Patent ID: 7092956

Claim:
A method for determining a value representing a difference between a first record comprising a first plurality of data fields and a second record comprising a second plurality of data fields, each of the first plurality of data fields corresponding to a respective one of the second plurality of data fields, the method comprising: for each of the first plurality of data fields, determining a first value representing a difference between data specified in the data field and data specified in a respective one of the second plurality of data fields; for each of the second plurality of data fields, determining a second value representing a difference between data specified in the data field and data specified in a respective one of the first plurality of data fields; determining a third value representing a difference between the first record and the second record based on the determined first and second values; and identifying whether the first and second records are duplicates based on the determined third value, wherein the determining and identifying is provided by a processor; wherein the determining of the third value comprises: determining a sum of the determined first values and the determined second values; and dividing the sum by two.