Equifax’s Patent Wall Salutes Innovation, Highlights Academic Partnerships

EQUIFAX RECENTLY CELEBRATED YEARS OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY on World Intellectual Property Day by unveiling a patent wall. This visual representation of decades of hard work showcases more than 200 patents issued over the years, a result of Equifax’s deep commitment to new innovation.

The event included recognition of Vickey Chang as the first recipient of the Woman Inventor of the Year Award, and Jone Wilder and Jennifer Spangler as the first recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Innovation. Chang is an inventor on four different patent families (e.g., “inventions”) filed over the past seven years - which have so far resulted in three granted U.S. patents and three granted foreign patents, with several applications still pending. She has held various leadership positions across Equifax and has served as a mentor to numerous women and others, encouraging them to pursue their own patented inventions.

Wilder and Spangler invented a type of knowledge-based authentication technology during the early days of widespread use of the internet changing the way and the quantity of time needed to deliver credit reports to consumers. The patented technology was able to sufficiently verify the identity of an individual virtually to provide for delivery of the credit report online rather than by mail (the standard process at that time) if requested. The initial invention was protected by four United States patents (US 6,263,447; US 6,496,936; US 7,234,156; US 6,857,073), a Canadian patent, and a European patent. 

Academic Partnerships Fuel Innovation

For years, Equifax has partnered with academia to further patents and research. Since 2017, our Academic Partnerships have led to the filing of at least four patents.

One of the inventions on the new patent wall belongs to Nikhil Paradkar, Assistant Professor in Finance at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. He’s been working with Equifax since 2016 in an academic partnership through Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business and now UGA. The recently approved invention involves data protection via aggregation-based obfuscation. 

What’s next for Paradkar? He plans to explore questions related to credit access with members of Georgia Tech’s Financial Services Innovation Lab. “I have been collaborating with Equifax and Georgia Tech’s Financial Services Innovation Lab to shed light on how people go about accessing credit and becoming credit-visible. This question has been of increasing interest to many people in academia, industry, and regulatory agencies,” Paradkar said. 

The Georgia Tech Financial Services Innovation Lab works with Equifax data to explore innovative solutions that bring greater inclusivity and access to credit. Accessing affordable, secure financial services like a line of credit can be pivotal to a person's livelihood, but that opportunity remains out of reach for many individuals around the world today. A single financial opportunity can be a critical step to establishing individual financial health and generational wealth - which can impact the trajectory of families and communities for generations. 

For more information about our Academic Partnerships, click HERE.