International Business Machines Corporation

Mastercard International Incorporated

Gary Randall Horn

Kimberly Ann Martin

Richard Thomas Flynn

Thomas Joseph Sellner

Todd Christian Lowenberg

Kenneth O Shipp, Jr

Cristobel Kay Von Walstrom

Peter Julian Ramon Antonio R Flor

Raegen Ann-Marie Lang

Ana Paula Martinez Prada Peyser

Timothy Ray Malkemus

Jason Alexander Korosec

Daniel Dean Heimsoth

Leo Yue Yeung

Mohan B Sharma

Bruce William Mac Nair

David Anthony Fink

Laurie Beth Turner

Frank Eliot Levine

Walter Francis Lo Faro

James Russell Boykin

Lloyd E Jordan, Ii

Kenneth L Long

Linda C Elliott

Anita Christine Galliani

Bruce William MacNair

Steve Oshry

Cheng-Fong Shih

William W Myre, Jr

Thomas Francis McGeehan, V

Jason Alexander Kiorosec

Lisa A Geer

Robert C Mikelait

A network operator intermediates a cashless transaction by sending a payment device issuer an outbound clearing data file enriched with cleansed merchant data. Issuers that choose to participate in the merchant data cleansing service will be provided with the cleansed, and optionally augmented, merchant information. Providing this data to the issuer could be used to help reduce costs associated with 'do not recognize' calls by cardholders, disputed charges, and charge-backs. With cleansed data provided in the clearing record, a device holder would be given access to this cleansed information about the merchant where a transaction took place through their statement. The present disclosure also provides for augmenting the clearing record data to include merchant-specific add-on and/or aggregate data not presently included in the transaction clearing record, yet useful to the issuer both in form and content.

Merchant data cleansing in clearing record

Disclosed are exemplary embodiments of systems and methods for use in assigning locations to network records. One exemplary system includes a processor coupled to a data structure including network records, each record including a network node identifier and a boundary identifier. The processor is configured to, for each boundary identifier, access each of the network records including the boundary identifier. The accessed records include reference and target network records. Each reference network record includes location data indicative of a location of the network node identified in the reference record within the boundary. The processor is configured to determine an aggregate location as a median of the location data for the network nodes identified in the reference network records and assign the aggregate location to each of the target network records as location data indicative of the location of each network node identified in the target records within the boundary.

Systems and methods for use in geolocation resolution of computer network nodes

Determining whether two merchant location database entries are describing the same merchant location. A subject merchant location database entry and comparison candidate merchant location database entries include a DBA name field, a street address field, and one or more additional descriptive fields descriptive of one or more predetermined characteristics of the respective merchant location. The subject merchant location database entry is compared to a set populated with candidate merchant location database entries, candidates having a predetermined minimum textural similarity with the subject merchant location database entry on the basis of each entry's DBA name field or street address field. The subject merchant location database entry is compared with each of the candidate database entries on the basis of the one or more additional descriptive fields, and a logistic regression is performed using the results of the comparing, in order to calculate a probability that the database entries refer to the same merchant location.

Recognizing and combining redundant merchant designations in a transaction database

A solution to resolve ambiguous merchant data in connection with processing a cashless transaction request in a real-time manner. Provided according to the present disclosure are a system and method including a binary-searchable non-transitory computer-readable medium is configure to store a first set of unambiguous merchant identification data having plural data entries therein, each entry corresponding to a merchant. A binary search of the first set of unambiguous merchant identification data is carried out using search keys based upon the ambiguous merchant identification data to determine whether one or more entries of the first set satisfies at least one of a second set of partial match criteria for comparing the ambiguous merchant identification data with the first set of unambiguous merchant identification data. An entry of the first set of unambiguous merchant identification data is assigned to correspond with the ambiguous merchant identification data where at least a predetermined number of the second set of partial match criteria are met.

Instantaneous merchant information retrieval for financial transactions

A method and system for processing raw address data using a computer device coupled to a database are provided. The method includes receiving, at the computer device, raw data from a first party, the raw data including a raw street address. The method includes formatting the raw street address using the computer device and separating the formatted street address into at least one token using the computer device wherein each token includes one or more characters indicating a portion of the raw street address. The method further includes creating a standardized street address from the at least one token based on one or more conditions, wherein the one or more conditions facilitate determining at least one of inclusion, exclusion, and position of the at least one token in the standardized street address.

