Systems, methods, interfaces and software for extending search results beyond initial query-defined boundaries

• US 9,317,587 B2
• Filed: 01/03/2005
• Issued: 04/19/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Reuters Global Resources
• Inventors: Dahn, Michael, Al-Kofahi, Khalid, Jackson, Peter
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, CAM LINH T
• Application Number:
  US11/028,476
• Publication Number:
  US 20050228788A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,124 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706, 707/722, 707/739
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3332 Query translation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3347 using vector based model
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results

Abstract

To facilitate legal research, companies, such as Thomson West provide subscription-based online information-retrieval systems. Seeking to improve these and related IR systems, the present inventors recognized researchers often overlook some types of documents, such as legal encyclopedias and treatises that may be useful to them. Accordingly, the present inventors devised systems, methods, and software that automatically search for other types of documents not specifically targeted by user queries. One exemplary system automatically submits a user query for legal opinions to first and second databases, with the first storing legal opinions and the second storing non-opinion documents, such as headnotes from the West Key Number System, articles from American Law Reports, and/or articles from American Jurisprudence.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a server for an online legal-research provider, the server coupled to one or more databases containing law-related documents;

a client access device coupled to the server via a network and having a display for presenting a graphical user interface including one or more user-interface elements configured or defined by the server, wherein one or more of the elements allows a user to define and submit one or more legal-research queries, with each of the queries having one or more associated search-boundary parameters, such as one or more terms, and/or database identifiers; and

means associated with the server for returning search results to the client access device in response to a submitted query, wherein the search results include a first set of first documents and associated first user-interface elements, and a second set of second documents and associated second user-interface elements, wherein the first set of documents is within the boundaries of the submitted query and the second set of documents includes documents outside the boundaries of the submitted query;

means for determining whether to include or exclude a candidate document in the second set of documents, the determining comprising evaluating each score in a set of composite scores for the candidate document against a set of decision criteria, wherein the candidate document is included in the second set of documents if the candidate document meets a similarity threshold associated with the second set of documents; and

wherein the first and second user-interface elements cause the first and second results to be displayed as separate sets of results within a search-results-display portion of the graphical user interface.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the graphical user interface is a Windows-type interface controlled by a browser application on the client access device.

3. The system of claim 1, including one or more machine-readable media storing one or more of components of the server, client access device, or graphical user interface.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the means associated with the server comprises:

a first search engine configured to search a first database of legal opinions as a function of the submitted query; and

a second search engine configured to search a second database as a function of the submitted query and a result from the first search engine.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the first search engine comprises a term-frequency-inverse-document-frequency search engine and the second search engine comprises a composite vector-based classifier.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the databases include one or more of a case law database, a statute database, an American Law Reports database, an American Jurisprudence (AMJUR) database, a West Key Number Classification database, and a law review database.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the display is configured to display the first results in a first type font and to display the second results in a second type font.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the second user-interface element includes an icon on the display unit.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the means associated with the server further comprise means for disabling a search of a select database, means for governing a presentation of secondary search results, and means for governing use of a secondary search algorithm.

10. A method of responding to a query from a user, comprising:

searching a first database comprising court legal opinions based on the query to identify a first set of one or more documents;

automatically identifying a second set of one or more documents in a second legal database comprising legal resources other than court legal opinions by inputting at least a portion of the query in a text classification engine which classifies text based on similarity to documents in the second database;

automatically determining whether to include or exclude a candidate document in the second set of one or more documents, the determining comprising evaluating each score in a set of composite scores for the candidate document against a set of decision criteria, wherein the candidate document is included in the second set of one or more documents if the candidate document meets a similarity threshold associated with the second set of one or more documents; and

outputting at least a portion of each of the first and the second set of documents to an access device associated with the user;

wherein

the searching a first database comprises using a search engine configured to search the first database as a function of the query;

the inputting at least a portion of the query in a text classification engine comprises using a second search engine configured to search a second database as a function of one or more of the query and a result from the first search engine; and

the first search engine comprises a term-frequency-inverse-document-frequency search engine and the second search engine comprises a composite vector-based classifier.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the databases include one or more of a case law database, a statute database, an American Law Reports database, an American Jurisprudence (AMJUR) database, a West Key Number Classification database, and a law review database.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the access device is configured to display the first results in a first type font and to display the second results in a second type font.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein one or more of the documents in the second set of documents is associated with an icon on the access device.

14. A method of responding to a query from a user, comprising:

searching a first database comprising court legal opinions based on the query to identify a first set of one or more documents;

automatically identifying a second set of one or more documents in a second legal database comprising legal resources other than court legal opinions by inputting a keyword associated with the first set of documents in a text classification engine which classifies text based on similarity to documents in the second database;

automatically determining whether to include or exclude a candidate document in the second set of one or more documents, the determining comprising evaluating each score in a set of composite scores for the candidate document against a set of decision criteria, wherein the candidate document is included in the second set of one or more documents if the candidate document meets a similarity threshold associated with the second set of one or more documents; and

outputting at least a portion of each of the first and the second set of documents to an access device associated with the user.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein

the searching a first database comprises using a first search engine configured to search the first database as a function of the query;

and

the inputting at least a portion of the first set of documents in a text classification engine comprises using a second search engine configured to search the second database as a function of one or more of the query and a result from the first search engine.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the first search engine comprises a term-frequency-inverse-document-frequency search engine and the second search engine comprises a composite vector-based classifier.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the databases include one or more of a case law database, a statute database, an American Law Reports database, an American Jurisprudence (AMJUR) database, a West Key Number Classification database, and a law review database.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the access device is configured to display the first set of documents in a first type font and to display the second set of documents in a second type font.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein one or more of the documents in the second set of documents is associated with an icon on the access device.

