contextual, associate and relevant action or activity item(s) and associate data and metadata.

Patent details

Publication number: US 2,014,129,942
Filing date: 2011-05-25
Grant date: Application — not yet granted
Assignee: Yogesh Chunilal Rathod
Inventor(s): RATHOD YOGESH CHUNILAL
CPC class: H04N21/44226

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