If you have been watching the robust marketplace for patent practice products you will surely wonder “Could anyone come up with a new idea for a patent product?”  Well yes. Petition.ai has focused on a very narrow area of patent law where there has been no coverage… and they own the space…….. Petition.ai has  identified a “niche of need” helping lawyers search and compare patent examination petitions. Founder Michael Spector describes it as “haystack of needles”  otherwise difficult to find.

 

Here’s what I learned talking to the founder of petition.ai. Every year over 300,000 patent applications are filed in the United States Patent Office. About 15% of those applications require a change after filing or about 40,000 petitions. These petitions range from the mundane – request to accelerate examination to the career saving  – reversing an accidental abandonment of a patent by clicking the wrong box or accidentally disclosing confidential information.  Until now, lawyers might have to rely on their firm’s DMS to find a similar petition, but there was no easily searchable public or commercial source available for the PTO Office of Petitions filings and examiners rulings.

Use Cases Petition.ai currently includes 500,00 petitions going back to 2016. Here are some ways that Petition.ai can be used:

  • Find a model of petition on the same issue that has been granted. Provides links to PDFs of documents.
  • Get valuable intelligence on the specific petition examiner who will be reviewing your petition. Contact examiner in advance to ask drafting and timing issues.
  • Manage client expectations regarding history of similar petitions.
  • Analytics are still being developed but currently include: grant/denial rate for specific issues, grant/denial rate by law firm.

Pricing – the product is priced based on the number of patents filed by the firm in the prior year.. It is really smart to avoid basing cost on the number of attorneys and instead focus on the metric of need. Price is based on the number of patents filed by the firm in the prior year and assumes that each firm needs access to petitions for 15% of their applications. Price per firm ranges from $500 – $7,500 a year.

Future Developments will include adding  time to grant analytics and expanding the database retroactively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Register now for the live webcast: All Federal Cases – All Available Practice Areas – All in One Place!

Join Karl Harris, CEO of Lex Machina, who will interview Wade Malone, Co-Head of Product at Lex Machina, Greg Lambert, Chief Knowledge Services Officer at Jackson Walker, and Jean O’Grady, Sr. Director of Research & Knowledge at DLA Piper, on July 30, for a 45 minute live webcast at 9:00 am PDT (12:00 pm EDT), discussing the benefits of deploying Legal Analytics across different practice areas in your organization. Register here.

Lex Machina has traditionally expanded our Legal Analytics coverage by rolling out new practice areas. Now we’re expanding our coverage in a new way: You can get access to all commercially relevant civil cases in PACER, across all available practice areas, for the most comprehensive federal district court coverage ever offered.

Today Trellis,an AI powered state court analytics platform is announcing expanded coverage to trial courts throughout New York Florida and Texas. Trellis launched a California database in in March 2018 with $2 M seed funding. The legal market has clearly responded to the marketplace of analytics products which have sprung up over the past five years. State court coverage remains a challenge. The thing that appears to make Trellis different is that it collects not only data but documents from all the courts it covers. It offers an analytics dashboard and a motion library.

In a recent article in Techlaw Crossroads , Trellis Founder and CEO  Nicole   Clark is quoted as saying “we want Trellis to be the Google of state court trial court analytics. It enables lawyer to search across all of the documents.” Like other analytics products Trellis data can be used to develop litigation strategy, pitch strategy, assess opponents litigation history as well as a judge’s motion history.

Trellis leaders have made an interesting strategic decision. Since they will focus only on state cases not federal cases they limiting their archival coverage and building forward. The rationale is that state court judges tend to have shorter terms on the bench since they are not appointed for life.  This limited history may work for judges, but it will be helpful to have a deeper archive for  law firm, party  and motion data.  I could not find coverage dates for each court on the Trellis website.

Alon Schwartz co-founder and CPO of Trellis is quoted in the press release  stating that they “use multi layered classification algorithms to seamlessly surface the most meaningful information to the user.”