20. A method of responding to a query from a user, comprising:

using a processor for;

searching a first database comprising court legal opinions based on the query;

automatically searching a second legal database comprising legal resources other than court legal opinions using a keyword associated with text extracted from a result of the search of the first database;

initiating a transmission of a response to the user based on one or more of the searching a first database or the searching a second database; and

automatically determining whether to include or exclude a candidate document in the response based on the searching of the second database, the determining comprising evaluating each score in a set of composite scores for the candidate document against a set of decision criteria, wherein the candidate document is included in the response based on the searching of the second database if the candidate document meets a similarity threshold associated with the response based on the searching of the second database.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein

the searching a first database comprises using a first search engine configured to search the first database as a function of the query;

and

the searching a second database comprises using a second search engine configured to search the second database as a function of one or more of the query and a result from the first search engine.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the databases include one or more of a case law database, a statute database, an American Law Reports database, an American Jurisprudence (AMJUR) database, a West Key Number Classification database, and a law review database.

23. The method of claim 20, comprising displaying a result from the searching a first database in a first type font and displaying a result from the searching a second database in a second type font.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein a result of the searching a second database is associated with an icon on an access device.

25. A method comprising:

presenting a search interface to a user for searching a first database comprising court legal opinions;

receiving a query from the user;

identifying a set of search results as a function of the query;

identifying a set of secondary search results from a second legal database comprising legal resources other than court legal opinions as a function of a keyword associated with text from the search results from the query;

automatically determining whether to include or exclude a candidate document in the set of secondary search results, the determining comprising evaluating each score in a set of composite scores for the candidate document against a set of decision criteria, wherein the candidate document is included in the set of secondary search results if the candidate document meets a similarity threshold associated with the set of secondary search results; and

displaying the search results and the secondary search results.

26. The method of claim 25, comprising providing the user an option to disable a searching of secondary databases.

27. The method of claim 25, comprising providing the user an option to prioritize a display of the secondary search results.

28. The method of claim 25, comprising identifying the set of secondary search results using a composite vector-based classifier to generate the set of composite scores.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the set of composite scores is determined as a function of one or more of:

a similarity of query text to text associated with a secondary database;

a similarity of Key Number classes associated with the query text and Key Number classes associated with a document in the secondary database;

a probability of a secondary document as a function of one or more Key Number classes associated with the query text; and

a probability of the query text given text associated with a secondary document.

30. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by a processor execute a process comprising:

searching a first database comprising court legal opinions based on a query to identify a first set of one or more documents;

automatically identifying a second set of one or more documents in a second legal database comprising legal resources other than court legal opinions by inputting a keyword associated with the first set of documents in a text classification engine which classifies text based on similarity to documents in the second database;

automatically determining whether to include or exclude a candidate document in the second set of one or more documents, the determining comprising evaluating each score in a set of composite scores for the candidate document against a set of decision criteria, wherein the candidate document is included in the second set of one or more documents if the candidate document meets a similarity threshold associated with the second set of one or more documents; and

outputting at least a portion of each of the first and the second set of documents to an access device associated with a user.

31. The computer-readable medium of claim 30, wherein the access device is configured to display the first set of documents in a first type font and to display the second set of documents in a second type font.

32. The computer-readable medium of claim 30, wherein one or more of the documents in the second set of documents is associated with an icon on the access device.

33. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by a processor execute a process comprising:

searching a first database comprising court legal opinions based on a query; and

automatically searching a second legal database comprising legal resources other than court legal opinions using a keyword associated with text extracted from a result of searching the first database; and

automatically determining whether to include or exclude a candidate document in a response based on the searching of the second database, the determining comprising evaluating each score in a set of composite scores for the candidate document against a set of decision criteria, wherein the candidate document is included in the response based on the searching of the second database if the candidate document meets a similarity threshold associated with the response based on the searching of the second database.

34. The computer-readable medium of claim 33, comprising instructions for displaying a result from the searching a first database in a first type font and displaying a result from the searching a second database in a second type font.

35. The computer-readable medium of claim 33, wherein a result of the searching a second database is associated with an icon on an access device.

36. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by a processor execute a process comprising:

presenting a search interface to a user for searching a first database comprising court legal opinions;

receiving a query from the user;

identifying a set of search results from a second legal database comprising legal resources other than court legal opinions as a function of the query;

identifying a set of secondary search results as a function of a keyword associated with text from the search results from the query;

automatically determining whether to include or exclude a candidate document in the set of secondary search results, the determining comprising evaluating each score in a set of composite scores for the candidate document against a set of decision criteria, wherein the candidate document is included in the set of secondary search results if the candidate document meets a similarity threshold associated with the set of secondary search results; and

displaying the search results and the secondary search results.

37. The computer-readable medium of claim 36, comprising instructions for providing the user an option to disable a searching of secondary databases.

38. The computer-readable medium of claim 36, comprising instructions for providing the user an option to prioritize a display of the secondary search results.

39. The computer-readable medium of claim 36, comprising instructions for identifying the set of secondary search results using a composite vector-based classifier to generate the set of composite scores.

40. The computer-readable medium of claim 39, wherein the set of composite scores is determined as a function of one or more of:

a similarity of query text to text associated with a secondary database;

a similarity of Key Number classes associated with the query text and Key Number classes associated with a document in the secondary database;

a probability of a secondary document as a function of one or more Key Number classes associated with the query text; and

a probability of the query text given text associated with a secondary document.