Method and Apparatus for Updating Rules and Transmitting Change Notifications

• US 20080140721A1
• Filed: 11/15/2007
• Published: 06/12/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aderant CompuLaw LLC (Varnum LLP)
• Original Assignee: Compulaw LLC
• Inventors: Rains, Ricky J., Kalmick, David J., Manners, Alexander J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,580,937 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/104.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/929 Docketing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/951 Calendar or scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

A method and apparatus for generating court dates. A Date Calculation Engine (DCE) is coupled to a court date server and a court rule database for generation of court dates. The court rule database includes formulas written in a Date Calculation Scripting Language (DCSL) for calculating the court dates. The court rules further include instructions for generating a Jurisdiction Selection Expert (JSE) and an Event Selection Expert (ESE) that enable a user to quickly select a jurisdiction and an event using hierarchal data structures. The DCE is combined with other software components to build a complete court date server system. The court rule database is maintained up-to-date with the latest changes to the rules. Deadlines affected by any rule changes are automatically identified and recalculated, and customers for whom the deadlines were calculated automatically notified to inform them of the changed deadlines.

Claims

1. A method for generating and transmitting a calendar of different legal events capable of occurring in the course of a legal proceeding, the method comprising:

maintaining in a database at least one rule set including a plurality of date calculation instructions for calculating a plurality of different legal events;

receiving an initial trigger date for an initial trigger legal event;

selecting one or more date calculation instructions from the database based on the initial trigger legal event;

calculating one or more event dates based on the initial trigger date and the retrieved date calculation instructions;

transmitting the one or more calculated event dates to a user client;

maintaining a transaction record of the one or more date calculation instructions used for generating the one or more event dates for the user client;

monitoring a changes table for changes in the plurality of date calculation instructions, the changes table identifying the changed date calculation instructions;

automatically determining whether the one or more date calculation instructions identified in the record are identified in the changes table;

for each one of the one or more date calculation instructions identified in the changes table, recalculating the associated event date based on the change to the corresponding date calculation instruction; and

transmitting the recalculated one or more event dates to the user client.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

maintaining a relationship table storing relationship information for a plurality of the date calculation instructions, the relationship table indicating whether a particular date calculation instruction is related to another date calculation instruction; and

updating relationship information in the relationship table based on the changed date calculation instructions.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying a customer affected by the recalculated one or more event dates; and

transmitting a notification to the customer of the recalculated one or more event dates.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

calculating a fee for recalculating the one or more event dates; and

charging a user account based on the calculated fee.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving update information for updating the date calculation instructions identified in the changes table, the update information identifying a rule set affected by the update, and further identifying the update as an event maintenance update or a non-event maintenance update, the event maintenance update triggering the recalculation of the one or more event dates identified in the changes table.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the updating includes:

determining whether a date calculation instruction identified in the changes table exists in the database;

responsive to a determination that the identified date calculation instruction does not exist in the database, adding the identified date calculation instruction to the database.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

determining whether the addition of the identified data calculation instruction is an event maintenance or non-event maintenance update; and

responsive to a determination that the addition of the identified date calculation instruction is an event maintenance update, storing information on the added date calculation instructions as event maintenance change information.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the update information includes a list of holidays and associated dates for the identified rule set.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the updating includes:

determining whether a holiday identified in the list of holidays exists in the database;

responsive to a determination that the identified holiday does not exist in the database, adding the identified holiday to the database and storing information for the holiday addition as event maintenance change information.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the recalculating includes:

identifying an earliest holiday date and a latest holiday date from the event maintenance change information;

determining whether the one or more calculated event dates fall between the identified earliest holiday date and the identified latest holiday date; and

verifying the one or more calculated event dates based on the holiday addition.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein the update information includes a list of deleted date calculation instructions in the identified rule set.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the updating includes:

determining whether a date calculation instruction identified in the list of deleted date calculation instructions exists in the database;

responsive to a determination that the identified date calculation instruction exists in the database, deleting the date calculation instruction from the database; and

storing information on the deleted date calculation instruction as event maintenance change information.