Patent ID: 8001153

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of creating a data structure stored in a memory, wherein the data structure provides information to link business or personal records that are related to a same person of a plurality of persons or to a same business entity of a plurality of business entities, for database searching and record matching operations, the method comprising: (a) associating a first record, of a plurality of business or personal records, with a first identifier of a plurality of identifiers that identifies at least one person of the plurality of persons or identifies at least one business entity of the plurality of business entities, wherein each identifier is unique and persistent for a predetermined period of time; (b) associating a second record, of the plurality of business or personal records, with a second identifier that identifies at least one person of the plurality of persons or identifies at least one business entity of the plurality of business entities; (c) determining that the first identifier and the second identifier correspond to a same person or same business entity by determining that a third record, of the plurality of business or personal records, matches with a first element of a first plurality of elements of the first record and further matches with a second element of a second plurality of elements of the second record; (d) determining a plurality of potentially matching records, and from the plurality of potentially matching records, eliminating a potentially matching record which does not sufficiently match a name element of the first, second or third records within a selected or predetermined confidence level; (e) when the first identifier and the second identifier are determined to correspond to the same person of the plurality of persons or to the same business entity of the plurality of business entities, linking the first identifier and the second identifier in a data structure that provides respective references to the first and second records without merging the first and second records under either the first or second identifiers and without merging the first and second identifiers; (f) separately maintaining information in the first record associated with the first identifier and information in the second record associated with the second identifier for the predetermined period of time; and (g) when information about the same person of the plurality of persons or the same business entity of the plurality of business entities is requested, grouping retrieved information that is separately maintained in both the first and second records via either one of the first identifier or second identifier based on the link between the first and second identifiers in the data structure.