Data linking system and method using tokens

• US 6,523,041 B1
• Filed: 12/21/1999
• Issued: 02/18/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: LiveRamp, Inc. (LiveRamp Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Acxiom Corporation (LiveRamp Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Morgan, Charles, Talley, Terry, Ratliff, Jeannie K., Kooshesh, Ali, Mooney, James E., Baxter, Russell, Johnston, Kari, Farmer, Richard, Talburt, John, Hashemi, Ray, Anderson, Wally, Dobrovich, Mike, Bussell, Charles, Ward, Melissa K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Mizrahi, Diane D.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mofiz, Apu M
• Application Number:
  US09/469,096
• Time in Patent Office: 1,155 Days
• Field of Search: 707/2, 707/3, 707/4, 707/5, 707/6, 707/8, 707/10, 707/102, 707/103.R, 707/100, 707/201, 707/101, 707/503, 707/517, 705/16, 705/27, 705/37, 709/227, 709/246
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/21 Design, administration or maintenance of databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2445 Data retrieval commands; View definitions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/25 Integrating or interfacing systems involving database management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A method for linking data using permanent tokens is disclosed. The tokens may be used to link data pertaining to a consumer, a business, an address, an occupancy, or a household. The tokens are created in a central repository, which maintains an identification class for each entity. The identification class contains all available information concerning the entity. The tokens may be applied to a data storage system to allow real-time construction of a total customer view. The tokens may also be used to link the data storage system to a repository, such that the total customer view contains all available information concerning the customer. The total customer view may be used to formulate a response to customer input, such as a purchase or access to an Internet web page maintained by the data owner. By matching tokens instead of names and addresses, potential ambiguities and erroneous duplicates are eliminated. Data updates may be performed incrementally, and may be pushed from the repository to the data owner as new information is received.

Claims

1. A system for linking data comprising:

(a) at least one client data storage system;

(b) a plurality of data elements resident on said data storage system for an indefinite time, wherein each of said data elements comprises data that pertains to a particular entity, wherein each of said entities comprises one of a consumer, a business, a household, and an occupancy;

(c) a master repository;

(d) a plurality of identification classes resident on said repository, each of said identification classes corresponding to a particular entity, each of said identification classes comprising at least one of name aliases, name change history, address aliases, address change history, alternate name and address spellings, and common name and address misspellings, and wherein said repository contains identification classes pertaining to substantially all of said entities located within a particular geographic area; and

(e) a plurality of tokens resident on said repository, wherein each of said tokens uniquely corresponds to a particular entity, wherein the unique correspondence of each of said tokens to a particular entity is persistent over time, and wherein each of said identification classes is tagged with that one of said tokens corresponding to the entity to which each said identification class pertains.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each of said tokens comprises:

(a) a prefix representing the type of entity to which said token corresponds; and

(b) a unique number.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein each of said data elements that pertains to a consumer is tagged with that one of said tokens that corresponds to the consumer.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein each of said data elements that pertains to a consumer is also tagged with at least one of said tokens that corresponds to an address associated with that consumer.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein at least one of said data elements that pertains to a consumer is also tagged with at least one of said tokens that corresponds to an occupancy associated with that consumer.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein at least one of said data elements that pertains to a consumer is also tagged with at least one of those of said tokens that correspond to a household associated with that consumer.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein each of said data elements that pertains to an address is tagged with that one of said tokens that corresponds to the address.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein each of said data elements that pertains to an address is also tagged with at least one of said tokens that corresponds to a consumer associated with that address.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one data storage system comprises a plurality of physically remote databases.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein at least two of said physically remote databases contain data elements pertaining to the same entity.

11. A method of integrating data, comprising the steps of:

(a) creating a set of identification classes, wherein each of the identification classes comprises data pertaining to an entity, each of the identification classes comprises at least one of name aliases, name change history, address aliases, address change history, alternate name and address spellings and common name and address misspellings, wherein each entity comprises one of a consumer, a business, a household, and an occupancy, and wherein the set of identification classes comprises identification classes comprising data pertaining to substantially all of the entities located within a geographic area;

(b) storing the set of identification classes on a master repository;

(c) creating a set of tokens, wherein each of the tokens uniquely matches to a particular one of the entities, and wherein the unique matching of each of the tokens to a particular one of the entities is persistent over time;

(d) associating each of the identification classes on the repository with that one of the tokens that is matched to the one of the entities to which each of the identification classes pertains;

(e) building a transfer file from a client data storage system, wherein said transfer file comprises a plurality of data elements, and wherein each of the plurality of data elements is resident on the data storage system;

(f) transmitting the transfer file to the repository;

(g) matching each of the data elements in the transfer file to the corresponding identification class;

(h) tagging each of the data elements in the transfer file with at least one of the tokens contained in the identification class matched to that data element;

(i) rebuilding the data storage system using the data elements and tokens in the transfer file; and

(j) collecting all data elements resident on the data storage system that are tagged with a particular token by searching for the particular token across the data storage system.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the data contained in each of the identification classes comprises at least one of name aliases, name change history, address aliases, address change history, alternate name spellings, and common name misspellings, and said matching step comprises the matching of the data elements to at least one of name aliases, name change history, addresses aliases, address change history, alternate name spellings, and common name misspelling in the identification class corresponding to each data element.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein said tagging step comprises tagging each of the data elements that pertains to a consumer with that one of the tokens that corresponds to the consumer.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of tagging each of the data elements that pertains to a consumer with at least one of the tokens that corresponds to an address associated with that consumer.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of tagging at least one of the data elements that pertains to a consumer with at least one of the tokens that corresponds to an occupancy associated with that consumer.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of tagging at least one of the data elements that pertains to a consumer with at least one of those of said tokens that correspond to a household associated with that consumer.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of tagging each of the data elements that pertains to an address with that one of the tokens that corresponds to the address.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising the step of tagging each of the data elements that pertains to an address with at least one of the tokens that corresponds to a consumer associated with that address.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein said collecting step is performed in real time.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein said collecting step is performed in response to consumer input.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the consumer input comprises one of a consumer purchase and consumer access to an Internet web page.

