SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SERVING CONTEXT BASED RESULTS

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] Embodiments are generally related to concern information retrieval systems and methods. Embodiments are additionally related to contextual information retrieval based on the organized knowledge from Ontology/semantic net without a search interface, such as those that provide legal documents or other related content.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] A key aspect of the Indian legal system (as well as many others around the world) is its reliance on professional advocates, or lawyers, to facilitate adjudication or avoidance of legal disputes. Such legal systems across the world rely heavily on written judicial opinions, the written pronouncements of judges, to articulate or interpret the laws governing resolution of disputes. Each judicial opinion is not only important to resolving a particular legal dispute, but also to resolving similar disputes, or cases, in the future. Because of this, judges and lawyers within our legal system are continually researching an ever-expanding body of past opinions, or case law, for the ones most relevant to resolution of new disputes.

[0003] The judges and lawyers within such legal systems are continually researching an ever expanding body of past opinions, case laws, for the ones most relevant to resolution or prevention of new disputes. Prior cases are studied for relevance and are ultimately cited and discussed, for example, advocate court action, counsel clients on likely court actions, or educate clients and lawyers on the state of law in particular jurisdictions. It is however, lack of proper listing and proper notice of new cases and priority to old cases is a factor which contributes to the accumulation of arrears and significant mal-administration of justice. The businesses of the courts are therefore to be arranged to avoid such situations by receiving priority absolute priority to the new cases. Matters involving common questions of law can be grouped and posted together for hearing before the same bench in order to save the precious time of the court and avoid conflicting decisions by ensuring uniformity in the progressive development of law. Furthermore, law firms with scores of lawyers and hundreds of clients are found piling with large collection of case laws and loads of research.

[0004] Systems and methods for collecting and publishing the judicial opinions of the courts across the country in both paper and electronic forms are well known in the art. Most of such prior art systems collect and publish the data based on a text based search technique which is cumbersome and time consuming process. Furthermore, in applications containing different modules and corresponding screens the search interface has to be present across all screens/modules of the application which involves a lot of time in development effort. Many of such systems publish the bibliographic cites/hyperlinks to other opinions, that rely on/criticize various points of the law in the opinions. Such prior art approaches however enable researchers to readily access the related opinions electronically over a computer network, through various online research systems. Although such expansion of content represents an enhancement to the resources available to researchers, the present inventors have identified a functional gap between the resources and their usage in practice.

[0005] Based on the foregoing it is therefore is believed that a need exists for an improved system and method for serving context based results. A need also exists for an improved system and method for providing contextual information retrieval based upon the organized knowledge from ontology without a search interface, such as those that provide legal documents or other related content, as described in greater detail herein.

BRIEF SUMMARY

[0006] The following summary is provided to facilitate an understanding of some of the innovative features unique to the disclosed embodiment and is not intended to be a full description. A full appreciation of the various aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein can be gained by taking the entire specification, claims, drawings, and abstract as a whole.

[0007] It is, therefore, one aspect of the disclosed embodiments to provide for an improved system and method for serving context based results.

[0008] It is another aspect of the disclosed embodiments to provide for an improved semantic based information retrieval system.

[0009] It is further aspect of the disclosed embodiments to provide for an improved system and method for virtually providing contextual information retrieval based upon the organized knowledge from Ontology without a search interface.

[0010] The aforementioned aspects and other objectives and advantages can now be achieved as described herein. A system and method for serving context based results, is disclosed herein. The integrated semantic based information retrieval system (e.g., a pro system) is an end-to-end practice management tool utilized by the domain experts (e.g., chartered accountants and lawyers) for serving their clients with most relevant domain content (tax/legal) for reference to the practitioners without a search interface. The content is served based on the context of the user and the workflow within the implementation framework. The case laws are classified based on the semantic net/Ontology in order to provide an organized knowledge about the domain content. The results are further retrieved based on the context data points from the implementation framework and most relevant case laws are presented to the user by eliminating the need for further research. Such a system and method therefore effectively provides contextual information retrieval based upon the organized knowledge from the semantic net/Ontology without a search interface.

[0011] The integrated semantic based information retrieval framework works based on at least one of the following application context, such as, a user context, a screen context and a workflow context. The system understands the user context and the contextual meaning of the defined data points in the richly structured Ontology model of the semantic net and presents relevant search results with a high level of expressiveness coupled with great accuracy. The context of the retrieval mechanism is implicitly encoded within the composite structure of the application. The context-sensitive semantic paths are built of the data relations within the composite structure, which can be seen as directories with an appropriate access and retrieval logic. Such semantic paths can be applied in order to organize the content in a file system like pattern which directly reflects the data points.

