US Patent 7308436 Distributed data mining and compression method and system

A distributed data mining method and system includes a mediator and a plurality of agents, each of said plurality of agents having a local database. The mediator invokes the agents and each agent performs an attribute/value selection process. The agents pass their respective best attribute/value pair to the mediator and the mediator determines a winning agent from the submissions. The agents are notified of the winning selection and the winner then begins data splitting based on the willing attribute/value pair. The winning agent forwards a split information index to the mediator. The mediator provides the split information index to other, non-winning agents and the agents generate rules for the data mining.