Technique for providing supplemental internet search criteria

• US 9,454,606 B2
• Filed: 09/11/2009
• Issued: 09/27/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Inc. (RELX PLC)
• Original Assignee: LexisNexis Risk & Information Analytics Group, Inc. (RELX PLC)
• Inventors: Escalante, Armando J., Lamb, Michael, Bayliss, David Alan
• Primary Examiner(s): Gorney, Boris
• Assistant Examiner(s): ANDERSEN, KRISTOPHER E
• Application Number:
  US12/558,021
• Publication Number:
  US 20110066629A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,573 Days
• Field of Search: 707/726, 707/706, 707/765, 705/14.54
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9532 Query formulation

Abstract

Disclosed is a system for, and method of, supplementing an internet search. The disclosed techniques may be used to receive an initial internet search criteria entered by a user at an interface (such as a web site) to the internet search engine, identify an entity representation in a database that corresponds to the internet search criteria, and produce an enhanced internet search criteria that may incorporate both the initial internet search criteria and field values from the identified entity representation. The enhanced internet search criteria may be passed to the internet search engine in a manner that is transparent to a user.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a computer, an initial search criteria associated with a first database, wherein the first database includes a plurality of entity representations with each entity representation having at least one field with each field having at least one field value;

screening the initial search criteria for applicability to representations of natural people in the first database;

using a first field match template to determine a first subset of the plurality of entity representations associated with the screened initial search criteria;

determining that the initial search criteria specifies two or more different field values for a single field, and responsive to the determining;

using a second field match template to determine a second subset of the plurality of entity representations associated with the screened initial search criteria;

merging subset field value weights of the first and second subset;

summing the subset field value weights for each field of the merged first subset and second subset according to each entity representation of the screened initial search criteria;

determining, from the summed field value weights, total weights according to each entity representation;

determining a target entity representation based on an entity representation having a highest total weight;

determining a confidence level based on the total weights;

generating a supplemental search criteria comprising field values from the target entity representation and based at least in part on the determined confidence level exceeding a threshold amount;

combining the screened initial search criteria and the supplemental search criteria to produce an enhanced search criteria; and

sending, from the computer, to a search engine, the enhanced search criteria, wherein the enhanced search criteria is used to search a second database.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer includes an electronic interface.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the electronic interface is a web page.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer does not output for display the enhanced search criteria.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by the search engine, a plurality of search results associated with the enhanced search criteria.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the computer, from the search engine, a plurality of search results associated with the enhanced search criteria.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

outputting, by the computer, for display, the plurality of search results.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the initial search criteria is formatted using extensible markup language (XML).

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the initial search criteria includes a search identifier.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the search identifier is a hash value.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the search identifier is a serial number.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to determining that the initial search criteria is not applicable to the first database, outputting, by the computer, an indication that the initial search criteria is not applicable to the first database.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to determining that a first field value of a first field of the target entity representation and a second field value of the first field of the target entity representation are internally inconsistent, generating the supplemental search criteria using the first field value of the first field of the target entity representation.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the supplemental search criteria using a first field value of a first field of the target entity representation and a second field value of a second field of the target entity representation.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one field is associated with a social security number.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one field is associated with a name of an employer.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at the computer, the first field match template and the second field match template.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein receiving the second field match template is responsive to determining that the initial search criteria is internally inconsistent.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the target entity representation further includes:

determining that the associated total weight is at least a predetermined threshold.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the confidence level based on the total weights comprises calculating a difference between the highest total weight and a second highest total weight.