Systems and methods for creating standardized street addresses from raw address data

A solution to disambiguate ambiguous merchant data in connection with processing a cashless transaction request in a real-time manner. Provided according to the present disclosure are a system and method including a binary-searchable non-transitory computer-readable medium is configure to store a first set of unambiguous merchant identification data having plural data entries therein, each entry corresponding to a merchant. A binary search of the first set of unambiguous merchant identification data is carried out using search keys based upon the ambiguous merchant identification data to determine whether one or more entries of the first set satisfies at least one of a hierarchical second set of partial match criteria for comparing the ambiguous merchant identification data with the first set of unambiguous merchant identification data. An entry of the first set of unambiguous merchant identification data is assigned to correspond with the ambiguous merchant identification data where at least a predetermined number of the second set of partial match criteria are met.

An object oriented representation for sending network protocol requests between a first and a second process in a computer network. In an object oriented implementation of a protocol stack a network definition object is used for defining an interface to a communication endpoint for a client application and a network address object for defining the communication endpoint. The protocol stack is formed by layers of instances of a protocol interface class object for defining protocol interface for a protocol layer in the protocol stack and a protocol layer class object for defining the protocol layers in the stack. The network protocol requests are sent in an instance of one of a set of network operation classes each of which correspond to a method in the protocol interface class. The client requests are wrapped in the network operation object which contains all the necessary information so the request can be presented to the appropriate protocol layer object in the protocol stack.

Object oriented representation of network requests in a client server

An object oriented protocol interface for establishing a communication path between communication endpoints in a computer network. The generic nature of the interface allows any and several protocol layers to be developed from the same set of protocol class objects. The interface to a communication endpoint for a client application is defined by instantiating a network definition object for the communication endpoint from a network definition class object. The communication endpoint itself is represented by instantiating a network address object from a network address class object. The protocol layers which form the protocol stack are derived from a set of protocol interface objects from a protocol interface class object and a set of protocol layer objects from a protocol layer class object. The objects forming each of the layers in the protocol stack differ in their capabilities according to their respective layer and the protocol which is provided by the protocol stack. The communication path is established in the protocol stack by calling methods in the sets of protocol interface and protocol layer objects.

Object-oriented communication interface for network protocol access

A system and method for enforcing referential integrity within a database system provides for determination of relevant referential constraints at compile time for an access plan. All referential constraints which are relevant to data changes to the database are identified when the access plan is created. Code necessary for performing referential constraint checks is inserted directly into the access plan at compile time, eliminating the necessity for determining the relevant constraints at run time. Constraint checking can be performed using substantially the same low-level procedural statements already used in the access plan for performing database accesses.

Enforcement of referential constraints in a database system

A method and apparatus are disclosed for maintaining the referential integrity of a relational database by determining the validity of each new referential constraint which is brought about by the proposed creation or alteration of a data table within the database. All relationships of a newly created or altered data table are first examined for known non-error conditions in which the new referential constraint will not affect other data tables. Next, self-referencing relationships are examined to detect known error situations. Thereafter, a model is created of a selected portion of the database which includes the newly created or altered data table; all data tables dependent from the newly created or altered data table; all data tables descendant from those dependent tables which are delete-connected to the newly created or altered data table; all data tables which are the parent tables for any data table previously included; and, any ancestor data table having a Cascade delete rule relationship with a parent table previously included. The validity of the new referential constraint is then verified by examining only that portion of the database represented by the model to determine if the proposed relationship allows referential integrity to be maintained.

Method and apparatus for maintaining referential integrity within a

Method for reducing data loss during I/O errors and power failure during non-atomic writes to media in a transaction management system using write-ahead logging protocol. A recovery log is written during forward processing. On system restart processing, the log is traversed and a REDO executed. Recovery is effected from detected incomplete log writes or log write failures and uncommitted transactions are undone. A technique is provided in which files having I/O errors are identified, whereby subsequent restart operations are prevented from accessing these files. In one embodiment index files with such error are renamed, serving to indicate that corresponding original files contain errors, and the error index files are automatically rebuilt whereby I/O error on the files causes no data loss. The index file rebuild does not invalidate access plans related to the failed index.

Method for restoring a database after I/O error employing write-ahead

A comprehensive pagination facility is described which combines an automatic pagination function with an interactive paginate function. With this technique the operator is allowed to insert both Page End and Required Page End controls, although the automatic pagination function makes page ending decisions during both the creation and revision of text. The operator can then interactively paginate the document while being allowed to view each page ending decision and optionally accept the page break location or reposition the suggested page break location to a different line on the page.

Interactive page length adjustment with automatic pagination

In a column layout operation in an interactive word processing system, the unoccupied character escapement along a column example line is automatically evenly distributed by the insertion of an appropriate number of space characters responsive to the stroking of a predetermined function key.

Growing community of inventors

O'Fallon, MO, United States of America

Gary Randall Horn