Dorado Corp. has received a Notice of Allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the method it created for processing a loan application (including mortgages). The notice means the government is likely to issue a patent.
The method is known as "Dynamic Workflow Architectures for Loan Processing."
Lonnie Goldman, vice president and general counsel for Dorado, said in the past workflow automation systems had been a static, predictable, rules-based process. There is a "perfectly horizontal line" for workflow, where the item proceeds down the line task to task and if something does not conform to the rules (like a discrepancy in a property's address), the process gets bogged down.
Usually any disruption means the loan package has to go way back to the beginning of the process.
In a more complex environment, like mortgage lending, the task could be spread out over multiple geographies, enterprises and systems, Goldman said, with the result being no entity can impose control or predictability.
Dorado's method allows processing of loan applications in workflows that do not require that specific sequences of actions be known in advance and has the flexibility to incorporate new activities.
There is a constant evaluation of the task and status, and that is what drives workflow with this method, rather than any predetermined rules, he explained. "We call this a nondeterministic approach because it allows us to add new types of activities, rules, users and products into our systems without having to predict in advance all the possible flows, exceptions and implications of each addition," Goldman continued.
With the dynamic workflow system, if something comes up that disrupts the underwriting process, such as the property not appraising as expected, the system can react and make changes such as offering a different product that meets the new loan-to-value parameters, he said.
When the Patent Office acknowledged Dorado's invention, the examiner used two words, Goldman said, "timely" and "innovative."
This method is incorporated into Dorado's Enterprise Lending System, and in particular, its ChannelMaster suite of products.
For Dorado, this patent, as well as one it received last year, validates its standing as a technology innovator, Goldman said. It puts its resources into obtaining patents because they are "an objective measure of that innovation."