[0012] The application context (workflow context, screen context and user context) data points are defined by the business domain specialists and organized into the ontological structure that defines the network of context data points of the entire business application. The content is then classified onto the Ontology of context data points defined for the business application domain. During such classification, a case document may get classified to one or more nodes/concepts/context data points in the Ontology/semantic net. When a user invokes the content reference from the application, the system captures the context data points from the application, and retrieves the content that is classified over the context paths that match with the context data points.

[0013] The system further ranks the content records according to the relevance and presents them to the user. The system and method described herein provides a semantically driven legal case management application that assists implicitly in creating, storing, indexing and searching copyright free sources. The system via the five broadly categorized modules such as, consulting, drafting, litigation, research and back-office enables the user to easily find and reuse the firm's best work and generate the key information for processing the case-laws.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0014] The accompanying figures, in which like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally-similar elements throughout the separate views and which are incorporated in and form a part of the specification, further illustrate the present invention and, together with the detailed description of the invention, serve to explain the principles of the present invention.

[0015] FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram representing semantic net and classification of the integrated semantic based information retrieval system, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

[0016] FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram representing content reference workflow in the integrated semantic based information retrieval system, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments;

[0017] FIGS. 3-5 illustrate various graphical user interface with respect to the integrated semantic based information retrieval system, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments; and

[0018] FIG. 6 illustrates a high level flow chart of operation illustrating logical operating steps of a method for providing contextual information retrieval based upon the organized knowledge from Ontology without a search interface, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0019] The particular values and configurations discussed in these non-limiting examples can be varied and are cited merely to illustrate at least one embodiment and are not intended to limit the scope thereof.

[0020] The embodiments now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which illustrative embodiments of the invention are shown. The embodiments disclosed herein can be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. As used herein, the term "and/or" includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.

[0021] The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising," when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

[0022] Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

[0023] FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram representing semantic net and classification of the integrated semantic based information retrieval system 100, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. The integrated semantic based information retrieval system (e.g., a pro system) 100 is an end-to-end practice management tool utilized by the domain experts 110 such as, for example, but not limited to, chartered accountants and lawyers) for serving their clients with most relevant domain content (tax/legal) for reference to the practitioners without a search interface.

[0024] The system 100 includes a semantic net editor 115 configured in association with a data processing system 120 of the domain expert 110, a semantic net creator 125, a semantic net XML creator 130, a content classifier 135, an entity extraction unit 140 that extracts the content in either user context 145 or screen context 150, a DAO 155 and a database 165. The semantic net creator 125 can be utilized to generate the domain specific semantic net XML pages 160. The database 165 can be utilized store case laws_Snet 170 from the semantic net XML 130, case laws 175 from entity extraction unit 140 and case laws_CAT 180 from the content classifier 135. The content is served based on the context of the user (e.g., domain experts) 110 and the workflow within the implementation framework. The case laws 170-180 are classified based on the semantic net/Ontology in order to provide an organized knowledge about the domain content. The results are further retrieved based on the context data points from the implementation framework and most relevant case laws 170-180 are presented to the user 110 by eliminating the need for further research.

[0025] Note that a 'case' is a particular set of empirical circumstances presenting a problem for decision, solution or classification as an instance of a type. It has particularity, presenting the circumstances and situation of a discrete episode, action, person, or thing. It is empirical in that it deals with something that actually exists or happens. It presents a problem for decision, that is, circumstances constituting a matter
for consideration and analysis resulting in an outcome. Finally, a case is an instance or example of the particular type of outcome, the category under which it has been classified, or the concept which the decision maker has applied.

[0026] A genus can be derived from over a million case laws by automatic crawling from the central government and all published court cases which are analyzed. Such case laws along with notifications, circulars and rules are well-studied and continue to be relevant to legal case based reasoning. For the development of domain knowledge, we decompose each base level data into its semantically salient terms and identify plausibly semantically related terms; the related terms are then identified under a conceptual cover. Such a system 100 therefore effectively provides contextual information retrieval based upon the organized knowledge from the semantic net/Ontology without a search interface.

[0027] FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram representing content reference workflow 200 in the integrated semantic based information retrieval system 100, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. Note that in FIGS. 1-6, identical or similar blocks are generally indicated by identical reference numerals. The integrated semantic based information retrieval framework 100 works based on at least one of the following application context, such as, a user context, a screen context and a workflow context.

