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Docracy Opens Up Document Genome Project To Let You Compare And Contrast Contracts And Patents

Docracy , a TechCrunch Hackathon winner aimed at creating a database of open legal documents, has been relatively quiet over the past few months. After taking a $225k investment from Reed Elsevier and Jeff Zwelling, Docracy is now ready to unveil what it's been working on for so long: The Document Genome project.
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Docracy, a TechCrunch Hackathon winner aimed at creating a database of open legal documents, has been relatively quiet over the past few months.

After taking a $225k investment from Reed Elsevier and Jeff Zwelling late last year, Docracy is now ready to unveil what it’s been working on for so long: The Document Genome project.

“Many lawyers and others use a standard template for documents, and then lift certain phrasing from other contracts to mix and match,” explained Docracy founder Matt Hall.

The new product will allow users to upload their lease agreement, M&A contract, etc. to the service and find the most similar contracts to compare and contrast the differences. Algorithms find the tiniest differences in phrasing and highlight those differences to make for easy comparing.

In essence, it’s a reliable way to ensure that you’re about to sign or submit a standard contract as opposed to something a bit less orthodox.

To start, the product will be used for patent applications and patents. Searcher.io will allow users to see if their patent is similar to anything else in the database, to ensure that someone else hasn’t already patented your idea and that you’re using the proper language and format.

“As it stands now,” explains Matt Hall, “finding similar documents is an entirely manual process.”

Currently, Docracy still has an open database product that lets you search for contracts. However, the higher-end Searcher product will eventually be rolled into Docracy’s database, letting people search for contracts and compare similar ones all from one place.


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