Author: Joanna Xu

‘Lex Machina’ compiles intellectual property litigation and policy data

While the emergence of a start-up from Stanford University may surprise no one, the department from which Lex Machina emerged may: this legal informatics private venture spins off from the Stanford Law School (SLS), marking the first time that a commercial venture has emerged from an American law school.

Lex Machina is the outgrowth of a research project called the Stanford Intellectual Property Litigation Clearinghouse (IPLC), officially launched in December of 2008.

Founded through the interdisciplinary collaboration between SLS’s Program in Law, Science and Technology and the department of computer science, the project was the brainchild of Prof. Mark Lemley, the William H. Neukom Professor in Law and director of the Law, Science and Technology Program.

Lemley, a scholar and researcher of intellectual property (IP) law and policy, envisioned that the program would provide free comprehensive data on intellectual property litigation cases in the United States dating back to Jan. 1, 2000.

While the IPLC was originally intended for use by scholars, policymakers and journalists, it soon became clear that the project had commercial viability and could not be sustainable solely based on donations.

“The idea is that businesses and law firms who want use Lex Machina at work would pay a subscription fee, but we would make the site available for free to academics, judges, government officials, nonprofits and the media,” Lemley said.

Joshua Walker, IPLC executive director and founder of the Stanford Center for Computers and Law (CodeX), and George Gregory, an expert in natural language processing, led the initiative in building the IPLC program and database from scratch. In the Lex Machina venture, Walker will serve as the CEO while Gregory, Lemley and Kenneth Lustig will serve on the board of directors.

“We realized the commercial viability of IPLC two years ago,” Walker said. “We were sitting in Packard Café when [Gregory] suggested that this is a company – it had both private and public value. We took it to the [SLS] Dean [Larry Kramer], who ran it through the appropriate protocols, talking to the Provost [John Etchemendy] and to [Lemley].”

The name Lex Machina derives from the title of a research paper Walker wrote in 2004 and is a play on the Latin term “Deus Ex Machina.”

“Part of what we’ve done in the early stages is build the technology to get to the point where adding new cases is pretty straightforward,” Lemley said.

The majority of Lex Machina will be owned by its team members, which includes engineers who worked on the program and a handful of Stanford students at the graduate and undergraduate levels. But Stanford University and SLS will retain an interest in the venture.

The company also expects to be recruiting new talent soon as the venture tries to “build out new technology and expand into other fields of legal issues,” according to Lemley.

“We want to maintain the fundamental altruistic aim of IPLC,” Walker added. “Part of our condition was that we can spin this off, but we should expand upon and constantly improve the pubic benefits of the IPLC project.”

Though Lex Machina is separate from SLS, the company expects to stay closely involved with Stanford.

“Stanford is the touchstone of all of this,” Walker said. “Aside from the unique Stanford entrepreneurial spirit, it also had a top law school and a top engineering department.”

“This is pretty much the first time that a project between the law school and the computer science department has become a company,” Gregory agreed. “This is a major milestone for Stanford University as well.”

The Office of Undergraduate Admission announced Monday that 753 restrictive early action applicants, or 13.5 percent of the 5,566 early applicants, were accepted to Stanford. Almost as many early applicants were deferred to the regular decision cycle as accepted via early action.

“We deferred just over 700 students to regular decision,” Director of Undergraduate Admission Shawn Abbott wrote in an e-mail to The Daily. “Approximately 87 percent of students who applied for admission, however, received a final (admit or deny) admission decision.”

The 13.5 percent admit rate for early action applications represents an increase from the early action cycle in 2008, when Stanford accepted 12.8 percent of early action applications, or 689 early applicants from a pool of 5,363 applications.

This year’s total of 5,566 early action applications is the highest in the University’s history and represents an increase of almost 3.8 percent from last year’s previous record of 5,363 early applications.

While the date for announcement of early action admission results is Dec. 15, the admission office this year notified applicants of their admission statuses at 3 p.m. on Dec. 11, four days ahead of schedule.

“The admission committee finalized its selection process earlier than anticipated, and in an effort to quell anxiety among applicants, parents, counselors and alumni, [Admission and Financial Aid] Dean [Richard] Shaw made the executive decision to release decisions today, December 11,” the office announced on its Web site.

“Well over 90 percent of students opened their e-mail decisions within 72 hours, even though they were not expecting to receive their decision e-mails until December 15,” Abbott said.

In November, The Daily reported that 5,583 students had applied early action to Stanford. The discrepancy in the final tally results from the fact that the admission office allowed some students to change their application statuses from restrictive early action to regular decision.

Because restrictive early action is a non-binding option, admitted students will have until May 1 to respond to the University’s offer of admission.

Political science student Daniel Shih ’10 last week was named one of 32 American 2010 Rhodes Scholars heading to Oxford University. Shih will begin studying there next fall.

Shih, who was born and raised in Naperville, Ill., is also a 2009 Truman Scholar.

“I’m still figuring out exactly what I’m going to study. I’m interested in a few things, mainly the intersection between grassroots activism and government,” Shih said. “I’m interested in how we can create space for grassroots activists and allow people’s voices to be heard without having to be elected to government.

“I think I might be studying comparative government and political science,” Shih added. “Something in the Department of Politics and International Relations.”

Shih has taken significant time off from Stanford to pursue both field research interests and to work on the campaign trail. He took over a year off school to work for the Obama campaign, eventually working as a field organizer in five states and, during the general election, becoming the regional field director in Albuquerque.

“It’s really important for me to take charge of my own education, to pursue opportunities that will help me grow as an individual, help me grow as an activist and a scholar,” he said. “With that belief in taking some risks and trying new things, graduating in four straight years was not the most important thing to me.”

Shih received a Chappell Lougee grant his freshman year to research the social programs of Hugo Chavez. He continued the research into this quarter, which he took off to conduct field research on the Sino-Venezuelan political and economic relationship.

On campus, Shih is involved with the Stanford Progressive Association and helped launched the Stanford Sweat-Free Campaign to get Stanford to join the Worker Rights Consortium.

As for his future after Oxford, Shih admitted that he’s long flirted with the idea of becoming an academic.

“But I want to consider the social impact that my work as an academic could have as well,” he said. “I’ve always thought about how to make my work relevant to the people that I want to help — the people marginalized by government and by society.”

Shih applied to the Rhodes Scholarship at the encouragement of a colleague that he worked with at the Obama campaign.

“She talked about her experiences in Oxford, and it made a big difference in my deciding to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship,” Shih said. “I wasn’t aware that I even had a legitimate shot in any way.

“You never see yourself as a Rhodes Scholar,” he added. “It’s a little scary.”