AU2013200222A1 - Geo spatial analysis of legal decisions - Google Patents

Abstract

A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving at a first computer a location search request; processing the location search request by the first computer to determine location information; querying a data store accessible to the first computer using the location information, the data store containing records of location-specific administrative or judicial decisions, to identify records associated with locations in a vicinity of a location specified by the location information; and generating code executable to cause a display application to display a cadastral map display, the cadastral map display comprising a location marker for each record identified by the querying, wherein each location marker corresponds to a location affected by or the subject of a respective location-specific administrative or judicial decision; and providing the code to the display application

Description

1 AUSTRALIA Patents Act 1990 Andrew Natoli COMPLETE SPECIFICATION STANDARD PATENT Invention Title. Geo spatial analysis of legal decisions The following statement is a full description of this invention including the best method of performing it known to us: 2 GEO SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF LEGAL DECISIONS Technical Field Described embodiments, relate generally to methods and systems for facilitating geo 5 spatial analysis of legal decisions, such as published or pending decisions made by a judicial or administrative body. Background Courts, tribunals and statutory authorities are frequently required to make decisions 10 concerning parcels of land under various property, planning and environmental legislation, including planning schemes or ordinances and local laws. Many of these decisions reflect the particular locational attributes of the land and provide guidance in relation to manner in which various legislation should be applied to particular 15 places or locations. In this way, property based decisions can be very influential and sometimes binding in subsequent decisions concerning nearby land or land exhibiting similar characteristics. The ability of parties to identify decisions that will be influential in a particular case is 20 therefore very important for the preparation of their cases. When parties are able to easily identify decisions on nearby or similar land, it may also help to ensure that courts and tribunals are more consistent in the way they apply the law to geographic areas. Existing tools available for parties to search property related decisions are generally 25 limited to text based search engines provided by websites which are accessible online. These databases and websites require users to enter the text of nearby locations eg. address, street or suburb name, and then return results based on the frequency of their occurrence in a particular decision or whether the address matches that stored in the database for a decision. The results returned by these databases are often inaccurate and 30 it is difficult and inefficient to undertake any exhaustive search of a particular geographic area.

