Catalyst Files Patent for Next-Generation Technology Assisted Review Based on 'Reinforcement Learning'

 Catalyst Repository Systems -- a pioneer in developing secure, cloud-based software to help corporations and their law firms take control of e-discovery, compliance and regulatory matters -- today announced it has applied for a patent on the type of continuous learning capability it invented for its next-generation technology assisted review (TAR 2.0) platform, Insight Predict.

Described in the patent application as "reinforcement learning based document coding," Catalyst's TAR technology is able to continuously learn from actions taken by the review team throughout the review process. With reinforcement learning, certain actions -- such as coding a document as responsive or not or adding additional documents -- enable the system to continue to grow "smarter" in its ability to select relevant documents.

What is Reinforcement Learning?

Reinforcement learning differs from older TAR 1.0 systems which require training by a high-level attorney. This expensive and time-consuming approach requires the senior attorney to first review and code an initial training set of randomly selected documents. With Catalyst's reinforcement learning technology, the full review team can begin right away. As reviewers' judgments are fed back into the system and new documents added, the system's selection and ranking of relevant documents continuously improves.

A new, peer-reviewed study by two leading experts in e-discovery validates the effectiveness of continuous learning technologies in e-discovery. In a paper they will present at the Association of Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval (SIGIR) international conference in July 2014, "Evaluation of Machine-Learning Protocols for Technology-Assisted Review in Electronic Discovery," Gordon V. Cormack and Maura R. Grossman conclude that non-random training methods using continuous active learning "require substantially and significantly less human review effort" and yield "generally superior results."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/catalyst-files-patent-for-next-generation-technology-assisted-review-based-on-reinforcement-learning-2014-06-11