Automatic electronic discovery of heterogeneous objects for litigation

• US 20090150906A1
• Filed: 12/07/2007
• Published: 06/11/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Schmidt, Olaf, Fischer, Martin P.
• Application Number:
  US12/001,024
• Publication Number:
  US 20090150906A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/317
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/18 Legal services

Abstract

Software for automatically managing electronic discovery receives a request for electronic objects, where the request is associated with a litigation matter and the requested objects comprise at least a first object of a first object type and a second object of a second object type. The example software is further operable to automatically execute an electronic discovery process for the objects based on the request and a rules repository to identify a plurality of discovery objects.

Claims

1. Software for automatically managing electronic discovery, the software comprising computer readable instructions embodied on tangible media and operable to:

receive a request for electronic objects, the request associated with a litigation matter and the requested objects comprising at least a first object of a first object type and a second object of a second object type; and

automatically execute an electronic discovery process for the objects based on the request and a rules repository to identify a plurality of discovery objects.

2. The software of claim 1, the electronic discovery process comprising a plurality of parallel-executed background tasks, each task associated with an object type.

3. The software of claim 2, the software communicably coupled to a destination repository and at least one the tasks associated with a remote destination identified in the destination repository.

4. The software of claim 3, the remote destination comprising an archive and the software further operable to automatically invoke an application programming interface (API) associated with the archive.

5. The software of claim 3, the remote destination comprising a source control system and the software further operable automatically invoke a connector associated with the source control system.

6. The software of claim 1, the request comprising a single-click request from a user via an interface.

7. The software of claim 1 further operable to:

execute document clustering on the discovered objects;

automatically extend at least one rule in the rules repository based on the document clustering; and

re-execute the electronic discovery process for the objects based on the request and the extended rules repository to identify a new plurality of discovery objects.

8. The software of claim 7 further operable to present an interface to allow user interaction on the extended rule repository prior to the re-execution.

9. The software of claim 1 further operable to:

present information associated with at least a portion of the discovered objects through an interface; and

allow navigation through the discovered objects via drill-down received through the interface.

10. The software of claim 9 further operable to identify a personalization rule associated with the particular interface, and wherein the presented information comprises results of a filter using the personalization rule.

11. The software of claim 1 further operable to automatically persist copies of the discovered objects in a repository remote from the objects.

12. The software of claim 1, at least a portion of the discovered objects comprising active business objects and the software further operable to place a legal hold on the active business objects.

13. The software of claim 1, the rules repository comprising a plurality of rules, at least one of the rules associated with a particular litigation type and at least one rule associated with an object type.

14. The software of claim 1 further operable to:

receive identification of a new object type via an open framework API; and

re-execute the electronic discovery process for objects of the new type based on the request and the rules repository to identify an additional plurality of discovery objects.