3 It is desired to address or ameliorate one or more shortcomings or disadvantages of prior systems and methods, or to at least provide a useful alternative thereto. 5 Throughout this specification the word "comprise", or variations such as "comprises" or "comprising", will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps. 10 Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles or the like which has been included in the present specification is not to be taken as an admission that any or all of these matters form part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention as it existed before the priority date of each claim of this application. 15 Summary Some embodiments relate to a computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving at a first computer a location search request; 20 processing the location search request by the first computer to determine location information; querying a data store accessible to the first computer using the location information, the data store containing records of location-specific administrative or judicial decisions, to identify records associated with locations in a vicinity of a location 25 specified by the location information; and generating code executable to cause a display application to display a cadastral map display, the cadastral map display comprising a location marker for each record identified by the querying, wherein each location marker corresponds to a location affected by or the subject of a respective location-specific administrative or judicial 30 decision; and providing the code to the display application. In some embodiments, the location search request may be received from a second computer over a network, such as the Internet. This second computer may receive the 35 code and execute that code on a local display application, such as a browser application, 4 in order to generate the cadastral map display. In other embodiments, the first computer may receive the location search request via a user interface associated with the first computer and the code may be executed by the display application on the first computer to provide the cadastral map display on the user interface associated with the first 5 computer. Some embodiments provide a website which enables parties to search for and analyse property-related legal decisions using a tool which displays their location graphically on a cadastral map. Whilst some embodiments may be accessed as a website via the internet, 10 other embodiments may provide access locally on a single computer or through a private network of computers which are not publicly accessible. Some embodiments relate to a system comprising components or means to perform the described methods. Some embodiments relate to executable program code in computer 15 readable storage to cause a computer to perform the described methods or implement the described systems. Brief Description of the Drawings The following diagrams are included in this specification: 20 e Figure 1 is a block diagram which illustrates the client-server architecture which may be employed in some embodiments; e Figure 2 is an example user interface display of a search interface and a search 25 result list; and * Figure 3 is a flow chart which illustrates the method of the preferred embodiment of the invention. 30 5 Detailed Description Referring to Figure 1, there is shown a system 100 for facilitating geo-spatial analysis of legal or administrative decisions, such as planning decisions. The system 100 comprises a client computing device 110 that may communicate over a network 120 with a server 5 system 130. The client computing device 110 may comprise a desktop, mobile or handheld computing device having a processor (CPU) and memory comprising volatile (RAM) and non-volatile memory (a hard disk drive). The user interface may comprise a display including at least one input device such as a keyboard, mouse or touch screen that can provide input to the client computing device. Client system I10 may store executable 10 program code and software applications in the non-volatile memory, including program code stored in memory 112 to implement an operating system 115 and a browser application 118 to enable a user to navigate sites which are accessible over the network 120. Client system 110 has at least one processor 111 that has access to the code in memory 112 in order to execute that code. 15 Server system 130 comprises at least one processing device 131 to operate a web server (HTTP) 146 or local server functions, data processing functions, data storage and retrieval functions (eg. Using MySQL 145 or SQL) in conjunction with databases 140 and 150. Server system 130 may also comprise scripting language support such as PHP 20 (144) or Microsoft ASP.NET and may also comprise non volatile data storage (memory 132) for storing executable program code including operating system 134 and software modules 135 for managing and processing functions for searching and displaying data. The at least one processing device 131 has access to the code in memory 132 in order to execute that code and perform the functions described herein. 25 Software modules 135 include a module 136 to search and display map information, a data collection module 137 and a data verification module 138, the functions of which are described in further detail below. 30 6 Databases 140 and 150 may comprise localised or distributed databases storing data records for mapping and cases. The map database 140 will contain a range of information that will allow the case map 240 to display comprehensive contextual information, including street and place names, street numbers, property boundaries, land 5 features and landmark buildings. Importantly, the map data will include geographic coordinates to enable the precise location of each search location and legal decision to be identified. The map data can be stored within the server system 130 or sourced on line from other websites or commercial providers of cadastral map information. 10 The case database 150 will include information about various attributes of the decisions, including their street address, geographical coordinates, legal jurisdiction, key words or summaries, reference numbers and URL addresses (if the decision is available online). The decisions may be primarily planning and property-related decisions issued by courts, tribunals or administrative review bodies, for example those decisions involving appeals 15 or reviews of administrative decisions of a council, public authority or other primary decision-making body relating to land use or development. Other decisions may involve appeals or review of decisions by public authorities in relation to the value ascribed to land for purposes of rating / taxing or for determining the amount of compensation payable for public acquisition of the land. Such decisions are location-specific and will 20 include findings about the particular qualities or character of the land or its context and will have implications (and possibly precedential value) for future decisions in or around a similar location. Case records can be manually inputted into the case database 150 or alternatively, by 25 utilising software modules such as data collection module 137, can be electronically sourced from publicly accessible legal databases available online. On suitable legal databases the data collection module 137 can, when executed, source key case information such as URL, jurisdiction, street address and keywords by crawling or searching web pages containing the full text of legal decisions and then copying the data 30 based on the typical text structure of the decision and pasting it into the case database 150 based on that structure. Where decision text is not structured consistently, the data 7 collection module 137 can also obtain the street address of the decision by finding the first occurrence of a defined range of 'street types' (eg. Street, Road or Avenue) and then copying the text surrounding this word and parsing it into the case database 150 based on the typical address structure i.e. [street number] [street name] [street type], [suburb]. 5 In either case, the accuracy of the addresses of the cases will vary and will usually need to be verified, either using a software procedure or manually. Once a street address is completed, the geographic coordinates of the location of the decision can be determined from the map database 140 and then accurately recorded in the case database 150. This 10 can be achieved using the data verification module 138, which provides an interface with the case database 150 and enables any incomplete case records to be verified and completed manually. In addition to past legal decisions, the case database 150 may also include information 15 relating to pending decisions or proceedings which are yet to be determined. This information may also be displayed on the case map 240 at the election of the user. The purpose of mapping this information would be to provide notice to members of the community or potential parties about pending proceedings concerning nearby land which may affect their interests. 20 Information regarding pending proceedings can be uploaded to the case database 150 by registered users, including parties to the proceedings, and may include contact information and URL links to other websites which contain information about the proceeding including information about how to become involved in a proceeding or how 25 to support persons or groups who are already parties. Various embodiments can require users to register their details prior to accessing the search interface on the website. The details of the users can be stored in a user database on the server system 130, which may also save details of their searches for their future 30 reference.

