Patent ID: 7305404

Claim:
An address management system for converting a subjective representation of an address into a preferred representation of the address, comprising: a plurality of relational databases comprising: a first relational database comprising one or more first tables; a second relational database comprising one or more second tables for storing source data comprising address records as a sparse matrix linked list; and a third relational database comprising one or more third tables storing standardized representations for a plurality of discrete artifacts; an interface; and a computer program module configured to: receive a subjective representation of the address from said first relational database, wherein said subjective representation of the address comprises a plurality of discrete artifacts; re-format the subjective representation of the address according to a set of standardization rules, wherein said standardization rules at least comprise amending punctuation in said subjective representation of the address; parse said subjective representation of the address into the plurality of discrete artifacts, including name, street address, city, state, and zip code; locate one or more candidate representations of the address; select a preferred representation of the address from among said one or more of candidate representations of the address; store said preferred representation of the address in said third relational database; and, communicate the preferred representation of the address to the interface.