New York, Florida and Texas. They are offering 2 million cases across 28 New York State Counties including counties of New York City and the surrounding metropolitan area.They have 3.5 million cases from Florida and I counted 58 counties in their press release. I counted 36 counties in Texas which the press release says includes 3 million cases.

The Trellis Dashboard

Research Features:

Trellis supports multi state research on opposing counsel and other parties.

The platform allows you to compare judges motion grants compared to the county and the state.

Motion Library included which provides examples of  motions as well as state courts judges ruling on those motions.

Cases can be filtered by parties council court or matter type.

Free Trial Trellis is offering a two week free trial. Trellis is an interesting addition to the state court analytics landscape, I will be keeping my eye out for new developments.

 

 

Today Fastcase and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft are announcing a partnership which will enhance the content available to “Cadwalader Cabinet” subscribers. The “Cadwalader Cabinet “is an integrated legal research and intelligence service for financial services lawyers and compliance professionals. It provides news, workflow tools and a collection of over 250,000 documents. It was created over a decade ago to provide market-leading regulatory expertise to financial institutions, regulators, academics, and law firms. The 17,000 subscribers to the Cabinet newsletter and platform will have access to additional primary law content and alerts including access to cases from the Fastcase platform. 

According to the press release, Cabinet content includes financial statutes and regulatory materials as well as commentary “provided by lawyers at Cadwalader, one of the oldest and most well-respected U.S. law firms.”   A video illustrating how the Cadwalader Cabinet works can  be viewed at this link.

More from the Press Release: 

“This partnership has been in development for a while, but it is particularly powerful moment for us to be providing this additional resource to our users, who may not have the full use of their ordinary resources as they or their colleagues work from home,” said Steven Lofchie, a Cadwalader partner and founder of the Cabinet. “The additional materials that we are able to provide through Fastcase will take Cabinet users to the next level by providing a complete set of the materials to which they need 24/7 access.”  

 Fastcase VP of Product Nina Steinbrecker Jack notes: “Cadwalader and particularly the Cadwalader Cabinet has been a market leader at adding intelligent solutions to organize and deliver legal analysis from experts at the firm to the firm’s clients, an initiative that Fastcase is eager to support. Firms are often surprised to learn that Fastcase welcomes the opportunity to customize solutions that simplify the process of integrating primary law and keeping it up to date. Our conversations with recognized innovators like Steven Lofchie at law firms always lead to creative ways to collaborate and improve their services to clients.” 

 Building solutions directly within a firm’s products and platforms continues the extension of Fastcase to democratize the law.   

“Data-driven law firms are beginning to create a new generation of legal services for clients, and Cadwalader Cabinet is a terrific example of what that future will hold,” said Ed Walters, Fastcase CEO. “Law firms contain enormous expertise and information assets, and the firms that can harness that expertise for the benefit of clients will be true leaders in a fast-changing time.” 

From Treatise to Client-Centric Platform. I remember more than a decade ago when Cadwalader partner Steven Lofchie’s treatise on broker dealer regulation disappeared from a now defunct digital platform called “Books on Screen”– to the great disappointment of many broker-dealer practitioners. It is interesting to learn that Lofchie  has been a driving force behind a new kind of interactive client-centric research platform– now partnering with Fastcase a leading disruptor in the legal information market.

Today Lexis is announcing Lexis is launching a significant new platform called Lexis + . I had a call with Jeff Pfeifer,   chief product officer at LexisNexis and David Ganote senior director of product strategy at Lexis Nexis. Lexis+  is being positioned as a premium solution which has been in development over the last 18 months.  Pfeifer described the release as improving the user experience and delivering insights though integration across all elements of the platform. There are a total of 11 new features which will only be available in Lexis+:

  1. Updated, Modern User Interface visual styling including a new Experience Dock to navigate to integrated elements of the product​
  2. Practical Guidance content fully integrated in “Search All​” experience of Legal Research
  3. Lexis Practice Advisor application also fully integrated in Lexis+ and all subscribers will have access to at least one module of practical guidance content
  4. Brief Analysis
  5. Expanded Search Term Maps, now covering 35 Content Types
  6. ​Enhanced Ravel View, including new ‘anchor’ capabilities to better navigate the visual map
  7. Shepard’s At Risk
  8. Code Compare
  9. Lexis Answers, fully redesigned in Lexis+
  10. Missing & Must Include​
  11. Search Tree

