Patent ID: 7424473

Claim:
A system for tracking property items, comprising: a database that includes a plurality of entries stored therein, wherein each entry represents a property item tracked by the system, and wherein a particular entry includes a set of attributes associated with a particular property item, said attributes including whether said particular property item is registered, lost, and/or found; a user interface that allows a user to enter, retrieve, or update information in said database, including adding entries for new property items, and identifying a particular property item stored in said database as being registered, lost and/or found; a search mechanism that operates with said database to automatically match property items that are identified as both lost and found, and upon finding a match then notifying either the user and/or the owner of the property item thereof; wherein the entries in said database form part of an organization-property-individual model; further wherein said search mechanism performs a process for comparing closely matching lost and found items, said process comprising the steps of: i) selecting a search scope based on known attributes of a lost item; ii) comparing found item attributes with the attributes of the lost item; and, iii) ordering the search results by the weight, number, and type of attributes that match.