Patent ID: 7664304

Claim:
A method of assessing the validity of a payment instrument using a computer system, comprising: providing the payment instrument to a computer system, wherein the payment instrument comprises pre-printed information; comparing, using the computer system, at least a portion of the pre-printed information in the payment instrument to one or more document stock profile representations associated with a profile for one or more accounts or a profile for one or more individual writers, entities, or representatives of an entity, wherein evidence of non-validity of the payment instrument comprises failure of at least a portion of the pre-printed information in the payment instrument to approximately match at least one of the one or more document stock profile representations; and analyzing a correlation of information between two or more information fields of the payment instrument, wherein the analysis of a first information field of the payment instrument is dependent on what information is in a second information field of the payment instrument, and wherein the comparison of the pre-printed information in the payment instrument to the at least one document stock profile representation is based on the correlation analysis between the first information field and the second information field.