Patent Issued for Apparatus and method for generating title products (USPTO 11710203): First American Title Insurance Company

2023 AUG 16 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Blackman, David H. (Corona, CA, US), Ehrhard, Terry A. (Fountain Valley, CA, US), filed on October 16, 2020, was published online on July 25, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11710203 is assigned to First American Title Insurance Company (Irvine, California, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors:

“1. Field

“The present invention relates to title products. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for generating title products related to insurance underwriting.

“2. Related Art

“The title insurance underwriting process has traditionally been a labor intensive process. Large financial institutions that underwrite title insurance employ large numbers of title examiners, abstractors and searchers. These individuals research title histories and laws to determine the possibility of a defect in title to a parcel of land. The research frequently requires searching databases for evidence of title and applying business rules to the evidence to generate title products for customers.

“Title insurance protects land purchasers and loan institutions from defects in title. A land purchaser may purchase title insurance to protect from an unknown claim of title. A home purchaser may be required to obtain title insurance prior to obtaining a mortgage on a property. Mortgagees and note purchasers may purchase title insurance to protect their collateral interest in a mortgage. Lien holders may also purchase title insurance to protect their collateral interest in the landowner’s debt.

“In the underwriting process, the databases searched for evidence of title may be fairly extensive. For example, county databases may be searched for the chain of title for the parcel of land or property. Public record databases may be searched for evidence of mortgages or liens on the parcel of land or property. Court databases may be searched for evidence of judgment liens. Proprietary databases may also be searched for histories of title insurance. Any database containing information for evaluating the risk associated with underwriting title insurance for the parcel of land may be searched.

“To make sound title underwriting decisions, a number of financial institutions have developed business rules to be applied as part of the underwriting process. The business rules allow employees at financial institutions to apply objective criteria to selecting and creating title products for a parcel of land or property. An analyst may compare evidence of title with business rules to determine underwriting risk, suitable title insurance products, and to determine if any other information about the land parcel should be acquired prior to making an underwriting decision. The business rules applied during the underwriting process may often vary according to the location of the parcel of land or property and the jurisdiction governing land ownership, taxation, recording and zoning.

“The large amount of human effort required to generate a title product often results in significant delays or errors in the underwriting process. The title underwriter may have to search multiple databases for title evidence, compare the evidence with voluminous business rules, create a title report and generate a title insurance product. This may result in significant delays or errors in the acquisition of secured financing or in closing a real property transaction. The lengthy process also affects the sale of mortgages in secondary markets, decreases market liquidity and increases transaction time and cost.

“Those skilled in the art will recognize that there is a need for faster more accurate systems and methods for generating title insurance products. The present invention addresses this need as well as others.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present invention may include a system and method for generating title products for use by financial institutions. A device (e.g., computer or workstation) may receive a search request for a title product. The search request may have the address, legal description, or other indicia of location of a parcel of land or property. A search engine may issue search queries to one or more databases to retrieve information about the parcel land or property. The retrieved information may then be processed and sent to a rule engine. The rule engine may apply underwriting or other business practice rules to the retrieved information. If the rule engine identifies missing information, the rule engine may send supplemental queries to system operators. The system operators may then key in the required information. The rule engine may return the results of applying the business practice rules. The device may generate a title report, refined title data, insurance contract or other title product.

“In one embodiment, a method for generating a title product comprises receiving a title product request for a particular property, the title product request includes a type of title product, searching for title information related to the particular property, applying business practice rules to the title information to produce business practice results, and generating a title product using the business practice results.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system comprising: a processor; and a tangible, non-transitory memory configured to communicate with the processor, the tangible, non-transitory memory having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising: parsing and formatting, by the processor, title information related to a property to produce formatted title information; applying, by the processor, a rule from a plurality of rules to the formatted title information to produce title product results; excluding a subset of the formatted title information that is determined to be outdated, based on comparing the dates associated with the subset of formatted title information to other formatted title information; identifying, by the processor, missing information; determining, by the processor, that at least one of a liability amount or a sale amount exceeds a threshold for a transaction type; and sending, by the processor, the title product results to at least one of a plurality of workstations for at least one of correcting data, making decisions, entering supplemental data, responding to supplemental queries or conducting a secondary review, in response to at least one of the determining that at least one of the liability amount or the sale amount exceed the threshold, the identifying the missing information, or identifying errors found while searching; storing, by the processor, the title product results in a cue of at least one of the plurality of workstations; allocating, by the processor, a predetermined time period for the title product results on at least one of the plurality of workstations; and executing, by the processor, a next task among at least one of the plurality of workstations based on the cue and after the predetermined time period associated with the work request expires.

“2. The system of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the processor, responses from at least one of the plurality of workstations; generating, by the processor, results which are designed for the title product based on the title information and the responses from at least one of the plurality of workstations; and displaying, by the processor, the results.

“3. The system of claim 1, further comprising sending, by the processor, supplemental queries about the title product results to at least one of the plurality of workstations, in response to the identifying the missing information.

“4. The system of claim 1, further comprising analyzing, by the processor, the title product results to determine applicability of one or more exceptions based on the formatted title information to produce the one or more exceptions.

“5. The system of claim 1, further comprising obtaining, by the processor, tax status for the title product.

“6. The system of claim 1, further comprising obtaining, by the processor, additional information for a legal description of the property.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the title product comprises a type of title product from a plurality of types of title products, wherein the type of title product comprises at least one of a title report, an owner policy, a loan policy or a vesting information report.

“8. The system of claim 1, further comprising scheduling, by the processor and using a scheduler, a task to be completed from a plurality of tasks.

“9. The system of claim 1, further comprising queuing, by the processor and using a scheduler, a task to be completed from a plurality of tasks.

“10. The system of claim 1, further comprising updating, by the processor and based on new regulations, the rules database, wherein the rules database includes business practice rules and title insurance underwriting rules.

“11. The system of claim 1, further comprising identifying and using, by the processor, information from a prior title policy.

“12. The system of claim 11, further comprising searching, by the processor, a proprietary database to identify and use the information from the prior title policy.

“13. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of workstations include a legal workstation, a vesting workstation, or a voluntary lien workstation.

“14. The system of claim 1, further comprising sending, from a user device, the request for the title product for the property.

“15. The system of claim 1, further comprising providing, by the processor, access privileges to allow access to update the rules in the rules database due to changes in at least one of underwriting practice, changes to title products, changes in laws, or changes in underwriting risk profiles.

“16. A method comprising: parsing and formatting, by a processor, title information related to a property to produce formatted title information; applying, by the processor, a rule from a plurality of rules to the formatted title information to produce title product results; excluding a subset of the formatted title information that is determined to be outdated, based on comparing the dates associated with the subset of formatted title information to other formatted title information; identifying, by the processor, missing information; determining, by the processor, that at least one of a liability amount or a sale amount exceeds a threshold for a transaction type; and sending, by the processor, the title product results to at least one of a plurality of workstations for at least one of correcting data, making decisions, entering supplemental data, responding to supplemental queries or conducting a secondary review, in response to at least one of the determining that at least one of the liability amount or the sale amount exceed the threshold, the identifying the missing information, or identifying errors found while searching; storing, by the processor, the title product results in a cue of at least one of the plurality of workstations; allocating, by the processor, a predetermined time period for the title product results on at least one of the plurality of workstations; and executing, by the processor, a next task among at least one of the plurality of workstations based on the cue and after the predetermined time period associated with the work request expires.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Blackman, David H. Apparatus and method for generating title products. U.S. Patent Number 11710203, filed October 16, 2020, and published online on July 25, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11710203)&db=USPAT&type=ids

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)