Fannie Mae Contributes SMART Doc® Validation Patent to MISMO®

Intellectual Property Contribution Makes SMART Doc Validation Method Freely Available to Industry

MISMO, the not-for-profit data standards subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), and Fannie Mae today announced that Fannie Mae has contributed a new patent to MISMO under the MISMO Intellectual Property Rights Policy so that it may be used by the real estate finance industry on a royalty-free basis.

'This contribution of a SMART Doc validation method is another example of Fannie Mae's ongoing support for open standards and eMortgage adoption,' said Harry Gardner, MBA's Vice President of Industry Technology and head of MISMO. 'We thank Fannie Mae for their support and are pleased to make this intellectual property available to the industry. It will undoubtedly help as we continue down the path toward industry-wide eMortgages.'

The SMART Doc specification was originally licensed to MISMO in 2002 by Fannie Mae, and then developed and released as an open industry standard for electronic documents. The new patent, which was granted to Fannie Mae this past November, defines processes for validating the VIEW and DATA sections of a SMART® document with automated systems. Additionally, the processes can enable 'lights-out' post-closing and certification, two critical elements within the automated transaction process.

'Fannie Mae supports the need for industry-wide standards for eMortgages as they increase efficiency and transparency while driving down costs and improving accuracy,' said Mark Oliphant, Director of Business Strategy for Automated Business Solutions at Fannie Mae. 'This contribution will help the industry in the movement toward paperless processing and the realization of its full business value within real estate finance transactions.'

MISMO has been publishing voluntary eMortgage and electronic data standards since 2000. The patent number is US 7,299,408.

###

ABOUT MBA

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is the national association representing the real estate finance industry, an industry that employs more than 370,000 people in virtually every community in the country. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the association works to ensure the continued strength of the nation's residential and commercial real estate markets; to expand homeownership and extend access to affordable housing to all Americans. MBA promotes fair and ethical lending practices and fosters professional excellence among real estate finance employees through a wide range of educational programs and a variety of publications. Its membership of over 2,400 companies includes all elements of real estate finance: mortgage companies, mortgage brokers, commercial banks, thrifts, Wall Street conduits, life insurance companies and others in the mortgage lending field. For additional information, visit MBA's Web site: www.mortgagebankers.org.

ABOUT MISMO
MISMO, a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), develops data transfer protocols that span the $14.4 trillion residential and commercial real estate finance industry. MISMO reduce costs, streamline processes, improve accuracy, increase data transparency, and boost investor confidence in mortgages as an asset class. MISMO coordinates the development and maintenance of Internet-based Extensible Markup Language (XML) real estate finance specifications and electronic mortgage guidelines through a voluntary, open and vendor-neutral process, and its workgroups include more than 1,000 individual participants from over 160 subscribing organizations representing all sectors of the residential and commercial industry: lenders, originators, servicers, investors, government-sponsored enterprises, technology vendors, multiservice providers, credit reporting agencies, insurance firms, tax services and law firms. MISMO is a registered trademark of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, Inc. For more information on MISMO, visit www.mismo.org.