sâmbătă, 28 decembrie 2013

Jefferson et al.: Transparency tools in gene patenting for informing policy and practice

Professor Dr. Osmat A. Jefferson , Deniz Köllhofer, Thomas H. Ehrich, and Professor Dr. Richard A. Jefferson , all of Queensland University of Technology, have published Transparency tools in gene patenting for informing policy and practice , Nature Biotechnology , 31, 1086-1093 (2013).


Here is a summary:



[... There is] a pressing need for precise analysis of patents that disclose and reference genetic sequences, especially in the claims. Similarly, data sets, standards compliance and analytical tools must be improved—in particular, data sets and analytical tools must be made openly accessible—in order to provide a basis for effective decision making and policy setting to support biological innovation. Here, we present a web-based platform that allows such data aggregation, analysis and visualization in an open, shareable facility. To demonstrate the potential for the extension of this platform to global patent jurisdictions, we discuss the results of a global survey of patent offices that shows that much progress is still needed in making these data freely available for aggregation in the first place.



The platform described in the article is The Lens (also called Patent Lens ).


The technology described in the article is distributed through a nonprofit organization called Cambia.


Richard Jefferson discusses the article in a new interview in Scientific American: Seth Fletcher: Can Machine Learning Fix a Broken Patent System?


Click here for earlier posts on patent information systems.


HT Tom Bruce




Filed under: Articles and papers Tagged: Annotation of legal documents, Annotation of legal information, Annotation of legal texts, Annotation of patent documents, Annotation of patent information, Annotation of patents, Cambia, Deniz Köllhofer, Legal annotation, Legal annotation platforms, Legal annotation systems, Legal information retrieval, Machine learning and patent analysis, Machine learning and patent information, Machine learning and patent retrieval, Machine learning and patent search, Nature Biotechnology, Osmat A. Jefferson, Patent analysis, Patent analysis systems, Patent annotation, Patent information retrieval, Patent information systems, Patent law information systems, Patent Lens, Patent retrieval, Patent retrieval systems, Patent search, Patent search systems, Richard A. Jefferson, Scientific American, The Lens, Thomas H. Ehrich, Visualization of legal information, Visualization of patent information



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/jefferson-et-al-transparency-tools-in-gene-patenting-for-informing-policy-and-practice/

vineri, 27 decembrie 2013

Greenleaf et al.: The Meaning of ‘Free Access to Legal Information’: A Twenty Year Evolution

Professor Dr. Graham Greenleaf of the University of New South Wales, Professor Andrew Mowbray of University of Technology Sydney, and Philip Chung of the University of New South Wales, have published The Meaning of ‘Free Access to Legal Information’: A Twenty Year Evolution , Journal of Open Access to Law , 1(1) (2013).


Here is the abstract:



Free online access to legal information is approaching maturity in some parts of the world, after two decades of development, but elsewhere is still in its early stages of development. Nowhere has it been realised fully. The main question asked in this paper is “what should ‘free access’ mean in relation to legal information in order for it to be fully effective?” As with software, we must ask whether free access to law is ‘free as in beer, or free as in speech?’


The six most significant attempts over the last twenty years to answers this question are analysed to show that a substantial degree of international consensus has developed on what ‘free access to legal information’ now means. Of thirty separate identifiable principles, most are found in more than one statement of principles, and many are now relatively common in the practices of both States and providers of free access to legal information (government and NGO). Many concern measures to avoid the development of monopolies in publication of the core legal documents of a jurisdiction. Which principles are essential to the meaning of ‘free access to legal information’, and which are only desirable, is usually clear.


Two complementary meanings of ‘free access to legal information’ emerge. The first states the obligations of the State in relation to ensuring free access to legal information – but not necessarily providing it. The key elements concern the right of republication. The second meaning states the conditions under which an organisation can correctly be said to be a provider of free access to legal information. We argue that a better definition is needed than the ‘consensus’ suggests, and propose one based on the avoidance of conflicts with maximisation of the quality and quantity of free access.


