The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.

Bloomberg Finance L.p.

Other

Richard Douglas Kemp

Philippe Grenet

Jeffrey Dvornek

Mikhail Freider

Embodiments of the invention relate to systems and methods for obtaining and/or organizing information related to documents cited in a source document. For example, a legal brief may cite authority, such as judicial opinions, in support of the arguments in the brief. Embodiments of the invention relate to automatic identification in a document of citations to authority and preparation of information related to the cited authorities. For example, in an embodiment of the invention, a report may comprise normalized expressions of one or more legal principles asserted in one or more cited opinions and information associated with the ongoing vitality of one or more the legal principles, the cited authority, or both.

Systems and methods for validation of cited authority

Systems and methods are providing for searching for documents within topically-defined clusters. A search space is defined, starting with one or more source documents, by examining references from one documents to another and following the networks of references to some level of indirection. Depending on the embodiment, references may be followed from a document containing a reference to a referred-to document, or from a referred-to document to a document containing a reference, or both. Once a search space has been defined, a query is executed, and documents within the search space that satisfy the query parameters are identified. In certain embodiments of the invention, the documents primarily relate to legal materials, and one or more source documents are associated with one or more topics within a topic directory. In such embodiments, a search query may be limited to one or more selected topics by executing the search query within a search space defined using the associated document or documents as the source.

System and method for topical document searching

The invention provides systems, methods, and computer programs for fulfilling requests from users wanting current information related to legal or other topics designated by the users from lists of available topics. Information related to available topics is classified by type, and at least two types of information related to the designated topic(s) and/or type(s) are provided to the user. Optionally the information, when provided, is displayed on a computer display, or provided in other physical or electronic form, and is sorted according to the type or class of information to which the information belongs. The invention also provides for the gathering and making available of such information, and for the automatic updating of information in the selected legal or other professional topic(s) without intervention by the user on a periodic and/or continual basis.

Electronic management and distribution of legal information

Methods, systems, and user interfaces for accessing, retrieving, storing, and presenting information stored in computer readable media. Information stored on a computer readable media may be searched using selectable items representing an index of information. In response to selection of one of the selectable items, information is presented which is related to the selected item, concurrently with display of the index and at least one least one previously-selected item in a hierarchical display. The invention has particular application to the legal field, but is also applicable to other fields, e.g., accounting, medicine, business and finance, engineering, scientific fields, merchandising fields, fulfillment fields, inventory fields, etc.

Legal research system

A document, which may be referred to as a 'citing document,' may include citations to one or more cited documents. An index of such documents may be referred to as a citation index or citator. Information used to present a citation index may be maintained in a computer-readable storage medium, and this information may include text in a citing document that immediately precedes a citation, immediately follows it, or both. Accordingly, one or more entries in a citation index may include display of one or more citations in the context in which the citations originally appeared. Computerized systems and methods for causing such display are also provided.

Citation index including citation context

A document, which may be referred to as a 'citing document,' may include citations to one or more cited documents. An index of such documents may be referred to as a citation index or citator. A citation may be preceded in a citing document by introductory text, which may be called a signal, and one or more entries in a citation index may indicate which signal, if any, introduced a recorded citation. Computerized systems and methods for causing such display are also provided.

Citation index including signals

Systems and methods are provided for expressing a body of knowledge in standard or normalized terms. A topic hierarchy comprises topics related to the body of knowledge, with one or more topics comprising subtopics, and with subtopics themselves possibly comprising further subtopics. Principles are found within documents that are related to the body of knowledge, and standard terminology is selected to express those principles. Documents may be associated with the standard expressions corresponding to the respective principles found in the documents, and one or more of the standard expressions may be associated with at least one topic, subtopic, or both.

Creation and maintenance of a synopsis of a body of knowledge using normalized terminology

A system and method are provided to examine a changeable monitored document and to provide alerts relating to changes of interest. The logical entities of a monitored document are compared, when changed, to the logical entities of an updatable reference of the monitored document which comprises material from the monitored document at a given time. The system distinguishes between logical entities which have moved within a document and logical entities which have been changed in a document. A user or users are alerted to any change in the monitored document according to the user's preferences. The system also allows the user to specify one or more search terms, thereby allowing a user to receive alerts only when a specified search term or terms appear in a newly changed portion of the monitored document. After examination, an extracted copy of the monitored document is retained as the editable reference.

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Atlantic City, NJ, United States of America

Richard Douglas Kemp