Method of searching public information for sales leads

• US 9,087,254 B2
• Filed: 09/02/2008
• Issued: 07/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Proven Prospects Inc
• Original Assignee: Proven Prospects Inc
• Inventors: Kennedy, Benjamin J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoang, Son T
• Application Number:
  US12/202,893
• Publication Number:
  US 20100042591A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,513 Days
• Field of Search: 707/758
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/532 Query formulation, e.g. graphical querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90335 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/22 by selection of a specific region containing or referencing a pattern; Locating or processing of specific regions to guide the detection or recognition

Abstract

A system and method of identifying UCC Financing Statements by productive asset type, which is useful in identifying prospects for companies that are involved in the distribution, sales, and financing of productive assets. The present invention allows the user of the invention to search UCC financing statements by brand and/or type of equipment that is used as collateral. Using a lead generation technique that involves analyzing and correlating collateral information to UCC financing statements, the statements can be identified and categorized by collateral type. By processing electronic collateral information, as well as an OCR process that converts text contained in images into searchable text. There is also a direct data entry method of gathering collateral information. This collateral information is then used in an innovative relational database. Also, the proposed invention categorizes UCC financing statements by collateral type using a method of querying specific equipment type keywords, such as equipment names and brand names. Also, the proposed invention merges UCC addendums and amendments allowing the user to view the most current UCC financing information without looking at multiple filings.

Claims

1. A method of identifying customers of productive assets, comprising:

machine-searching a plurality of Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) financing statements that each includes a field for collateral information on specific productive assets that are supplied as collateral for a transaction underlying a corresponding UCC financing statement, and corresponding party information of the corresponding UCC financing statement;

machine-collecting the collateral information and the corresponding party information into records; and

machine-organizing the records by the collateral information to identify the corresponding party information, including keyword mapping the collateral information into equipment specific categories, wherein the keyword mapping includes linking both equipment types and brand names of manufacturers of the equipment types into at least one particular equipment specific category.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of UCC financing statements include markup language data and images, and the machine-collecting includes converting the images in any of the records to a searchable digital text form and combining with corresponding markup language data in a particular record.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the machine-collecting includes linking the images to the converted images in searchable form and the combined corresponding markup language data.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein corresponding collateral information fields in the plurality of UCC financing statements are filled with either markup language data, images, or no information, and wherein the machine-collecting the collateral information includes automatically retrieving the filled markup language data or converting the filled images to a searchable digital text form, and entering the collateral information into respective records.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the machine-collecting further includes flagging any UCC financing statements that contain no information in their collateral information fields and manually obtaining collateral information for the UCC financing statements having no information in their collateral information fields and entering the manually obtained collateral information into the respective records.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding UCC financing statement includes initial filing information and addendum information, and the method further includes adding the addendum information to the initial filing information to create a single record.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding UCC financing statement includes initial filing information and addendum information, and the method further includes overriding the initial filing information with the addendum information to create a single record.

8. The method of claim 1, further including presenting the records in a format with hyperlinks for the collateral information and the party information.

9. A method of identifying customers of productive assets, comprising:

machine-searching a plurality of Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) financing statements that each includes a field for collateral information on specific productive assets that are supplied as collateral for a transaction underlying a corresponding UCC financing statement, and corresponding party information of the corresponding UCC financing statement;

machine-recording the party information from each UCC financing statement;

machine-retrieving a particular collateral information image from a particular collateral information field within at least some of the plurality of UCC financing statements and performing an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process on the image to derive digital text representing corresponding collateral information; and

machine-organizing the derived collateral information in conjunction with corresponding party information into records in a searchable database, including keyword mapping the derived collateral information into equipment specific categories, wherein the keyword mapping includes linking both equipment types and brand names of manufacturers of the equipment types into at least one particular equipment specific category.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the corresponding UCC financing statement includes initial filing information and addendum information, and the method further includes adding the addendum information to the initial filing information to create a single record.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the corresponding UCC financing statement includes initial filing information and addendum information, and the method further includes overriding the initial filing information with the addendum information to create a single record.

12. The method of claim 9, further including presenting the records in a format with hyperlinks for the collateral information and the party information.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein one of the hyperlinks for the party information includes a web-based interactive map.

14. A method of informing providers of productive assets, comprising:

machine-culling a database of Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) financing statements that each includes a field for collateral information on specific productive assets that are supplied as collateral for a transaction underlying a corresponding UCC financing statement, and a secured party field with secured party information, including identifying productive asset keywords that are contained in corresponding collateral information fields; and

machine-organizing output from the database by sorting corresponding secured party information and corresponding collateral information including the identified productive asset keywords from the Uniform Commercial Code financing statements into productive asset categories, wherein the sorting includes linking both equipment types and brand names of manufacturers of the equipment types into at least one particular productive asset category.

15. The method of claim 14, further including identifying UCC filings by querying corresponding collateral information fields with a particular set of keywords that relate to the productive asset categories.

16. The method of claim 15, further including tagging output from the querying in order to put the filings into the productive asset categories.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the machine-organizing includes sorting the corresponding secured party information and the corresponding collateral information from the UCC financing statements into particular secured party categories, and further including identifying UCC filings by querying secured party fields with a particular set of names that relate to a particular secured party category.

18. The method of claim 14, further including presenting the records in a format with hyperlinks for the corresponding secured collateral information and the corresponding secured party information.