One of the most fascinating aspects of the new platform is rebuild of the Lexis Answers feature. According to Pfeifer the newest version of Lexis Answers was built at Lexis Labs where the team worked with a machine learning technology from Google  referred to as BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers). BERT was smart but not smart enough to master the complexities of legal concepts and the idiosyncrasies of legal writing and syntax. According to Pfeifer “Lexis sent BERT to law school.” Lexis was able to train BERT using the Lexis taxonomy and headnotes which had been developed at Lexis decades ago. Yet another example of human machine collaboration. 

The Insight Wave. The signature visual identity is called the “insight wave” a net-like swath of color which arcs and turns across the screen. According to Pfeifer,  the  new image represents the flow and inter-connected-ness of information. This is appropriate since the new platform offers a  tighter integration of research, analytics and practical guidance tools.

Voluntary upgrade. I’m going to cut to the chase for my librarian and knowledge management colleagues. Lexis Advance is not being phased out. Subscribers can continue to purchase Lexis Advance or choose to upgrade to Lexis+.

The Dashboard. The main Lexis dashboard includes an “experience dock” on the left side of the screen which allows users to select between legal research, practical guidance or brief analysis. 

 “What would you like to research today?”  hovers over the prominent search bar. The single search feature will search across all Lexis content. Users can enter queries using natural language or Boolean.

Lexis Answers in Lexis+ was developed from the ground up.  Today, it answers from questions from caselaw but the Continue Reading Lexis Rides the “Insight Wave:” Launches  Lexis+ with New Look, Brief Analyzer, AI Search, Codes Compare and Loads of New Features

Tax lawyers want it all. And the more granular and up-to date the better. Today  Wolters Kluwer  Legal and Regulatory released a new alerts feature in digital Tax Reporters Plus Suite on Cheetah that will enable tax lawyers to track alerts for changes in the tax code, regulations, explanations and other code related documents.

Alerts in a Time of COVID

New legislation is always followed by a raft of regulations and administrative materials.Since the passage of the CARES Act PL 116-123 and the Families First Act PL 116-127 in response to the COVID pandemic tax lawyers have been on high alert monitoring the implementing regulations and interpretive materials.

With the Tax Reporters Plus Suite’s new Alerts feature, users can set alerts to monitor tax code sections they are Continue Reading Tax Law Alerts in a Time of COVID — Wolters Kluwer Cheetah Adds Powerful New Tracking Tool

Full Court Press, the Fastcase imprint  is launching a webinar series in conjunction with legal history publishers TwelveTables Press. “Leaders in Law” is a monthly webinar series featuring interviews with notable attorney involved in civil rights in the U.S. and around the world.

“There’s no better time to hear from those who fight the civil rights fight and have taken these legal steps before us,” noted Twelve Tables Press Publisher and Fastcase COO, Steve Errick.

 The first live webinar in the series focuses on a seminar LGBT rights case. The Legacy of Lawrence v. Texas, is Continue Reading Fastcase Launches “Leaders in Law” Webinar Series Focused on Lawyers in Civil Rights

Today Lex Machina, a LexisNexis company is making the COVID-10 Impact Analyzer App “COVID App” available to the public for free. It was released on June 1st to Lex Machina subscribers. The COVID app provides insights into the past and ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the federal district court litigation.  The press release cites Lex Machina’s  public interest originals as driving the  public launch which will allow “individuals and organizations to analyze data from new cases filed in the federal district court since February of 2020.” Just to be clear, Lex Machina apps are not phone apps. Lex Machina apps are accessible on a desktop. A public access version of the COVID app is available for free  at this link.

Lex Machina subscribers  using the app can click through to the underlying cases for filings and documents for complaints.  