22. The method of claim 11, wherein said collecting step comprises the collection of data elements pertaining to a single entity at a time.

23. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of transmitting from the repository to the data storage system additional data contained in the identification class corresponding to the matched data elements.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the additional data transmitted from the repository to the data storage system comprises demographic data.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein the additional data transmitted from the repository to the data storage system comprises at least one of standardized address and complete address data.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein the additional data transmitted from the repository to the data storage system comprises at least one of standardized name, most-used name, and formal name data.

27. The method of claim 11, wherein said matching and tagging steps are performed through an OLTP link between the data storage system and the repository.

28. A method of integrating a plurality of data elements resident on a data storage system wherein each of the data elements pertains to a particular entity, comprising the steps of:

(a) building a transfer file comprising the data elements;

(b) transmitting the transfer file to a repository, wherein a plurality of identification classes are resident on the repository, each of said identification classes corresponding to a particular entity, each of said identification classes comprising at least one of name aliases, name change history, address aliases, address change history, alternate name and address spellings, and common name and address misspellings, and wherein said repository contains identification classes pertaining to substantially all of said entities located within a particular geographic area, and wherein each of said identification classes further comprises;

(i) at least one token, wherein each token uniquely corresponds to a particular entity; and

(ii) data relevant to the entity to which the token corresponds;

(c) matching each of the data elements in the transfer file to the corresponding identification class;

(d) tagging each of the data elements in the transfer file with at least one of the tokens contained in the identification class matched to that data element;

(e) rebuilding the data storage system using the data elements and tokens in the transfer file;

(f) collecting all data elements resident on the data storage system that are tagged with a particular token by searching for the particular token across the data storage system;

(g) building a token maintenance file, comprising at least one of a list of all tokens that should be consolidated into one token and a list of all tokens that should be split into a plurality of tokens;

(h) transmitting the maintenance file from the repository to the data storage system; and

(i) updating the tokens in the data storage system using the maintenance file.

29. A method of constructing a total customer view using a data processing system, wherein at least one data element is resident on the data processing system, and each data element is tagged to the token corresponding to the entity to which the data element pertains, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a request for the total customer view, comprising the steps of;

(i) providing access to the data processing system via a communications network, wherein the communications network comprises a phone line and a magnetic device reader, and the input data comprises data stored on a magnetically encoded device;

(ii) receiving a customer input data via the communications network, wherein the input data corresponds to at least one of the data elements;

(iii) matching the input data to one of the data elements to which it depends by utilizing a set of identification classes, wherein each of the identification classes comprises data pertaining to a particular entity, each of the identification classes comprises at least one of name aliases, name change history, address aliases, address change history, alternate name and address spellings, and common name and address misspellings, wherein each entity comprises one of a consumer, a business, a household, and an occupancy, and wherein the set of identification classes comprises identification classes comprising data pertaining to substantially all of the entities located within a geographic area; and

(iv) returning the token tagged to the data element matched to the input data;

(b) matching the token corresponding to the customer with the token tagged to all data elements pertaining to the customer;

(c) retrieving all data elements to which the token corresponding to the customer is tagged;

(d) forming the total customer view based on at least one of the retrieved data elements; and

(e) transmitting at least one of discount offers, coupons, and merchandise sale notices to the customer, wherein the selection algorithm for the at least one of discount offers, coupons, and merchandise sale notices uses the total customer view.

30. A method of constructing a total customer view using a data processing system, wherein at least one data element is resident on the data processing system, and each data element is tagged to the token corresponding to the entity to which the data element pertains, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a request for the total customer view;

(b) matching the token corresponding to the customer with the token tagged to all data elements pertaining to the customer;

(c) retrieving all data elements to which the token corresponding to the customer is tagged;

(d) forming the total customer view based on at least one of the retrieved data elements;

(e) transmitting the token corresponding to the customer from the data storage system to a repository, wherein a plurality of identification classes are resident on the repository, each of the identification classes is tagged with at least one token, each of the identification classes comprises data pertaining to a particular entity, each of the identification classes comprises at least one of name aliases, name change history, address aliases, address change history, alternate name and address spellings, and common name and address misspellings, wherein each entity comprises one of a consumer, a business, a household, and an occupancy, and wherein the set of identification classes comprises identification classes comprising data pertaining to substantially all of the entities located within a geographic area;

(f) matching the token to the identification class that is tagged with that token;

(g) retrieving additional data from the matched identification class;

(h) transmitting from the repository to the data processing system the additional data, linked to the token corresponding to the identification class from which the additional data was retrieved;

(i) adding at least a portion of the additional data to the total customer view; and

(j) transmitting the retrieved data elements and the additional data from the repository to an analytical engine.