Ernst Publishing Awarded Recording Fee and Tax Calculators Patent

Ernst Publishing Company has announced that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has awarded the company a new patent for its innovative recording fee and tax calculators, entitled “System and Method for Generating and Tracking Field Values of Mortgage Forms.” “We’re very proud of our technology and all of the intellectual property we have developed over our 24 years in this business,” said Gregory E. Teal, president and chief executive officer of Ernst Publishing. “We expect this patent will provide a high level of confidence to our clients, ensuring them that the technology they rely on for guaranteed accurate pricing is truly an Ernst innovation.” The intellectual property is currently built into the firm’s Smart Query product suite and is used to provide guaranteed accurate closing cost figures for Blocks 4-8 of the Good Faith Estimate. Ernst’s search tool and closing cost and fee database have been in use in the industry for nearly 24 years and have become the industry standard for compliant GFE and HUD-1 creation. Teal said his firm is always working on new technologies and that any additional functionality will also be submitted for patent protection. He said Ernst Publishing will vigorously defend its intellectual property, but hopes to work with other firms in the industry to leverage it where appropriate.