Weekly COVID Case FIlings in Federal District Court by Case Type

The COVID App delivers insights on both the volume of COVID related litigation in federal courts and the impact of Continue Reading LEX MACHINA LAUNCHES COVID-19 IMPACT ANALYZER APP  FREE TO PUBLIC – WEBINAR TODAY

Today LexisNexis is launching the Product Liability Navigator, a “purpose built” product to help in-house counsel and law firms facing  complex types of litigation. It offers a custom dashboard and workflow. Perhaps more importantly, Products Liability Navigator  enables a lawyer to quickly assess the risks of potential litigation.

The press release includes a quote from LexisNexis North American CEO, Sean Fitzpatrick. “Lexis Product Liability Navigator is a powerful solution that addresses the unique needs of litigators practicing products liability law. The workflow-based solution illuminates the risks or rewards of a case and saves time and resources on case assessment… From product recall reports to verdict summaries, no other solution provides this level of functionality or mirrors the way attorneys and researchers approach product liability cases. We listened to over 300 product liability practitioners and custom-built a solution designed to set them up for success. Simply put, Lexis Product Liability Navigator dramatically reduces the time it takes to make well-researched decisions in products liability cases.”

The Dashboard. The Navigator enables lawyers to assess information based on product type, product name, manufacturer and federal  or state Jurisdiction. Search results display in a dashboard which shows multiples Continue Reading LexisNexis Product Liability Navigator: Speeds Assessment of Case Value, Viability, Risk

OK sitting in your improvised home office (bedroom, dining room, fire escape, patio,basement, closet) will not be the same as swinging through the steamy streets of the French Quarter in July.  B-u-u-u-u-t  AALL has valiantly forged ahead  with a virtual  Unmasking Our Potential themed conference which will be available to members and non members at a significantly reduced cost while offering a powerful roster of speakers and topics. The conference  has been adjusted to address the changed circumstances of members as the result of COVID-19. There will also be a vendor event called “partner solutions day” on July 13th.  Member registration is $99, Student and retired members attend for free. Don’t miss this historic and unique event! Register here!

 

Here is the full AALL Press Release:

The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) is excited to announce that registration is now open to all for its virtual conference being held July 13-17. AALL 2020 Reimagined with the theme “Unmasking Our Potential” has a new meaning today!
The AALL 2020 virtual conference will feature a virtual exhibit hall and livestreamed sessions covering topics of value to legal information professionals right now, including: enhancing research services, supporting law librarianship as a career, navigating remote work, and adapting to and preparing for a profession changed by COVID-19.

The event will begin with a partner solutions day on Monday, July 13, where registrants can explore and connect with providers of products and services that legal information professionals need. Livestream sessions will kick off on Tuesday, July 14, including an interview with AALL President Michelle Cosby and keynote speaker Jim Kwik, mental coach and advisor to many of the world’s leading CEOs and celebrities.

“AALL is committed to providing its members with continued educational resources and finding innovative ways to continually advance law librarianship and the legal information profession,” said AALL President Michelle Cosby. “The AALL Virtual Conference will be the first of its kind for the Association and a creative solution to this year’s in person Annual Meeting, which was canceled as a result of the pandemic. We’re looking forward to the conversations with our extensive list of speakers and vendors, as well as our interview with keynote speaker Jim Kwik, who is sure to provide invaluable insight to conference attendees.”

Kwik is the founder of Kwik Learning and a widely recognized expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance, and accelerated learning. In addition to the keynote, the AALL Virtual Conference will include over 20 live education sessions, as well as a virtual exhibit hall where conference registrants and vendors can interact and discuss the changes to products for law libraries as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants will be able to ask questions via live chat or submit questions in advance of the conference. In the week following the conference, approximately 30 prerecorded sessions will be available for viewing.

With the focus of being a valuable educational resource still available to participants even during a pandemic, the AALL Virtual Conference is an affordable way for both AALL members and nonmembers to enhance their skills and knowledge as legal information professionals.

For more information about the AALL Virtual Conference or to register, visit bit.ly/AALL20virtual.