Double-Blind Financial Services Information Marketplace

• US 20080255978A1
• Filed: 04/09/2008
• Published: 10/16/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/09/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Advent Software Incorporated (SS&C Technologies Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Advent Software Incorporated (SS&C Technologies Holdings Incorporated)
• Inventors: Dias, Daniel, Fawcett, John
• Granted Patent: US 8,078,514 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

An information marketplace is provided in which information items are received from various sources. Each item and the item providers carry descriptors that identify various attributes of the information being provided and by whom it is being provided. Requests for information are received from information consumers that are also tagged with attributes describing the consumer and the information being requested. A subset of the information available in the marketplace is provided to the consumer based on a degree of match among the characteristics describing the information, the attributes associated with the provider of the information, and the attributes associated with the consumer without identifying the actionable investment opportunity to the information consumer or identifying the information consumer to the information provider.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating the exchange of investment research information among information providers and information users, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of research information items from a plurality of information providers, each item comprising information describing an actionable investment opportunity and one or more characteristics describing the actionable investment opportunity;

attributing one or more seller attributes to each of the information providers;

receiving requests for research information from a plurality of research information users, each of the information users having one or more buyer attributes associated therewith;

providing a subset of the research information items to selected research information users based in part on a degree of match among the characteristics describing the actionable investment opportunity, the attributes associated with the information provider and the attributes associated with the user without identifying the actionable investment opportunity to the information user or identifying the information user to the information provider.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising facilitating an economic transaction between the information provider and the information user.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising exposing the actionable investment opportunity to the information user upon completion of the transaction.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the information providers comprise sell-side financial institutions and the information users comprise buy-side financial institutions.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the information providers comprise sell-side financial institutions.