For our August 2013 issue, we review recent patents in the area of clustering and nearest neighbor methods. These methods have a large number of applications, and the ones featured below include image processing, speaker recognition, and mobile and internet advertising. Some of the patents below are concerned with generalized techniques, including nearest neighbor methods for non-Euclidean manifolds, or clustering techniques based on tensor factorization. Number: 8,280,839 Title: Nearest neighbor methods for non-Euclidean manifolds Inventors: Ivanov; Yuri A. ,Choudhry; Rizwan Issued: October 2, 2012 Assignee: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. (Cambridge, MA) Number: 8,205,237 Title: Identifying works, using a sub-linear time search, such as an approximate nearest neighbor search, for initiating a work-based action, such as an action on the internet Inventors: Cox; Ingemar J. Issued: June 19, 2012 Assignee: The inventor. Number: 8,185,391 Title: Speaker recognition via voice sample based on multiple nearest neighbor classifiers Inventors:Das; Amitava Issued:May 22, 2012 Assignee:Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA) Number: 8,073,871 Title: Nearest neighbor recommendation method and system Inventors: Gutta; Srinivas V. R., Schaffer; J. David, Kurapati; Kaushal Issued: December 6, 2011 Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Eindhoven, The Netherlands) Number: 8,237,825 Title: Pixel replacement using five nearest neighbors Inventors: Wright; James Corey, Fleming; Paul Issued: August 7, 2012 Assignee: Exelis, Inc. (McLean, VA) Number: 8,484,140 Title: Feature vector clustering Inventors: Thompson; Donald, Stojanovic; Alexander S. Issued: July 9, 2013 Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA) Number: 8,363,961 Title: Clustering techniques for large, high-dimensionality data sets Inventors: Avidan; Shmuel, Shapira; Lior Issued: January 29, 2013 Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (San Jose, CA) Number: 8,423,547 Title: Efficient query clustering using multi-partite graphs Inventors: Liu; Tie-Yan, Wang; Taifeng Issued: April 16, 2013 Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA) Number: 8,463,783 Title: Advertisement selection data clustering Inventors: Yagnik; Niyati Issued: June 11, 2013 Assignee: Google Inc. (Mountain View, CA) Number: 8,396,822 Title: Clustering cookies for identifying unique mobile devices Inventors: Dasgupta; Anirban, Zhang; Liang, Gurevich; Maxim, Thomas; Achint Oommen, Tseng; Belle Issued: March 12, 2013 Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA) Number: 8,452,770 Title: Constrained nonnegative tensor factorization for clustering Inventors: Peng; Wei Issued: May 28, 2013 Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Norwalk, CT) If you have an interesting patent to share when we next feature patents related to nearest neighbor clustering, or if you are especially interested in a signal processing research field that you would want to be highlighted in this section, please send email to Shantanu Rane (rane AT merl DOT com).