8 Referring to Figure 3, once registered, users would need to log in prior to each session of use at step 305. Once successfully logged in, the client browser 112 will then send a page request to the server system 130, where the requested page comprises the search interface illustrated in figure 2. 5 Referring to Figures 2 and 3, a search method 300 commences at step 315 where users are required to enter a location search request into a search interface 205, including entering an address into the search query form in field 210. The location need not be specific to a particular property parcel and may simply identify a street in a particular 10 suburb or just a suburb or postcode location. The user may choose to specify the time period for cases at field 212 eg. "From years 1999 to 2009", which would further limit the search to cases which were decided within that time period. 15 Depending on the number of results returned for a particular location, various embodiments may also allow user to further refine or filter the results by searching for additional criteria such as 'keywords' or 'catchwords' at field 211. If this option is selected by users, then the database would only return cases proximate to the searched 20 location which included the keywords identified by the user. Once the location search terms are entered into search interface 205, the client browser 112 will send the query to the server system 130 over network 120 which will query the map database 140 to determine the map coordinates of the search location at step 320. 25 If coordinates are not available or if the entered search location is not valid, then the user will be directed to re-enter a valid search location at step 315. If coordinates are available for the search location, the server system 120 will then query the case database 150 to determine what decisions relate to land within a predefined or user-defined distance of 30 the searched location (eg. within a 1km to 5km radius) at step 340.

9 Concurrently to step 340, the server system 130 will also query the map database 140 to assemble necessary cadastral data (step 325) in order to graphically display the case results retrieved at step 355 within a cadastral map as part of display 200. 5 At step 355, case database 150 will return results according to a pre-defined maximum and minimum number of legal decisions that relate to property parcels within the displayed map area. The results returned may also be limited to cases which meet other optional criteria set by the user in search interface 205 at step 315 (eg. Years, a date range and/or keywords). 10 At step 350, the server system 120 will generate and then send executable code to enable the client browser to display case map 240 centrally on the display 200, depicting a geographic area centered upon the search location 230. The search location 230 or a centroid of a specified location (where a street address is not provided in the search 15 terms, for example) may be identified with a distinctive marker. The cases retrieved at step 355 are identified with distinctive map markers 250 graphically overlaid on the case map 240. The extent of the area shown in the case map display 240 may be reduced or enlarged 20 depending on the scale at which the user wishes to analyse the decisions shown on the map. The map display is initially displayed at a default map scale. By selection or mouseover of the map markers 250 in the client browser 112, a pop-up display window 220 will be shown, so users will be able see the key (summary) details of 25 the particular decision (including case title and street address) in window 220. If the decision is available online, the window 220 may also include a universal resource locator (URL) or active link (such as a hyperlink) to that case in the available online repository. 30 10 The map markers 250 may also be numbered and a corresponding numbered list 260 may be displayed beneath the map so that users can immediately identify the details of a case shown on the map without selecting map markers 250. The numbered list 260 may also order the cases according to their characteristics, including their date or the particular 5 jurisdiction of the court or tribunal.

Claims (9)

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving at a first computer a location search request; 5 processing the location search request by the first computer to determine location information; querying a data store accessible to the first computer using the location information, the data store containing records of location-specific administrative or judicial decisions, to identify records associated with locations in a vicinity of a location 10 specified by the location information; and generating code executable to cause a display application to display a cadastral map display, the cadastral map display comprising a location marker for each record identified by the querying, wherein each location marker corresponds to a location affected by or the subject of a respective location-specific administrative or judicial 15 decision; and providing the code to the display application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the code is further executable to cause the display application to display an itemised list of records for which location markers are displayed 20 on the cadastral map.

3. The method of claim I or claim 2, wherein the processing includes processing the location search request to determine date range information, and wherein the querying uses the date range information to only identify records in the data store that have a 25 decision date within the date range.

4. The method of any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the processing includes processing the location search request to determine one or more key word terms that are different from the location information, and wherein the querying uses the one or more 30 key word terms to only identify records in the data store that contain the one or more key word terms.

5. The method of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the code is further executable to cause the display application to display a pop-up window in response to selection or 35 mouse-over of a location marker. 12

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the pop-window includes a hyperlink to a source of a full text or extract of the location-specific administrative or judicial decision.

7. The method of claim 5 or claim 6, wherein the pop-up window includes summary 5 information of the location-specific administrative or judicial decision.

8. A system comprising means for performing the method of any one of claims I to 7. 10

9. A system comprising: a memory; at least one processor having access to the memory; 15 wherein the memory stores code, which, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to: receive at the system a location search request; 20 process the location search request by the system to determine location information; query a data store accessible to the system using the location information, the data store containing records of location-specific administrative or judicial decisions, to identify records associated with locations in a vicinity of a location specified by the 25 location information; and generate code executable to cause a display application to display a cadastral map display, the cadastral map display comprising a location marker for each record identified by the querying, wherein each location marker corresponds to a location affected by or the subject of a respective location-specific administrative or judicial 30 decision; and provide the code to the display application.