States Title Receives Patent for Predictive Machine Learning Models

January 14, 2020

States Title Holding Inc.  was recently issued a patent for “Predictive Machine Learning Models” by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The patent for invention number 10,510,009 allows States Title to optimize the value-maximizing point in the instant underwriting model by modifying the Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique with unique title-specific mathematical components. Andy Mahdavi, the company’s chief data scientist, previously applied the Markov technique to study dark matter using galaxy cluster data from NASA satellites.

“During the first half of my career, I was an astrophysicist, working on unraveling the nature of dark matter, a substance that makes up 85 percent of the cosmos and yet is totally invisible and extremely difficult, if not impossible, to detect in a lab,” Mahdavi said. “To do this, I leveraged a statistical technique called Markov Chain Monte Carlo, which optimizes theoretical models until they match the data, providing the most suitable match. When I arrived at States Title, I adapted this technique to work on title insurance risk, optimizing our machine learning algorithm to produce maximal value while enabling the best customer experience. It turns out that if you’re just optimizing a number, it doesn’t matter if it’s galactic dark matter or dollars of revenue and loss.”


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