Patent ID: 8005759

Claim:
A vehicle scoring system, comprising: a Computer system having a processor that supports operation of a software application; a data module, accessed on the computer system, including a plurality of vehicle data records obtained from at least one third party information database, in communication with the computer system, wherein the third party information database comprises at least one of title information database, registration information database, Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) records database, auction records database, and accident records database; a filter module, executed on the computer system comprising: a first filter for obtaining relevant vehicle-related data from the data storage module's plurality of vehicle data records, the vehicle-related data comprising a plurality of factors relevant to a likelihood that a vehicle will be operation in a specific period of time; a second filter for comparing the obtained vehicle-related data of a specific vehicle to the obtained vehicle-related data of comparison vehicles and assigning a numerical value to each of the factors comprising the relevant vehicle-related data; and a third filter for weighting and combining the numerical values of the relevant data into a vehicle score for the specific vehicle, wherein weighting comprises applying a weight to each of the plurality of factors, the weight based on a relationship between each of the factors and the likelihood that the vehicle will be operational in a specific number of years, said relationship determined by a modeling technique applied to the plurality of data records, wherein combining comprises adding the weighted numerical values and wherein the score comprises a numerical value indicative of a likelihood that the specific vehicle will be operational in a specific period of time as compared to the set of comparison vehicles, expressed as a number between 0 and 100; and an output module for reporting the vehicle score to a user; wherein the computer system is capable of accepting, from a user, only a standard vehicle identification number relating to the specific vehicle and communicating the vehicle identification number to the filter module; and wherein the first filter bases its obtaining of relevant data on the vehicle identification number of the specific vehicle.