Address matching system and method
AssigneeStamps.com Inc.
InventorRichard Baker Winslow
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An address matching system that maintains a central database of valid addresses has been designed. According to the invention, address matching requests are received by the system from a plurality of remote users located at respective machines (“clients”). Those requests are processed at the central system, and the results are returned to the client that made the request. In addition, novel techniques are implemented for improving the likelihood of obtaining one or more matches from a request.
Claims14
A method performed by one or more computers for validating an address for printing, comprising:
- receiving an address by a user computer;
- accessing a companion file of pre-validated addresses residing on the user computer;
- electronically comparing the received address to the pre-validated addresses in the companion file for validating the received address;
- instructing the user computer to print the received address using a printer, if the received address is validated based on the companion file of pre-validated addresses;
- storing a plurality of pre-approved addresses in a database residing on a server;
- electronically comparing the received address to the pre-approved addresses stored in the database for validating the received address, if the received address is not validated based on the companion file of pre-validated addresses;
- returning a comparison result having at least one pre-approved address that matches the received address to the user computer;
- selecting a pre-approved address from the returned comparison result;
- instructing the user computer to print the selected pre-approved address using the printer;
- and
- storing the selected pre-approved address as a pre-validated address in the companion file for future use.
A method performed by one or more computers for validating an address for printing, the method comprising:
- receiving an address by a user computer;
- electronically generating a hash value based on the received address;
- accessing a companion file of pre-validated addresses residing on the user computer, wherein each pre-validated address record in the companion file includes an address hash;
- electronically comparing the generated hash value to the address hashes in the companion file for validating the address;
- instructing the user computer to print the received address using a printer, if the received address is validated based on the companion file of pre-validated addresses;
- storing a plurality of pre-approved addresses in a database residing on a server;
- electronically comparing the received address to the pre-approved addresses stored in the database for validating the address, if the received address is not validated based on the companion file of pre-validated addresses;
- returning the comparison result having at least one pre-approved address that matches the received address to the user computer;
- selecting a pre-approved address from the returned comparison result;
- instructing the user computer to print the selected pre-approved address using the printer;
- and
- storing the hash value corresponding to the selected pre-approved address in the companion file for further use.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.