US Patent 7792864 Entity identification and/or association using multiple data elements

Data values from a plurality of data elements can be combined to form one or more entity identifiers to facilitate identifications of and/or associations among a plurality of data records representing one or more entities. Associated data records can represent the same entity and/or multiple entities that can be properly associated. Associations can be made among two or more unique entities and/or their respective representative data records if they correspond to substantially the same entity identifier. In one embodiment, the number, type, and/or characteristics of values for data elements used to form an entity identifier can be selected so that the entity identifier is substantially statistically unique.