Patent ID: 7962501

Claim:
A duplicate consumer lead removal system comprising: at least one computer-readable medium configured to store data and computer-executable instructions; computer hardware comprising at least one computer processor in communication with the computer-readable medium and configured to access the data and computer-executable instructions stored in the computer-readable medium and to cause the computer hardware to perform operations defined by the computer-executable instructions; a matching engine comprising a plurality of computer-executable instructions stored in the computer-readable medium and configured, when the instructions are executed by the computer processor, to cause the computer hardware to match a consumer lead with at least one matched vendor that is eligible to receive the lead; an interface that is configured to access a vendor duplicates database that stores duplicate lead information for each of a plurality of vendors, wherein a duplicate lead is a lead that has already been received by a vendor, wherein the vendor duplicate lead information identifies duplicate leads that have already been received by a first vendor and separately identifies duplicate leads that have already been received by a second vendor, and wherein the duplicate lead information is at least partly received from vendors outside of the duplicate lead removal system; and a conflict engine comprising a plurality of computer-executable instructions stored in the computer-readable medium and configured, when the instructions are executed by the computer processor, to cause the computer hardware to compare information related to the lead with information accessed from the vendor duplicates database in order to determine if the lead is a duplicate lead for the matched vendor and to cause the system to not transmit the lead to the matched vendor if the lead is a duplicate lead of the matched vendor and to transmit the lead to the matched vendor if the lead is not a duplicate lead of the matched vendor.