OPJK into PROTON: Legal domain ontology integration into an upper-level ontology

Abstract

The SEKT Project aims at developing and exploiting the knowledge technologies which underlie the Next Generation Knowledge Management, connecting complementary know-how of key European centers in three areas: Ontology Management Technology, Knowledge Discovery and Human Language Technology. This paper describes the development of PROTON, an upper-level ontology developed by Ontotext, and of the Ontology of Professional Judicial Knowledge (OPJK), modeled by a team of legal experts form the Institute of Law and Technology (IDT-UAB) for the luriservice prototype (a webbased intelligent FAQ for the Spanish judges on their first appointment designed by iSOCO). The paper focuses on the work done towards the integration of the OPJK built using a middle-out strategy into the system and top modules of PROTON, illustrating the flexibility of this independent upper-level ontology. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.