Credit and financial information and management system
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and apparatuses relating to the provision of credit and financial services. In one embodiment, the present invention provides-user authentication protocols facilitating the electronic delivery of credit reports over a computer network directly to users. According to one embodiment of the invention, a credit report comprises a particular user'"'"'s credit history and other financial information, and/or a credit rating. Other embodiments of the present invention allow for the provision of services related to consumer and business credit report data.
474 Citations
56 Claims
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1-11. -11. (canceled)
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12. A method for correlating data using a computer, said method comprising
retrieving a set of records; -
applying an equivalence function to the records, wherein the equivalence function is operative to assess the similarity of a first record and a second record;
grouping, based on application of the equivalence function, the records into equivalence partitions, wherein each equivalence partition contains all records that are similar to at least one other record in the equivalence partition;
applying, within each equivalence partition, an exclusion function to the records, wherein the exclusion function is operative to assess the relative compatibility of a first record and a second record; and
grouping, based on application of the exclusion function, the records within each equivalence partition into exclusion partitions, wherein each record in an exclusion partition is mutually compatible with all other records and does not have a stronger compatibility with a record in the equivalence partition that is incompatible with any other record in the exclusion partition. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54)
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20-22. -22. (canceled)
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24. A method for correlating data using a computer, said method comprising
retrieving records from at least two credit report files; -
converting the data in the records into a common format;
assembling all records in a credit report category into a set of records;
for at least one credit report category, applying an equivalence function to the records, wherein the equivalence function is operative to assess the similarity of a first record and a second record;
grouping, based on application of the equivalence function, the records into equivalence partitions, wherein each equivalence partition contains all records that are similar to at least one other record in the equivalence partition;
applying, within each equivalence partition, an exclusion function to the records, wherein the exclusion function is operative to assess the relative compatibility of a first record and a second record;
grouping, based on application of the exclusion function, the records within each equivalence partition into exclusion partitions, wherein each record in an exclusion partition is mutually compatible with all other records and does not have a stronger compatibility with a record in the equivalence partition that is incompatible with any other record in the exclusion partition; and
,for at least one exclusion partition, merging the data in the records. - View Dependent Claims (55)
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25-40. -40. (canceled)
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56. A method for correlating data using a computer, said method comprising
retrieving a set of records; -
applying an equivalence function to the records, wherein the equivalence function is operative to assess the similarity of a first record and a second record;
grouping, based on application of the equivalence function, the records into equivalence partitions, wherein each equivalence partition contains all records that exhibit greater than a threshold similarity to at least one other record in the equivalence partition;
applying, within each equivalence partition, an exclusion function to the records, wherein the exclusion function is operative to assess the relative compatibility of a first record and a second record;
grouping, based on application of the exclusion function, the records within each equivalence partition into exclusion partitions, wherein each record in an exclusion partition is greater than a threshold compatibility with all other records and does not have a stronger compatibility with a record in the equivalence partition that exhibits a lower than the threshold compatibility with any other record in the exclusion partition; and
,for at least one exclusion partition, merging the data in the records.
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Specification