1. Introduction
This research focuses on developing a methodology for legal
e-discovery and, most importantly, litigation evolution analysis
using collective intelligence of precedential documents, court
cases, and data existing in legal databases. The specific techniques
of text mining, data mining, cluster analysis, and formal concept
analysis are modified and applied as the Collective Litigation
Intelligence (CLI) methodology for legal e-discovery. The case
study of the Australia retail franchise and trademark litigation is
used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the generalizable CLI processes.
The last decade of legal cases (2004–2013), related to retail
franchises and trademarks, are searched as the fact-base to derive
collective litigation intelligence to project the litigation trends and
evaluate hazards underlying the retail legal evolution. These franchise
and trademark litigation cases and selected documents are