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more on Precedents for Google's search patent
From: Dave Farber <farber () trial danger net>
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 10:28:33 -0500
-----Original Message----- From: Peter D. Junger <junger () samsara law cwru edu> To: dave () farber net CC: junger () samsara law cwru edu Subject: Precedents for Google's search patent Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 10:21:06 -0500 For the IP list, if you think it suitable. "John Shoch" writes: : Google deserves tremendous credit for building a great search site.: But let's be clear that the basic underlying concept has been around for
: a long time, in the world of hard-copy journal papers.: Those papers have references, which we can think of as links going out
: of each document.: But a set of publications known as The Citation Index inverts that data : base of links, to find out which papers are most frequently referenced
: by other research papers. And The Citation Index, in turn, is relatively new. The idea of such indices was developed by the legal profession in Common Law countries, including England and the United States, in order to keep track of the status of reported judicial decisions (which ``precedents'' are the textual basis for the Common Law). In the United States the leading example of such a citator is Shepard's Citations. For each reported case in various reporters, a legal citator will report on (all) subsequent cases where the reported case has been affirmed, reversed, overruled, followed, or criticized. If a case is frequently followed, it becomes known to the legal profession as a ``leading case'' and leading cases tend in turn to be more frequently cited. Shepard's Citations, by the way, cover not only judicial decisions but also law review articles. --Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH EMAIL: junger () samsara law cwru edu URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
NOTE: junger () pdj2-ra f-remote cwru edu no longer exists --farber ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To unsubscribe or update your address, click http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on Precedents for Google's search patent Dave Farber (Mar 01)