Patents by Inventor James S. Wiltshire, Jr.

James S. Wiltshire, Jr. has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 7912705
    Abstract: A fact extraction tool set (“FEX”) finds and extracts targeted pieces of information from text using linguistic and pattern matching technologies, and in particular, text annotation and fact extraction. Text annotation tools break a text, such as a document, into its base tokens and annotate those tokens or patterns of tokens with orthographic, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and other attributes. A user-defined “Annotation Configuration” controls which annotation tools are used in a given application. XML is used as the basis for representing the annotated text. A tag uncrossing tool resolves conflicting (crossed) annotation boundaries in an annotated text to produce well-formed XML from the results of the individual annotators. The fact extraction tool is a pattern matching language which is used to write scripts that find and match patterns of attributes that correspond to targeted pieces of information in the text, and extract that information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 19, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2011
    Assignee: LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
    Inventors: Mark D. Wasson, James S. Wiltshire, Jr., Donald Loritz, Steve Xu, Shian-jung Dick Chen, Valentina Templar, Eleni Koutsomitopoulou
  • Publication number: 20100195909
    Abstract: A fact extraction tool set (“FEX”) finds and extracts targeted pieces of information from text using linguistic and pattern matching technologies, and in particular, text annotation and fact extraction. Text annotation tools break a text, such as a document, into its base tokens and annotate those tokens or patterns of tokens with orthographic, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and other attributes. A user-defined “Annotation Configuration” controls which annotation tools are used in a given application. XML is used as the basis for representing the annotated text. A tag uncrossing tool resolves conflicting (crossed) annotation boundaries in an annotated text to produce well-formed XML from the results of the individual annotators. The fact extraction tool is a pattern matching language which is used to write scripts that find and match patterns of attributes that correspond to targeted pieces of information in the text, and extract that information.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 19, 2010
    Publication date: August 5, 2010
    Inventors: Mark D. Wasson, James S. Wiltshire, JR., Donald Loritz, Steve Xu, Shian-Jung Dick Chen, Valentina Templar, Eleni Koutsomitopoulou
  • Patent number: 7693704
    Abstract: A computer-automated system and method identify text in a first “citing” court case, near a “citing instance” (in which a second “cited” court case is cited), that indicates the reason(s) for citing (RFC). The automated method of designating text, taken from a set of citing documents, as reasons for citing (RFC) that are associated with respective citing instances of a cited document, has steps including: obtaining contexts of the citing instances in the respective citing documents (each context including text that includes the citing instance and text that is near the citing instance), analyzing the content of the contexts, and selecting (from the citing instances' context) text that constitutes the RFC, based on the analyzed content of the contexts. A related computer-automated system and method selects content words that are highly related to the reasons a particular document is cited, and gives them weights that indicate their relative relevance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 6, 2010
    Assignee: Lexis-Nexis Group, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
    Inventors: Timothy L. Humphrey, Xin Allan Lu, Afsar Parhizgar, Salahuddin Ahmed, James S. Wiltshire, Jr., John T. Morelock, Joseph P. Harmon, Spiro G. Collias, Paul Zhang
  • Patent number: 7464025
    Abstract: A computer-automated system and method identify text in a first “citing” court case, near a “citing instance” (in which a second “cited” court case is cited), that indicates the reason(s) for citing (RFC). The automated method of designating text, taken from a set of citing documents, as reasons for citing (RFC) that are associated with respective citing instances of a cited document, has steps including: obtaining contexts of the citing instances in the respective citing documents (each context including text that includes the citing instance and text that is near the citing instance), analyzing the content of the contexts, and selecting (from the citing instances' context) text that constitutes the RFC, based on the analyzed content of the contexts. A related computer-automated system and method selects content words that are highly related to the reasons a particular document is cited, and gives them weights that indicate their relative relevance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2005
    Date of Patent: December 9, 2008
    Assignee: Lexis-Nexis Group
    Inventors: Timothy L. Humphrey, Xin Allan Lu, Afsar Parhizgar, Salahuddin Ahmed, James S. Wiltshire, Jr., John T. Morelock, Joseph P. Harmon, Spiro G. Collias, Paul Zhang
  • Patent number: 6856988
    Abstract: A computer-automated system and method identify text in a first “citing” court case, near a “citing instance” (in which a second “cited” court case is cited), that indicates the reason(s) for citing (RFC). The automated method of designating text, taken from a set of citing documents, as reasons for citing (RFC) that are associated with respective citing instances of a cited document, has steps including: obtaining contexts of the citing instances in the respective citing documents (each context including text that includes the citing instance and text that is near the citing instance), analyzing the content of the contexts, and selecting (from the citing instances' context) text that constitutes the RFC, based on the analyzed content of the contexts. A related computer-automated system and method selects content words that are highly related to the reasons a particular document is cited, and gives them weights that indicate their relative relevance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 1999
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2005
    Assignee: Lexis-Nexis Group
    Inventors: Timothy L. Humphrey, Xin Allan Lu, Afsar Parhizgar, Salahuddin Ahmed, James S. Wiltshire, Jr., John T. Morelock, Joseph P. Harmon, Spiro G. Collias, Paul Zhang
  • Patent number: 6772149
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method of gathering large quantities of training data from case law documents (especially suitable for use as input to a learning algorithm that is used in a subsequent process of recognizing and distinguishing fact passages and discussion passages in additional case law documents) has steps of: partitioning text in the documents by headings in the documents, comparing the headings in the documents to fact headings in a fact heading list and to discussion headings in a discussion heading list, filtering from the documents the headings and text that is associated with the headings, and storing (on persistent storage in a manner adapted for input into the learning algorithm) fact training data and discussion training data that are based on the filtered headings and the associated text.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 1999
    Date of Patent: August 3, 2004
    Assignee: Lexis-Nexis Group
    Inventors: John T. Morelock, James S. Wiltshire, Jr., Salahuddin Ahmed, Timothy Lee Humphrey, Xin Allan Lu
  • Patent number: 6684202
    Abstract: A system and method for binary classification of text units such as sentences, paragraphs and documents as either a rule of law (ROL) or not a rule of law (˜ROL). During a training phase of the system and method of the present invention, an initialized knowledge base and labeled or pre-classified sentences are used to build a trained knowledge base. The trained knowledge base contains an equation, a threshold, and a plurality of statistical values called Z values. When inputting text documents for classification, a Z value is generated for each term or token in the input text. The Z values are input to the equation which calculates a score for each sentence. Each calculated score is then compared to the threshold to classify each sentence as either ROL or ˜ROL.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 31, 2000
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2004
    Assignee: Lexis Nexis
    Inventors: Timothy L. Humphrey, X. Allan Lu, James S. Wiltshire, Jr., John T. Morelock, Spiro G. Collias, Salahuddin Ahmed
  • Patent number: 6502081
    Abstract: An economic, scalable machine learning system and process perform document (concept) classification with high accuracy using large topic schemes, including large hierarchical topic schemes. One or more highly relevant classification topics is suggested for a-given document (concept) to be classified. The invention includes training and concept classification processes. The invention also provides methods that may be used as part of the training and/or concept classification processes, including: a method of scoring the relevance of features in training concepts, a method of ranking concepts based on relevance score, and a method of voting on topics associated with an input concept. In a preferred embodiment, the invention is applied to the legal (case law) domain, classifying legal concepts (rules of law) according to a proprietary legal topic classification scheme (a hierarchical scheme of areas of law).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 2000
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2002
    Assignee: Lexis Nexis
    Inventors: James S. Wiltshire, Jr., John T. Morelock, Timothy L. Humphrey, X. Allan Lu, James M. Peck, Salahuddin Ahmed