Patent ID: 7552060

Claim:
A method for selecting and matching personal profiles based on personal characteristics and psychological traits, the method comprising the computer implemented steps of: (a) creating a profile of a user based on the user's personal characteristics and answers to psychological test items, wherein the profile further includes user preferences concerning potential partners; (b) applying a plurality of characteristic filters to a plurality of target profiles in a database, wherein each target profile passes through a given characteristic filter only if the characteristic in question in both the target profile and the user profile complies with the filter's rule, and wherein the filter may be influenced by preferences in both the user profile and the plurality of target profiles; (c) wherein at least a subset of said characteristic filters use binary scoring, wherein: if a characteristic in a target profile has a true value, the filter assigns a normal score to the characteristic; and if the characteristic has a false value, the filter excludes the target profile; (d) calculating a compatibility index for the user relative to each target profile that passes through all of the characteristic filters, wherein the compatibility index is calculated by the following steps: scoring individual personal characteristics and weighing the scores according to empirically derived models and user preferences to produce a combined personal characteristic score; scoring the psychological data according to matching algorithms derived from empirical research on relationships; and weighing the psychological data score relative to the combined personal characteristic score according to the user's gender and preference regarding short-term versus long-term relationships; and (e) creating and displaying a match list that ranks target profiles relative to the user according to their respective compatibility index.