Computer editing system for common textual patterns in legal documents

• US 8,209,278 B1
• Filed: 03/23/2007
• Issued: 06/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Jay Bradley Straus
• Original Assignee: Jay Bradley Straus
• Inventors: Straus, Jay Bradley
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Lut
• Application Number:
  US11/726,808
• Time in Patent Office: 1,922 Days
• Field of Search: 706/62, 705/1.1, 715/212
• US Class Current: 706/62
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/18 Legal services

Abstract

A computer system is disclosed herein that surveys numerous legal documents which memorialize business or legal transactions and then determines common provisions in such documents. The forms of these “core provisions” are then stored in a knowledge base of the system. The system then allows attorney users to apply the system to analyze unsurveyed documents and use the knowledge base to recognize the core provisions that are most similar to the text of these unsurveyed documents. The user can then edit these unsurveyed documents in a rapid accurate fashion by automated means to revise text to match these core provisions. Document editing functionality is also present, along with means to use correlations to determine the likelihood of the presence/absence of specific provisions and the presence/absence of various particular documents in groups of documents used to memorialize certain types of transactions.

Claims

1. A computer system for processing user selected kind of documents, comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory and operative to perform the operations of;

conducting a survey of a quantity of documents of said kind to identify textual patterns present in such documents, which textual patterns are substantially similar to common textual provisions which frequently recur in said kind of said documents;

where substantial similarity is determined by;

(x) degree of similarity as a user of said kind of said documents, of ordinary skill, would recognize said patterns or provisions to be variants of one another as would appear in ordinary course use of said kind of said documents, or (y) numerical similarity through satisfaction of a numerical threshold present in said computer system such that a numerical comparison of strings of text is in excess of said numerical threshold;

analyzing other existing documents or other existing sets of documents to determine the presence or absence of said identified textual patterns which were identified in said survey;

receiving a subjective rank of favorability towards a party contractually agreeing to be bound by at least one block of text identified as being associated with a textual pattern, and a length of said at least one block of text for said at least one block of text;

editing said other existing documents or other existing sets of documents for a user of said computer system to revise said other existing document or said other existing set of documents in a manner including exhibiting said rank of favorability towards said party to a said document and a length for said at least one block of text to include or exclude text of such identified textual patterns.

2. The computer system of claim 1 further performing an operation of exhibiting text of an existing document and receiving changes to said text.

3. The computer system of claim 1 further performing an operation of ordering identified textual patterns by length.

4. The computer system of claim 1 further performing an operation of presenting said blocks of text ordered by favorability.

5. The computer system of claim 4 further performing an operation of ordering said blocks of text by length.

6. The computer system of claim 1 further carrying out an operation of surveying said documents and calculating numerical correlations corresponding to the likelihood of presence or absence of said identified textual patterns.

7. The computer system of claim 1 further carrying out an operation of surveying groups of said documents of different classes, where such classes of documents are frequently concurrently present in user identified types of transactions, and for calculating numerical correlations corresponding to the likelihood of presence or absence of said concurrence.

8. The computer system of claim 1 further carrying out an operation of exhibiting a common editing platform such that distinct users of said computer system contemporaneously edit the same document or sets of documents, and one of said distinct users can view edits from another said distinct user.

9. The computer system of claim 1 further carrying out an operation of exchanging the roles of two parties to a document in a given provision by replacing the terminology which references the first party with the terminology that references the second party, and replacing the terminology that references the second party with the terminology that references the first party.

10. The computer system of claim 1 further carrying out an operation of internal cross referencing to provisions within said documents to be analyzed through replacement of said cross references with descriptive information regarding said provisions.

11. The computer system of claim 1 further carrying out estimating favorability of a provision by an averaging or other weight-based combination of favorability of constituent sentences of said provision.

12. The computer system of claim 1 further carrying out a step of populating a grid of length and favorability properties of said identified textual patterns by:

(i) rounding favorabilities to a specific level of accuracy to determine specific discrete grid axis values;

(ii) initial assignment of provisions to grid points based on length and favorability;

(iii) assigning provisions to otherwise unassigned grid points in a specific row of said grid by repetitively replicating the assignment to other elements in a given row until another initially assigned grid point is encountered or a boundary value is reached; and

(iv) assigning certain identified patterns to otherwise unassigned grid points in other rows by replicating entire row segments except for such grid values where an initial assignment has been established or a boundary value is reached.

13. The computer system of claim 1 further carrying out integrating said system with a document management system.

14. The computer system claim 1, wherein said subjective rank of favorability is unrelated to a frequency of occurrence.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein said exhibiting of subjective favorability towards a party is modified based on ranks of favorability by multiple parties.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein subjective rankings of favorability are received by at least two attorneys at a law firm, and a ranking of one attorney is given more weight than a ranking of another attorney based on a position within a law firm of each said attorney providing a said ranking.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein said subjective ranking of favorability is obtained, at least in part, based on a prior subjective ranking of favorability of a said provision with a said similar textual provision.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein said subjective ranking of favorability is further obtained, at least in part, based on a dictionary lookup.

19. A method of drafting a document, comprising the steps of:

conducting a survey of a quantity of documents of said kind to identify textual patterns present in such documents, which textual patterns are substantially similar to common textual provisions which frequently recur in said kind of said documents;

where substantial similarity is determined by;

(x) degree of similarity as a user of said kind of said documents, of ordinary skill, would recognize said patterns or provisions to be variants of one another as would appear in ordinary course use of said kind of said documents, or (y) numerical similarity through satisfaction of a numerical threshold present in said computer system such that a numerical comparison of strings of text is in excess of said numerical threshold;

analyzing other existing documents or other existing sets of documents to determine the presence or absence of said identified textual patterns which were identified in said survey;

receiving a subjective rank of favorability towards a party contractually agreeing to be bound by at least one block of text identified as being associated with a textual pattern, and a length of said at least one block of text for said at least one block of text;

editing said other existing documents or other existing sets of documents for a user of said computer system to revise said other existing document or said other existing set of documents in a manner including exhibiting said rank of favorability towards said party to a said document and a length for said at least one block of text to include or exclude text of such identified textual patterns.