System and method for obtaining keyword descriptions of records from a large database

• US 7,363,308 B2
• Filed: 12/27/2001
• Issued: 04/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fair Isaac Corporation
• Original Assignee: Fair Isaac Corporation
• Inventors: Anderson, Russell W., Lenderman, Jason, Sarnobat, Sachin, Howe, Richard, Dillon, Craig, van Goor, Nicolaas A., Cameron, Gordon
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong; Don
• Assistant Examiner(s): Black; Linh
• Application Number:
  US10/032,843
• Publication Number:
  US 20030088562A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,308 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1-1041, 707/200, 706 45- 46, 706/50, 706/55, 706/11, 714/1, 714/2, 714/15, 714/100, 705/1, 705/28, 705/30
• US Class Current: 707/706
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/917 Text
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

A computerized system for augmenting data from a source database with data from a reference database to generate an augmented database that can be used for predictive modeling is disclosed. The present invention includes a method for using the Internet to obtain information, including, reading a data record stored in a field of data, searching a database for information describing the data record, condensing the information describing the data record into a value description, associating the value description with the data record, and augmenting the field of data with the value description associated with the data. The present invention also includes a computerized system for augmenting data from a source database with data from a reference database to generate an augmented database that can be used for predictive modeling and data mining to conduct searches of data in the augmented database.

Claims

1. A computerized system for augmenting data from a source database with data from a reference database to generate an augmented database that can be used for predictive modeling, comprising:

a source database comprising a plurality of transaction data records with each transaction data record having at least one field identifying a merchant, product and/or service;

a merchant identifier database comprising a plurality of reference addresses and value description identifiers for merchants, products and/or services;

a reference database;

an address locating module configured to search the reference database to locate references for merchants, products and/or services identified in the source database;

an account description database;

a transaction augmentation module, configured to attach the value description of a particular merchant, product and/or service to the transaction data records and store the resulting combined record in the account description database; and

a merchant analysis builder module configured to condense the references provided by the address locating module into a value description and store the value description in the merchant identifier database.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising an account descriptor builder module configured to generate descriptive account records from the merchant identifier database and the source database.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a lexicographic database configured to index value description identifiers to keywords.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the reference database comprises the Internet.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a predictive modeling module configured to predict future behavior of accounts, merchants, or other entities, using data from the account description database.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a data mining search engine configured to conduct keyword searches of the account description database to identify accounts, merchants, or products.

7. A computerized method of augmenting data from a source database with data from a reference database, the method comprising:

retrieving at least one data record recording an event from the source database;

identifying a field in the data record that specifies an entity;

locating reference data from the reference database that describes the entity specified by the entity field;

processing the reference data to form a set of keyword descriptors describing the entity;

augmenting the data record with the keyword descriptors to generate an augmented data record describing the entity;

building an account descriptor database that includes at least one data record that correlates the at least one event with the description of the entity from the augmented data record;

searching the account descriptor database for selected data records that meet a desired criteria; and

storing said selected data records for further processing.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the locating reference data includes locating data in an unstructured database.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the reference database includes at least a portion of the Internet.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the locating reference data includes locating electronic pages using the entity specified in the at least one data record.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein locating reference data further spidering for additional electronic pages cited within the located electronic pages.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein locating reference data includes reducing natural language text to keyword descriptors.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising validating the located reference data using data from the at least one data record.

14. The method of claim 7, further comprising storing the augmented data record in a merchant database.