Automated Contract Clause Grouping and Verification

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Solution Overview

Problem

Manual tracking of contracts and amendments is time-consuming and prone to human errors, making it difficult to identify critical clauses and variations across multiple documents, leading to potential inconsistencies and risks.

Innovation Solution

An automated system that processes and structures contractual documents to identify related contracts, extract key features, and analyze contents using an advanced policy group analysis module, linking contracts and verifying clause validity through semantic language evaluation.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If manual tracking of contracts and amendments is used, then flexibility and adaptability are maintained, but time consumption and human errors increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveaccuracy of clause identificationVSAvoidtime for manual tracking

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent replaces manual mechanical tracking with an automated computational system that uses natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to identify, extract, and track clauses and amendments across contracts, eliminating human effort while improving accuracy and reliability

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Solution Approach 2:

The system enables self-service by automatically performing clause identification, amendment tracking, and consistency verification without requiring manual intervention, allowing the contract management process to serve itself through automated detection and analysis

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

2Adaptability or versatility

If the number of amendments and addendums grows, then contract flexibility increases, but difficulty of detecting and measuring critical clauses increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontract flexibilityVSAvoiddifficulty of identifying critical clauses

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSDifficulty of detecting and measuring

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts critical clauses and key information from amendments and addendums separately, isolating them from the main contract text for focused analysis, which simplifies detection and measurement even as the number of amendments grows

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the contract document into distinct clauses and provisions, enabling individual analysis of each segment rather than processing the entire document as one unit, which reduces the complexity of detecting critical changes across multiple amendments

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

3Productivity

If conventional manual approaches are used, then device complexity is minimized, but productivity decreases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvespeed of contract analysisVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs multiple functions including clause identification, amendment tracking, consistency verification, and risk assessment within a single integrated platform, increasing productivity across multiple tasks while managing complexity through unified architecture

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Data Source

PatentUS10402496B2Advanced clause groupings detection

Publication Date: 2019.09.03 DOCUSIGN INT EMEA LTD

AI summary

An electronic documents verification system (and method) detects related contracts, and analyzes contents in the related contracts including a primary contract and associated amendments from raw input data. One embodiment of a disclosed configuration includes a system (and method) for identifying clauses used in the related contracts. The system (and method) extracts features including key references or descriptions within each contract. Additionally, the system (and method) groups the related contracts, and establishes linkages of the related contracts based on the extracted features. Furthermore, the system (and method) analyzes contents in the related contracts based on advanced policy group including a plurality of policy groups.