Research system and method with record builder

• US 9,135,340 B2
• Filed: 09/12/2007
• Issued: 09/15/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Datalaw Inc.
• Original Assignee: Datalaw Inc.
• Inventors: Duncan, John, Caudet, Ramon, Williams, Carl W.
• Primary Examiner(s): LO, ANN J
• Application Number:
  US11/854,314
• Publication Number:
  US 20090070314A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,925 Days
• Field of Search: 707/6
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/284 Relational databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

A system for providing relevant documents from a plurality of databases, including a search module for receiving at least one search expression, at least one managed database including a plurality of managed documents and a plurality of search records, each search record including at least one prior search expression associated with at least one of the plurality of managed documents, a plurality of unmanaged databases including a plurality of unmanaged documents, wherein the search module queries the managed database to determine at least one of the search records corresponding to the received search expression, and wherein the search module retrieves at least one of the managed documents associated with the determined search record. The search module may further query the plurality of unmanaged databases to determine one or more unmanaged documents corresponding to the at least one search expression and store the unmanaged document in the managed database.

Claims

1. A system for providing relevant documents from a plurality of databases, comprising:

at least one processor;

a search module executing on said processor for receiving at least one search expression via a user computer and executing one or more searches according to the received search expression;

at least one managed database including a plurality of managed documents previously identified in search results by said search module in one or more prior searches executed by said search module, each of said managed documents having been selectively chosen by a user from the search results for storage in said managed database upon the one or more prior searches, said at least one managed database further including a plurality of search records including one or more prior search expressions, wherein each of the managed documents is associated in said managed database with at least one of the prior search expressions used to identify such managed document in at least one of the prior searches;

a plurality of unmanaged databases including a plurality of unmanaged documents;

wherein said search module comprises software for searching the at least one managed database to identify at least one of the prior search expressions corresponding to the at least one received search expression and retrieving at least one of the managed documents associated with the identified prior search expression from, said managed database;

wherein said search module further comprises software for searching said plurality of unmanaged databases to identify one or more unmanaged documents corresponding to the at least one received search expression, receiving a user selection of at least one of the unmanaged documents associated with the at least one received search expression, and storing the at least one of the unmanaged documents associated with the received search expression in said at least one managed database.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein said search module associates the unmanaged document with the at least one received search expression.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein each search record further includes data indicative of at least one user associated with the search record.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein said managed database further includes a document profile record for each of the managed documents, wherein the document profile record includes data indicative of at least one source of the managed document.

5. The system according to claim 4, wherein the source includes one of the unmanaged databases.

6. The system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a document management system for managing the plurality of search records and managed documents in the managed database, wherein one or more of the search records is associated with at least one matter by the document management system.

7. A method for providing relevant documents from a plurality of databases, comprising the steps of:

receiving at least one search expression via a user computer;

querying one or more managed databases using a search module executing on a processor, the managed databases including a plurality of managed documents previously identified in search results by the search module in one or more prior searches executed by the search module, each of said managed documents having been selectively chosen from the search results by a user for storage in said managed database by a user upon the one or more prior searches, the managed databases further including a plurality of search records including at least one prior search expression, wherein each of the managed documents is associated in said managed database with at least one of the prior search expressions used to identify such managed document in at least one of the prior searches;

identifying at least one of the prior search expressions corresponding to the at least one received search expression;

retrieving at least one of the managed documents associated with the identified search expression from said managed database.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein said step of querying the managed databases includes comparing the at least one search expression to the prior search expressions.

9. The method according to claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

querying a plurality of unmanaged databases, the unmanaged databases including a plurality of unmanaged documents; and

determining at least one of the unmanaged documents relevant to the at least one search expression.

10. The method according to claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

receiving a user selection of at least one of the determined unmanaged documents via the user computer;

storing the selected unmanaged document in the one or more managed databases.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein said step of storing includes associating the selected unmanaged document with the received search expression and one of the plurality of search records.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein said step of storing includes determining whether the managed databases comprise the selected unmanaged document.

13. The method according to claim 10, wherein a substantial portion of the managed documents have a common file format, wherein the selected unmanaged document is stored in the common file format.

14. The method according to claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

creating a new search record; and

storing at least a portion of the determined unmanaged documents together with the at least one search expression in the new search record.

15. The method according to claim 7, wherein one or more of the search records are associated with one or more matters in the managed databases.

16. The method according to claim 7, wherein the at least one search expression includes one or more search terms, wherein the determined search record includes at least a predetermined number of the one or more search terms.

17. The method according to claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

receiving at least one second search expression from a second user in an organization via a second user computer, wherein the first search expression is received from a first user in the organization;

comparing the second search expression to the first search expression and the plurality of prior search expressions; and

retrieving at least one managed document associated with the first search expression if the second search expression substantially corresponds to the first search expression; and

retrieving at least one managed document associated with a prior search expression if the second search expression substantially corresponds to the prior search expression.

25. The method according to claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

associating the at least one search expression received by the user computer with the at least one managed document in the managed database, such that the at least one managed document is associated with two or more search expressions in the managed database.

18. A system for searching data collections, comprising:

at least one database including a plurality of documents, wherein at least a portion of said documents were previously identified in search results by a search module in one or more prior searches executed by said search module, each of the at least a portion of said documents having been selectively chosen from the search results by a user for storage in said database by a user upon the one or more prior searches, said database further comprising a plurality of search records including one or more first search expressions, wherein each of the at least a portion of said documents is associated in said database with at least one of the first search expressions used to identify such document in at least one of the prior searches;

at least one processor;

said search module executing on said processor for receiving at least one second search expression via a user computer, said search module determining at least one of the search records relevant to the second search expression and retrieving one or more of the at least a portion of said documents associated with the determined search record from said at least one database; and

wherein said search module is further for determining at least one of the plurality documents relevant to the second search expression and not associated with any one of the plurality of search records.

19. The system according to claim 18, wherein the at least one database includes at least one managed database and at least one unmanaged database, wherein the managed database includes each of the plurality of search records and each of the plurality of documents that are associated with at least one search record.

20. The system according to claim 19, wherein the unmanaged database includes each of the plurality of documents that are not associated with any one of the plurality of search records.

21. A system for searching data collections, comprising:

at least one managed database including a plurality of search records indicative of prior searches, each search record including one or more search expressions associated with one or more managed documents previously identified in search results by a search module in one or more prior searches executed by said search module, said managed documents having been selectively chosen from the search results by a user for storage in said managed database by a user upon the one or more of the prior searches, wherein each of the managed documents is associated in said managed database with at least one of the prior search expressions used to identify such managed document in at least one of the prior searches;

at least one unmanaged database including a plurality of unmanaged documents;

at least one processor;

said search module executing on said processor comprising software for receiving at least one search expression via a user computer, determining at least one of the search records relevant to the received search expression and retrieving one or more of the managed documents in the determined search record, wherein said search module further comprises software for identifying one or more of the unmanaged documents relevant to the received search expression; and

a document management system for storing at least one of the determined unmanaged documents in the managed database and associating at least one of the determined unmanaged documents with the received search expression in the managed database.

22. The system according to claim 21, wherein each of the search records and plurality of first documents are accessible via said document management system.

23. The system according to claim 21,

wherein the at least one unmanaged database includes a plurality of unmanaged databases;

wherein said search module translates the search expression for at least one of the plurality of unmanaged databases; and

wherein the search module simultaneously searches each of the plurality of unmanaged databases.

24. The system according to claim 21, wherein the at least one determined unmanaged document is stored upon receipt of a user selection of the at least one determined unmanaged document.