System and method for building multiple online legal research applications

Abstract

The present inventors devised, among other things, an application development system and method. One exemplary method entails providing a set of legal research application feature or functions and receiving a first configuration file from a user, selectively enabling or disabling one or more of the features to define a first legal research application on a first server for a first country. The method further entails receiving a second configuration file from a user, which similarly selectively enables or disables one or more of the features to define a second legal research application on a second server for a second country. The configuration files also customize the user interfaces accord to brand specific criteria for each of the countries.

Description

[0001] Copyright Notice and License [0002] Portions of this patent document contain material that is protected by copyright. The copyright owner has no objection to the reproduction of any of the patent document or patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright whatsoever. The following notices apply to this document: In 2008, Thomson Global Resources. [0003] related application [0004] This application claims priority to US Provisional Patent Application 61 / 137,712, filed August 1, 2008, which is hereby incorporated by reference. [0005] US Patent 7,085,755, filed November 7, 2002 and issued August 1, 2006, entitled "Electronic Document Repository Management and Access System," is also incorporated herein by reference. technical field [0006] Various embodiments of the invention relate to online legal research applications, and more particularly to systems and methods for efficiently ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0008] One problem recognized by the inventors is that developing and providing online legal research services, especially the software that actually enables the delivery of the services, is time consuming and expensive

Furthermore, time and expense multiply when these applications are provided in multiple countries with different languages, laws, and ways of organizing and researching statutes and past legal decisions

The enormity of these costs raises the question of whether it is worth the expense of developing or even updating research applications for smaller countries such as Argentina, Denmark, or Spain, given the size of the legal market and the expectation of obtaining a reasonable return on investment

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