Patents by Inventor Spiro G. Collias

Spiro G. Collias 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: 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: 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