One use of such a set of principles is to help evaluate the extent to which any particular jurisdiction has implemented free access to legal information. A brief example is given of Australia, a county with a generally good record but some deficiencies.


Finally the paper considers what steps should be taken to most effectively realise a reformulated concept of ‘free access to legal information’, by civil society, by States at the national level, and at the international level.





Filed under: Applications, Articles and papers, Policy debates Tagged: Andrew Mowbray, Concept explications in legal communication studies, Concept explications in legal informatics, Construct explications in legal communication studies, Construct explications in legal informatics, Free access to law, Graham Greenleaf, JOAL, Journal of Open Access to Law, Legal information institutes, Philip Chung, Public access to legal information



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2013/12/27/greenleaf-et-al-the-meaning-of-free-access-to-legal-information-a-twenty-year-evolution/

Call for papers: Special issue on Law, Language and Information Technology, of Informatica e diritto

A call for papers has been issued for a special issue on the topic of ” Law, Language and Information Technology,” of the international journal, Informatica e diritto .


Click here for the call in English.


Click here for the call in Italian.


The submission deadline for title and abstract is 15 January 2014.


Here is a non-exclusive list of topics for the special issue:




  • Linguistic quality in legal texts: assessing formal, technical and terminological quality;

  • support to legislative drafting;

  • quality indicators for readability, clearness and coherence in legal texts;

  • construction, use and reuse of linguistic-semantic resources: taxonomies, thesauri, lexicons and ontologies;

  • conceptualization of legal knowledge for cross-lingual and trans-national retrieval as well as for knowledge sharing;

  • multilingualism and linguistic policies for digital legal information services;

  • tools for multilingual alignment of legal terminologies;

  • semantic interoperability among digital collections;

  • metadata quality, standards and shared vocabularies for legal documents exchange and linked data in the legal domain;

  • information extraction and automatic classification of legal corpora;

  • historical archives: digitalization, preservation and usability;

  • legal texts processing and quantitative analysis of legal documents;

  • legal language and the communication of the law in multilingual and multicultural contexts;

  • law and language in legal professions training



For more details, please see the complete call.




Filed under: Applications, Calls for papers, Technology developments Tagged: Automatic classification of legal documents, Cross-language legal information retrieval, Digitization of legal documents, Informatica e Diritto, Legal classification, Legal communication, Legal communication instruction, Legal communication training, Legal document exchange standards, Legal document exchange systems, Legal drafting support systems, Legal information exchange models, Legal information extraction, Legal information retrieval, Legal knowledge representation, Legal language, Legal language instruction, Legal language training, Legal lexicons, Legal Linked Data, Legal metadata, Legal metadata quality, Legal metadata standards, Legal ontologies, Legal taxonomies, Legal text analysis, Legal text corpora, Legal text processing, Legal thesauri, Legal vocabularies, Legislative drafting, Legislative drafting support systems, Legislative drafting systems, Linked Data and law, Multicultural legal communication, Multilingual legal communication, Multilingual legal information systems, Preservation of legal documents, Quality of legal language, Quantitative analysis of legal documents, Readability of legal resources, Readability of legal texts, Semantic interoperability of legal data, Semantic interoperability of legal information, Transnational legal information retrieval, Usability of historical legal documents, Usability of historical legal information, Usability of legal documents



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2013/12/27/call-for-papers-special-issue-on-law-language-and-information-technology-of-informatica-e-diritto/

Small Firm Tech To-Do List for 2014

We're going to steal a page from our Technologist blog and talk tech today. But don't worry, it's relevant -- we promise. Small firms operate under constraints we can identify with -- limited budget, no room for downtime, and a...



Continue reading this article, and get more law firm business news and information, at FindLaw.com.



via Strategist http://blogs.findlaw.com/strategist/2013/12/small-firm-tech-to-do-list-for-2014.html

joi, 26 decembrie 2013

Applications invited: LAST-JD: Joint International Doctoral Degree in Law, Science and Technology

Applications are invited for LAST-JD: Joint International Doctoral (Ph.D.) Degree in Law, Science and Technology.


