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US 7,735,010 B2Granted
Citation network viewer and method
AssigneeLexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
InventorsPaul Zhang, Lavanya Koppaka
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A visualization-based interactive legal research tool that generates from a multi-dimensional citation network a semantics-constrained citation sub-network that focuses on one individual issue in which a user is interested, and puts the sub-network on an interactive user interface (“UI”), which allows the researcher to browse, navigate, and jump over to start new sub-networks on different issues that are relevant to original issues.
Claims8
A computer-implemented citation network viewer comprising:
- data preparation means for taking a corpus of documents as input, and creating a series of metadata files, wherein each document has a citation and discusses at least one issue, and wherein relations between the documents as defined by their citations form a multi-dimensional citation network, the data preparation means including:
- means for cutting each document into sentences;
- means for identifying in each cut document, all citations, and all reasons-for-citing and headnotes associated with the identified citations, using a reason-for-citing algorithm;
- means for converting the identified reasons-for-citing and the identified headnotes in each document into vectors;
- and
- means for establishing semantic links between documents by pairing staffing reasons-for-citing in citing documents with cited reasons-for-citing and headnotes in cited documents by defining the text in each cited document that is closest semantically to the staffing reason-for-citing in the citing document, as defined by the equation:
- RText
- ⇒
- Max
- K
- i
- =
- 1
-
- (
- Sim
-
- (
- V
- i
- ,
- SV
- )
- )
- ,
- where K is the number of all reasons-for-citing and headnotes in each cited document, V is the vector for the ith reason-for-citing or headnote, and SV is the vector of the staffing reason-for-citing in the citing document;
- and
- run-time means for carrying out run time operations, using the metadata files created by the data preparation means.
25 more elements
A computer-implemented citation network viewer comprising:
- data preparation means for creating a series of metadata files from a corpus of input documents, each document having a citation and discussing at least one issue, wherein the citations of the documents form a multi-dimensional network of citations, and wherein the at least one issue is represented by one of a headnote and a reason for citing;
- semantics-driven network traversing function means for creating from the metadata files of the documents forming the multi-dimensional network, a sub-network of citations of documents that focuses on a specific issue selected by a researcher;
- and
- visualization-based interactive user interface means for displaying interactive graphics representing the sub-network;
- wherein the data preparation means includes:
- means for cutting each document into sentences;
- means for identifying in each cut document, all citations, and all reasons-for-citing and headnotes associated with the identified citations, using a reason-for-citing algorithm;
- means for converting the identified reasons-for-citing and the identified headnotes in each document into vectors;
- and
- means for establishing semantic links between documents by pairing starting reasons-for-citing in citing documents with cited reasons-for-citing and headnotes in cited documents by defining the text in each cited document that is closest semantically to the starting reason-for-citing in the citing document, as defined by the equation:
- RText
- ⇒
- Max
- K
- i
- =
- 1
-
- (
- Sim
-
- (
- V
- i
- ,
- SV
- )
- )
- ,
- where K is the number of all reasons-for-citing and headnotes in each cited document, V is the vector for the ith reason-for-citing or headnote, and SV is the vector of the staffing reason-for-citing in the citing document.
27 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.