Patent Research: The Importance of Precision
A comparison of Docket Navigator and Lex Machina Data Searches

Does AI outperform human search, or the reverse? This is the question Feit was partially engaged to answer by Docket Navigator.

Docket Navigator is a human-search driven patent litigation platform.  The purpose of the study was to identify and compare the key differences in the quality and quantity of research results of Docket Navigator against those of its main competitor in the market place, Lex Machina, which uses AI in addition to human editors. 

To coordinate the study, therefore, Feit Consulting assembled a team of four representative examples of LM users/patent research experts – each current employees on the research/library staff at Am Law 50 law firms and current/regular users of LM.  Our role, then, was to provide an environment where researchers could provide candid feedback with no incentive to weigh answers toward one vendor or the other.

The researchers were each given a set of 10 research questions drawn from real-world examples. Some questions were designed to elicit highly specific results, probing for the most-used IP/Patent outputs, to facilitate comparisons.

Feit monitored and compiled the users’ responses across the 10 research questions and determined for each of the 10 categories which platform outperformed the other.

Spoiler alert:  Docket Navigator outperformed Lex Machina in 9 out of 10 categories.

Full detail and commentary about each of the 10 categories measured, inclusive of commentary, are available in our white paper, “Patent Research: The Importance of Precision; A Comparison of Docket Navigator and Lex Machina Data Searches.” Fill out the form below to request a copy of the white paper.