The application deadline is 21 January 2014.


One research theme of the program is Legal Informatics and Artificial Intelligence and Law, which covers the following topics:




  • Semantic Web and Legal ontologies modelling

  • Information Retrieval and Database techniques in the Legal Domain

  • Legal document modelling and representation including Open Data, XML, and standardization

  • Computer Forensics

  • Information Systems for eJustice, eGovernment, and eLegislation

  • Computational models of legal and ethical reasoning including educational applications

  • Intelligent Information extraction and NLP of legal resources

  • e-Discovery and data mining in Legal domain

  • Formal Models of Norms and Legal Reasoning

  • Logic-based models of norms and legal knowledge (e.g. for case law)

  • Legal reasoning, including argumentation and reasoning about evidence

  • Argumentation and Argumentation systems

  • Game theory as applied to the law

  • Normative Multi-Agent Systems and e-Institutions

  • Regulatory Compliance

  • Robot and Intelligent System ethics



In addition, some of the “10 top research topics” for the program deal with legal informatics:



  • Deontic logic for reasoning about machine ethics

  • Temporal Defeasible in Legal Reasoning

  • Robotic, ethical issues and IPR aspects

  • eDiscovery and data mining techniques for legal domain

  • Legal ontologies for regulatory compliance


Some fellowships are available.


For more details, please see the program’s Website.


HT Professor Dr. Monica Palmirani, the Director of LAST-JD.




Filed under: Fellowships, PhD programs, PhD student positions Tagged: LAST-JD, LAST-JD Joint International Doctoral (Ph.D.) Degree in Law Science and Technology, Legal informatics doctoral programs, Legal informatics doctoral student positions, Legal informatics PhD student positions, Monica Palmirani



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2013/12/26/applications-invited-last-jd-joint-internation-doctoral-degree-in-law-science-and-technology/

Ohio's Text-Solicitation Opinion: What Does It Mean for Lawyers?

Late last week, the Columbus Dispatch seized upon a months-old advisory opinion by the Ohio Supreme Court which, in theory, allows lawyers to text potential clients. Phone call and in-person solicitation is not allowed, nor is chat room solicitation, but...



Continue reading this article, and get more law firm business news and information, at FindLaw.com.



via Strategist http://blogs.findlaw.com/strategist/2013/12/ohios-text-soliciation-opinion-what-does-it-mean-for-lawyers.html

miercuri, 25 decembrie 2013

Vibert et al.: Legivoc: Connecting laws in a changing world

Dr. Hughes-Jehan Vibert of the French Ministry of Justice, and Dr. Pierre Jouvelot and Benoît Pin of MINES ParisTech, have published Legivoc – connecting laws in a changing world , Journal of Open Access to Law , 1(1) (2013).


Here is the abstract:



On the Internet, legal information is a sum of national laws. Even in a changing world, law is culturally specific (nation-specific most of the time) and legal concepts only become meaningful when put in the context of a particular legal system. Legivoc aims to be a semantic interface between the subject of law of a State and the other spaces of legal information that it will be led to use. This project will consist of setting up a server of multilingual legal vocabularies from the European Union Member States legal systems, which will be freely available, for other uses via an application programming interface (API).





Filed under: APIs, Applications, Articles and papers, Projects, Technology developments, Technology tools Tagged: APIs, Benoît Pin, Hughes-Jehan Vibert, JOAL, Journal of Open Access to Law, Legal APIs, Legal application programming interfaces, Legal controlled vocabularies, Legal knowledge representation, Legal ontologies, Legal subject classification, Legal subject headings, Legal taxonomies, Legivoc, Multilingual legal controlled vocabularies, Multilingual legal ontologies, Multilingual legal taxonomies, Pierre Jouvelot



via Legal Informatics Blog http://legalinformatics.wordpress.com/2013/12/25/vibert-et-al-legivoc-connecting-laws-in-a-changing-world/