Two sentence summary from the actual patent:<p>&gt;When an individual applies for a loan, the lender examines the credit ratings of members of the individual&#x27;s social network who are connected to the individual through authorized nodes. If the average credit rating of these members is at least a minimum credit score, the lender continues to process the loan application. Otherwise, the loan application is rejected.<p>[<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;patft.uspto.gov&#x2F;netacgi&#x2F;nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&amp;Sect2=HITOFF&amp;d=PALL&amp;p=1&amp;u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&amp;r=1&amp;f=G&amp;l=50&amp;s1=9100400.PN.&amp;OS=PN&#x2F;9100400&amp;RS=PN&#x2F;9100400" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;patft.uspto.gov&#x2F;netacgi&#x2F;nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&amp;Sect2=H...</a>]<p>That could really help divide society even more. Thanks Facebook?<p>On a second thought, shouldn&#x27;t it be easy to dismiss this patent as prior art? Certainly someone somewhere has done filtering based on a friend list before.