FICO Awarded Four New Patents for Analytic Inventions in Predictive Analytics, Optimization and Fraud Detection

MINNEAPOLIS – May 19, 2011 – FICO (NYSE: FICO), the leading provider of analytics and decision management technology, today announced that it has been awarded four new patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. These patents were awarded to members of the FICO Labs team, and were granted for inventions underlying FICO solutions in predictive analytics, optimization and fraud detection.

The first patent is for technology that mines transaction data for predictive trends, using genetic algorithms to find the most potent transformations of transactional data. This technology, which is behind the Data Spiders™ module in FICO™ Model Builder, is used by FICO clients today in a variety of applications, such as improving targeting for cross-selling and conversion, improving fraud detection and predicting online purchase decisions.

The second patent provides an architecture for optimal strategy design using both historical data and human expertise. This architecture defines decision models as a visual influence diagram, translates the influence diagram to a nonlinear optimization problem and derives decision rules that achieve mathematically optimal strategies.

The other two new patents are for new technologies which bolster FICO’s fraud detection and prevention capabilities. FICO received a patent for a fast, accurate “fuzzy” matching technique that can quickly and accurately determine if a given computer-readable record is represented, by exact match or substantially close match, in a large collection of computer-readable records. This is useful in detecting identity fraud. The final patent is for technology used to identify credit card or similar fraud based on account-level factors rather than transaction-level factors.

FICO now holds more than 100 patents. The company recently filed two more patent applications, and has 115 patent applications pending in the United States and other countries.

"We’ve been awarded 22 new patents within the last year, which is a strong indication of the creative ingenuity of our team and our focus on new areas of discovery," said Dr. Andrew Jennings, chief analytics officer at FICO and head of FICO Labs. "These sorts of technological advances are a primary reason for FICO’s continued leadership in the fast-growing field of predictive analytics, and for our clients’ increasing ability to solve more challenging problems quickly."

“Analytics are more critical than ever to making successful business decisions and achieving maximum performance from business operations,” said Dan Vesset, program vice president of business analytics research at IDC. “We’re seeing increasing evidence that organizational performance and competitiveness can benefit from better and more business analytics, which is why the analytics industry is poised to continue its rapid growth in the years to come.”

About FICO
FICO (NYSE:FICO) delivers superior predictive analytics solutions that drive smarter decisions. The company’s groundbreaking use of mathematics to predict consumer behavior has transformed entire industries and revolutionized the way risk is managed and products are marketed. FICO’s innovative solutions include the FICO^® Score — the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the United States — along with industry-leading solutions for managing credit accounts, identifying and minimizing the impact of fraud, and customizing consumer offers with pinpoint accuracy. Most of the world’s top banks, as well as leading insurers, retailers, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies, rely on FICO solutions to accelerate growth, control risk, boost profits and meet regulatory and competitive demands. FICO also helps millions of individuals manage their personal credit health through www.myFICO.com. Learn more at www.fico.com. FICO: Make every decision count ™.