Patent ID: 7515741

Claim:
A method for fingerprint record identification comprising the steps of: assigning a first number of fingers for a first matching stage, a second number of fingers for a second matching stage, a third number of fingers for a third matching stage, and a fourth number of fingers for a fourth matching stage; performing the first matching stage comprising comparing, based on the assigned first number of fingers, a search record having a set of search fingerprints to a plurality of file records each having a set of file fingerprints in a database and generating first matching results comprising a filtered subset of the plurality of file records; performing the second matching stage comprising comparing, based on the assigned second number of fingers wherein the assigned second number of fingers is less than the assigned third and the assigned fourth number of fingers, the search record to the filtered subset and generating second matching results comprising a first set of candidate records that includes a subset of the filtered subset; performing the third matching stage comprising comparing, based on the assigned third number of fingers, the search record to at least a portion of the first set of candidate records and generating third matching results comprising one of: a strong hit; a weak hit; no hit; and a second set of candidate records that includes an ordered portion of the first set of candidate records; and when the third matching results comprises the ordered portion of the first set of candidate records, performing the fourth matching stage comprising comparing, based on the assigned fourth number of fingers, the search record to the second set of candidate records and generating fourth matching results comprising one of: a strong hit; a weak hit; no hit; and a third set of candidate records that includes an ordered portion of the second set of candidate records.