Patent ID: 7788278

Claim:
A method for using a computing system for querying at least one of a plurality of target databases for one or more target database records that match an input data query, said method comprising: receiving at the computer system from a requesting source an input data query having input data and an input data type; querying from the computer system a reference database selected from among a plurality of reference databases based on the input data type for a reference database record that matches the input data; in response to finding a matching reference database record, querying from the computer system at least one of a plurality of target databases for one or more target database records that correspond to the reference database record; in response to failing to find a matching reference database record but finding one or more possibly matching reference database records, determining whether a possibly matching record can be considered a near-matching record to the input data; in response to identifying a near-matching record, querying at least one of the plurality of target databases for the one or more target database records that correspond to the near-matching record; in response to failing to identify a near-matching record, generating a selection request to choose from among the one or more possibly matching records a record that corresponds to the input data and in response to selection of a chosen record from among the one or more possibly matching records, querying at least one of the plurality of target databases for the one or more target database record that corresponds to the chosen record; and retrieving those target database records that correspond to the reference database record and transferring from the computer system the corresponding records to the requesting source.