Patent Grant
7165042
The invention relates to a method for making investment choices. In particular the invention relates to a method of filtering and sorting online financial data within a server to meet user criteria and format.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,823,265 disclosed a means for automated renewal of options until a designated event occurs. U.S. Pat. No. 4,334,270 disclosed a method for using a digital computer to update securities information of multiple accounts. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,674,044; 5,297,031; 5,347,452 deal with computer methods and visual displays for stock market brokers. From U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,209,845; 4,611,280; 5,218,700; 5,260,999 and 5,630,123 it was known to use software filtering and sorting to produce lists and locate specific data records. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,262,942 and 5,270,922 provide data processing systems to serve the special needs of major investment firms.
Yet in spite of the technological advances made to meet the needs of stock brokers and investment firms, the prior art contained no suggestion of how the individual investor's needs could be met with regard to processing financial data according to individualized criteria. For the individual investor the task of matching individual criteria, once the data was retrieved or accessed in the published media, could require many hours, where over 2,700 stocks and over 40,000 options were involved.
It is the object of the invention to provide an interactive method via an Internet server for timely processing of data to meet the criteria of individual clients. This criteria can be easily changed to allow these clients the ability to request many variations of the data based on their individual needs. It is a further objective to provide quality results with improved speed of referral compared to existing business and financial systems.
establishing a data filtering and sorting system for accounts within a server;
configuring the server to allow a client to interact with a database on the server;
setting and modifying upon request filtering and sorting and reporting criteria; and
providing timely access to online data as a means for filtering and sorting and reporting.
The problem with existing software dealing with stocks, stock options, futures, etc. was that it was devoted to meeting the needs of brokers and other professionals. Prior to the present invention there was no means available whereby the individual investor could make use of the speed of the computer in the same way as the investment professionals. Investment data is presented to individuals in a read only format with the content being very generic in nature. This invention gives these individual investors the ability to interact with a database in order to extract information, which is tailored to their individual needs. Individual criteria can be inputted and changed to explore different scenarios.
The following definitions pertain to the Figures and Preparations and Examples which serve to illustrate the practice of the invention without being limiting.
A software program for a server to use fixed and variable user criteria for a security account was coded wherein analysis of stock option data produces valuations and sorted lists from over two thousand stocks listed on one or more exchanges. The data is downloaded from the Internet or other source either at the close or after a transaction.
A software program for a server capable of multi-function financial analysis for stocks, stock options, bonds, commodities, etc. was coded to provide for individual accounts to be established and maintained or modified and updated by means of investor criteria to set parameters for sorting, filtering, data selection, reports, etc.
A one month trial program with over 200 users was used to evaluate Preparation A for operational flaws and defects in coding. Following corrections and modifications a commercial system was established with each client paying a monthly fee of $29.95 US Dollars. One client was well pleased to obtain in just 15 minutes from a list of over 2,400 stocks, sorted options information, which previously took him more than 4 hours to calculate on a Saturday afternoon.
Table 1 contains the data obtained from a sort performed by the method:
Table 2 contains the investor selected sorts needed to obtain the sorted list of Table 1.
A server system as per Preparation B will allow both individual investors and financial professionals to customize a proprietary account to process financial data and business information not limited to stock options.
The main advantage attributed to the inventive method as illustrated in
“This Application: is a continuation of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 09/086,738 filed May 29, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,049,783 which, in turn, claims benefit of U.S. Provisional application Ser. No. 60/055,403, filed Aug. 8, 1997.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60055403 | Aug 1997 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 09086738 | May 1998 | US |
| Child | 09524205 | US |
