Patent ID: 9684696
Date: 2017-06-20
CPC Classifications: G06F,G06Q

Claim:
1. A computer implemented method comprising: detecting a plurality of observations about an entity from a plurality of sources, by a computer processor, the plurality of observations including one or more of various elements relating to the entity, the one or more of various elements including at least one of: name, e-mail address, physical address, phone number, age, gender, employer, and social networking account; representing the one or more of various elements from each of the plurality of observations about the entity using one or more nodes of a directed graph stored on a non-transitory computer readable media; representing relations between the one or more nodes using edges connecting the one or more nodes in the directed graph; computing, by the computer processor, a distance between two disparate nodes of the one or more nodes, each of the two disparate nodes representing an element related to the entity, wherein a shorter computed distance is associated to a higher confidence value that each of the two disparate nodes represent the entity; inferring, by the computer processor, a relationship between the two disparate nodes based on the computed distance between the two disparate nodes; assigning a noise level to the one or more of the nodes, wherein the noise level assigned to a node increasing the distance of an edge associated with that node and the noise level assigned to a node increasing if that node has multiple dissimilar associations to different nodes; calculating a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of an edge based on noise levels of the nodes attached to that edge; determining validity of a relationship between the two disparate nodes if the SNR of the edge connecting the two disparate nodes is above a threshold; automatically generating and outputting an identity for the entity, by the computer processor, based on the one or more of various elements and the relationship inferred between the two disparate nodes, the identity including a listing of one or more of the various elements relating to the entity and reflecting the relationship inferred between the two disparate nodes; and cataloging the identity for the entity in an information cataloging system by storing the identity in a database, the information cataloging system configured to respond to a user query based on the cataloged identity.