[0028] When the user 210 searches for content over the network the system 100 semantically collects the content information based on the user context and provides in multiple user screen options say user screenl-user screen n. As an illustration if the word "income tax" is typed in a normal search box it is going to give results running to many pages which contains the word "income" and "tax" and a combination. The focus with which the user 110 started his search gets diluted in this approach. Whereas if the same word "income tax" is keyed in the present invention, the system 100 understands the user context and the contextual meaning of the defined data points in the richly structured Ontology model of semantic net and presents relevant search results. Clearly there is a high level of expressiveness coupled with great accuracy. The content reference web service unit 235 includes a component extraction unit 240 in order to determine the documents based on a path in the semantic net. Similarly, the content reference web service unit 235 includes a component ranking unit 245 for ranking the documents based on the semantic net/Ontology.

[0029] The system understands the user context and the contextual meaning of the defined data points in the richly structured Ontology model of the semantic net and presents relevant search results with a high level of expressiveness coupled with great accuracy. The context of the retrieval mechanism is implicitly encoded within the composite structure of the application. The context-sensitive semantic paths are built of the data relations within the composite structure, which can be seen as directories with an appropriate access and retrieval logic. Such semantic paths can be applied in order to organize the content in a file system like pattern which directly reflects the data points.

[0030] The application context (workflow context, screen context and user context) data points are defined by the business domain specialists and organized into the ontological structure that defines the network of context data points of the entire business application. The content is then classified onto the Ontology of context data points defined for the business application domain. During such classification, a case document may get classified to one or more nodes/concepts/context data points in the Ontology/semantic net. When a user invokes the content reference from the application, the system captures the context data points from the application, and retrieves the content that is classified over the context paths that match with the context data points.

[0031] The SAX (Simple API for XML) parser 250 is a sequential access parser API for XML. The SAX parser 250 provides a mechanism for reading the data from an XML document. It also provides an alternate way of reading XML documents from the Document Object Model (DOM). Where the DOM operates on the document as a whole, SAX parser 250 typically operate on each piece of the XML document sequentially.The system 100 ranks the content records according to the relevance and presents them to the user 210. The system 100 described herein therefore provides a semantically driven legal case management application that assists implicitly in creating, storing, indexing and searching copyright free sources. The system via the five broadly categorized modules such as, consulting, drafting, litigation, research and back-office enables the user to easily find and reuse the firm's best work and generate the key information for processing the case-laws.

[0032] FIGS. 3-5 illustrate various graphical user interfaces 300-500 with respect to the integrated semantic based information retrieval system, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. FIG. 3 illustrates a graphical user interface 300 illustrating selection of client and assessment year in the system 100. Note that the following invention is directed towards an integrated implementation framework and resulting medium of inbuilt Ontology model driven synchronization during the Life cycle of a Legal case management and extendable to potentially other enterprises. It is the conceptualization of domain knowledge in a semantic net/ ontology framework. There can be more than 1400 context data points captured and defined which are mapped to the semantic net. The system 100 is designed in such a way that it's highly flexible and more data points can be defined in the future saving development effort.

[0033] FIG. 4 illustrates a graphical user interface 400 illustrating case laws and rules expanded when the domain expert 110 selects the content reference, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. The integrated semantic based information retrieval system 100 is a practice management application that provides a user interface 300-500 to bring together a wide variety of semantic tools and technology and apply them to a set of data points with reference to the context of the user 210. Based on the intricacies and robustness of legal knowledge, the system 100 opts for creating a work flow with context reference at all the data points for identification and evaluation of the legal case laws 170-180.

[0034] FIG. 5 illustrates a graphical user interface 500 illustrating entire case laws details from the result page, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. Again as a reminder, note that in FIGS. 1-6, identical or similar blocks are generally indicated by identical reference numerals. The integrated semantic based information retrieval system 100 a wide variety of capabilities such as, for example, contact management, calendar, workflow management, tracking and reporting capabilities. The system 100 effectively provides communication both internally and externally, permits viewing incoming emails from the external sources, post attachments directly to client case files, and post internal messages directly to the client case files. The system also has capability for performing retrieval and identification searches based on the defendant, plaintiff, witness, and other criteria. The system 100 works with both an internal calendar and the Microsoft Outlook calendar. The internal calendaring system permits user 210 to view daily, weekly and monthly appointments for individuals/staff. The calendar reports can be easily run to reflect specific criteria and appointments for multiple staff members.

