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US 11,386,471 B2Granted
Pay-for-access legal research system with access to open web content
AssigneeThomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH
InventorsPeter Jackson, Mark A. Bluhm
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
To facilitate legal research, companies, such as Thomson West provide subscription-based (pay-for-access) online information-retrieval systems. Seeking to improve these and related systems, the present inventors recognized researchers often need to access open web content that is outside their subscription-based system. Accordingly, the present inventors devised systems, methods, and software that automatically search for and identify open web documents in response to queries within the subscription-based system and/or automatically search for and identify pay-for-access content in response to receiving open web queries.
Claims10
A non-transitory machine-readable medium for use in operating an online pay-for-access legal research system, the medium comprising instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform the steps of:
- receiving a user query for one of pay-for-access data and non-pay-for-access data, receiving a signal representing a user selection of a primary database, and automatically identifying a set of primary documents based on the received user query and the selected primary database;
- providing a data structure comprising a set of data fields, the set of data fields comprising a first data field having a default value governing whether supplemental searching is enabled or disabled when searching select databases, a second data field including a listing of one or more URLs defining a set of one or more non-pay-for-access databases, and a third data field including a default value governing presentation of supplemental search results, a fourth data field having a default value governing which among two or more secondary search algorithms or acceptance criteria are used during secondary searching, and a fifth data field having one or more values governing the presentation of advertising in search results;
- determining, by use of the data structure, the user query is for pay-for-access data and upon such determination:
- determining, by use of the data structure, at least one non-pay-for-access database based in part on the selected primary database and automatically identifying in the at least one non-pay-for-access database a first set of secondary documents based on the received user query;
- and
- responding to the received user query by outputting search results that include pay-for-access data from the set of primary documents from the primary database and non-pay-for access data from the first set of secondary documents from the at least one non-pay-for-access database;
- determining, by use of the data structure, the user query is for non-pay-for-access data and upon such determination:
- determining, by use of the data structure, at least one pay-for-access database based in part on the selected primary database and automatically identifying in the at least one pay-for-access database a second set of secondary documents based on the received user query;
- and
- responding to the received user query by outputting search results that include pay-for-access data from the second set of secondary documents or search results from the at least one pay-for-access database, and non-pay-for-access data from the primary set of documents from the primary database;
- presenting, by use of the data structure, the search results including the pay-for-access data and the non-pay-for-access data as separate graphical user interface elements in a graphical user interface, positioning the separate graphical user interface elements within the graphical user interface to provide an indication as to a data source and a data type for data in each of the separate graphical user interface elements and an indication as to an association between the pay-for-access data and the non-pay-for-access data in the separate graphical user interface elements;
- and
- wherein both the pay-for-access data and the non-pay-for-access data represent content related to the received user query.
10 more elements
A server for an online pay-for-access legal research system, the server comprising a processor, a memory, and instructions stored on the memory and adapted for execution by the processor, the server further comprising:
- a primary search module adapted to receive a user query for one of pay-for-access data and non-pay-for-access data and receive a signal representing a user selection of a primary database, and automatically identify a set of primary documents based on the received user query and the selected primary database;
- a data structure comprising a set of data fields, the set of data fields comprising a first data field having a default value governing whether supplemental searching is enabled or disabled when searching select databases, a second data field including a listing of one or more URLs defining a set of one or more non-pay-for-access databases, and a third data field including a default value governing presentation of supplemental search results, a fourth data field having a default value governing which among two or more secondary search algorithms or acceptance criteria are used during secondary searching, and a fifth data field having one or more values governing the presentation of advertising in search results;
- determining, by use of the data structure, the user query is for pay-for-access data and upon such determination:
- a secondary search module adapted to determine at least one non-pay-for-access database based in part on the selected primary database and automatically identify a first set of secondary documents in the at least one non-pay-for-access database based on the received user query;
- a user interface module adapted to output, responsive to the received user query, search results that include pay-for-access data from the set of primary documents from the primary database and non-pay-for-access data from the first set of secondary documents from the at least one non-pay-for-access database;
- determining, by use of the data structure, the user query is for non-pay-for-access data and upon such determination:
- the secondary search module further adapted to determine at least one pay-for-access database based in part on the selected primary database and automatically identify a second set of secondary documents in the at least one pay-for-access database based on the received user query;
- and
- the user interface module further adapted to output, responsive to the received user query, search results that include pay-for-access data from the second set of secondary documents from the at least one pay-for-access database and non-pay-for-access data from the primary set of documents from the primary database;
- the user interface module further adapted to output the search results including the pay-for-access data and the non-pay-for-access data as separate graphical user interface elements in a graphical user interface, separate graphical user interface elements within the graphical user interface providing an indication as to a data source and a data type for data in each of the separate graphical user interface elements and providing an indication as to an association between the pay-for-access data and the non-pay-for-access data in the separate graphical user interface elements;
- and
- wherein both the pay-for-access data and the non-pay-for-access data represent content related to the received user query.
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.