[0035] A daily task list is automatically created as each file progresses that enables user 210 to easily record completion of items, reassign tasks to accommodate staffing changes, generate or change task due dates, create single and repeating items and track multiple statute of limitation dates/warnings. The system 100 also effectively organizes, tracks, and maintains the case facts and other pertinent information as case progresses. The system 100 tracks the case status, individual/multiple statute dates, communications and expenses. Communications can be tracked by date, staff names and customizable topics. Expenses can be tracked by payments, record notes, and customizable memorandums. The integrated semantic based information retrieval system 100 performs time-related activities from the Time Module, including hourly time entry, billable and non-billable entries. The billing program enables the user 210 to generate bills for either individual client files or for all client files by name/file number.

[0036] FIG. 6 illustrates a high level flow chart of operation illustrating logical operating steps of a method 600 for providing contextual information retrieval based upon the organized knowledge from Ontology without a search interface, in accordance with the disclosed embodiments. The user 210 can be logged into the application via providing user information and assessment year in order to view the most relevant domain content (tax/legal) for reference to the practitioners without a search interface, as illustrated at block 610. The user 210 can be further permitted to navigate the application through the business workflow, as depicted at block 620. The content reference can be invoked at any point in the business workflow, as illustrated at block 630. The context of the user 210 can be captured and transmitted to the content reference unit 235, as depicted at block 640. The content can be retrieved and extracted from the database based on the context of the user 235 and the retrieved content can be ranked in the component ranking unit 245, as illustrated at block 650. The system and method described herein therefore effectively provides contextual information retrieval based upon the organized knowledge from Ontology without the search interface.

[0037] The following description is presented with respect to embodiments of the present invention, which can be embodied in the context of a data-processing apparatus and networked device depicted in FIG. 1 & FIG. 2.The present invention, however, is not limited to any particular application or any particular environment. Instead, those skilled in the art will find that the system and methods of the present invention may be advantageously applied to a variety of system and application software, including patent database management systems, tax management systems, word processors, and the like. Moreover, the present invention may be embodied on a variety of different platforms, including Macintosh, UNIX, LINUX, and the like. Therefore, the description of the exemplary embodiments, which follows, is for purposes of illustration and not considered a limitation.

[0038] It will be appreciated that variations of the above-disclosed and other features and functions, or alternatives thereof, may be desirably combined into many other different systems or applications. Also that various presently unforeseen or unanticipated alternatives, modifications, variations or improvements therein may be subsequently made by those skilled in the art which are also intended to be encompassed by the following claims.

CLAIMS

1. A method for serving context based results, said method comprising:

extracting a domain content having at least one case law utilizing an integrated semantic based information retrieval platform with respect to a domain expert wherein said relevant domain content with respect to said domain expert is extracted based on a user context and a workflow context without a search interface;

classifying said at least one case law with respect to said domain content based on a semantic net/Ontology in order to thereby provide an organized knowledge about said domain content; and
retrieving said domain content based on at least one context data point from an implementation framework in order to thereby present a most relevant case law with respect to said domain expert by eliminating the need for further research.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising understanding said context and a

contextual meaning of said at least one context data points in a richly structured Ontology model of said semantic net in order to present said relevant domain content with a high level of expressiveness coupled with a great accuracy.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising encoding said user context and said workflow context of retrieval mechanism within a composite structure in order to thereby build a plurality of context-sensitive semantic paths data relations within said composite structure.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising organizing said plurality of context-sensitive semantic paths data relations within said composite structure in to at least one directory with an appropriate access and a retrieval logic.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising applying said plurality of context-sensitive semantic paths in order to organize said domain content in a file system which directly reflects said at least one context data point.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said integrated semantic based information retrieval platform works based on an application context.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein said integrated semantic based information retrieval platform works based at least one of the following said application contexts:

a user context;
a screen context; and
a workflow context.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising organizing an ontological structure that defines a network of said at least one context data point of an entire business application.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising manually defining said at least one context data point with respect to said application context via a business domain specialist.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising captures said at least one context data point and retrieving said domain content that is classified over said plurality of context-sensitive semantic paths that match with at least one context data point.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising ranking said domain content based on the relevancy and presenting said domain content to said domain expert by implicitly assisting said domain expert in creating, storing, indexing and searching copyright free sources over said network.