{"closest_prior_art":[{"name":"Courts and Tribunals Fee Remissions Order 2023 progressive income taper","overlap":"Enacted rules calculate a bounded fee contribution from gross monthly income above a household-specific threshold using marginal rates of 50%, 70%, and 90%, cap the contribution at the underlying fee, preserve full-remission categories, and specify a one-month or three-month earnings period. This already implements the proposal's central ordered-input-to-gradual-obligation mechanism within a legally delimited fee-remission regime.","remaining_difference":"The enacted taper is piecewise linear rather than a single continuously varying published curve, and the source does not prescribe the proposal's retrospective shadow comparison, precision-bounded perturbation testing, boundary audit, calculation log, or single explicit currency-rounding rule.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3"]},{"name":"Maryland Judiciary sliding-scale family-services fee policy","overlap":"Official court guidance permits sliding-scale charges for low-income litigants while requiring complete waivers below specified thresholds, demonstrating the established practice of combining gradual discretionary contributions with mandatory categorical protections.","remaining_difference":"It concerns court-connected family services rather than filing fees and does not specify a continuous formula, evidence-resolution controls, final quantization, or retrospective transition testing.","source_ids":["SRC4"]}],"contrastive_claim_falsifier":"The remaining distinction would be falsified by an opened official implementation showing that filing-fee relief already uses a fully continuous bounded curve, separates mandatory exclusions before calculation, states evidence resolution and final rounding, and validates the representation through retrospective boundary and precision-bounded perturbation tests; it would also be undermined if the proposed 60-case comparison found no reproducible stability or explanatory advantage over the enacted progressive taper.","contrastive_claim_remaining":"Relative to the established progressive marginal-rate taper, the candidate's narrower testable contribution is a fully continuous curve inside the discretionary range combined with an explicit retrospective transition-resolution audit, precision-bounded counterfactuals, disclosed final rounding, and reversible case-level calculation logs.","experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp13_second_slot_policy60_20260806","gates":{"adequate_source_search":{"rationale":"The bounded search covered direct intervention terms, fee-remission and help-with-fees terminology, operational guidance and enacted rules, sliding-scale court practices, and combinations involving tapers, thresholds, caps, evidence periods, and mandatory waivers. Four opened sources from multiple official publishers were retained.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"],"status":"PASS"},"bounded_next_test":{"rationale":"A 60-case retrospective shadow study is finite, reversible, and capable of comparing boundary discontinuities, perturbation stability, reproducibility, explanation quality, rounding effects, and processing time. It should include the enacted progressive taper as a comparator, not only the local band baseline.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3"],"status":"PASS"},"distinct_testable_claim":{"rationale":"Although graduated court-fee contributions are established, a narrower falsifiable comparison remains between a fully continuous, resolution-audited curve and the enacted piecewise progressive taper, using pre-specified stability and reproducibility outcomes.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3"],"status":"PASS"},"no_obvious_safety_or_authority_stop":{"rationale":"The proposed first step is limited to approved shadow calculations on closed records, preserves mandatory waivers and access rights, and leaves rule changes to authorized bodies. Existing official regimes confirm that mandatory full relief, discretionary partial relief, evidentiary rules, exceptional-hardship review, and appeals can coexist. Legal approval and data containment remain prerequisites rather than obvious stops.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"],"status":"PASS"},"supported_problem":{"rationale":"The Ministry of Justice review explicitly identified rigidity in a uniform contribution rule and an upper cliff edge, then proposed marginal taper bands to make contribution increases relatively smooth. This directly supports the visibility of representation and boundary effects in court-fee remission, although it does not prove that every local band schedule produces consequential inequity.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2"],"status":"PASS"}},"prior_art_disposition":"ESTABLISHED_PRACTICE","problem_evidence":{"finding":"The problem is visible in official policy analysis: court-fee remission rules have been criticized as too rigid and as producing an upper cliff edge. England and Wales subsequently enacted progressive marginal contribution rates bounded by the fee, while Maryland Judiciary guidance independently permits sliding scales subject to mandatory complete-waiver thresholds.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC4"],"status":"SUPPORTED"},"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp13_light_screen_20260806","schema_version":1,"screen_id":"E13P094","screen_survival":false,"search_lanes":{"component_combination":{"no_result_note":null,"queries":["court fee remission linear contribution income formula","court filing fee sliding scale mandatory full waiver threshold","fee remission taper income bands cap evidence period"],"source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC4"]},"direct_problem_and_intervention":{"no_result_note":null,"queries":["court filing fee waiver partial payment sliding scale income fee schedule","court fees remission sliding scale disposable income contribution","continuous court filing fee remission income curve"],"source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3"]},"products_practices_and_standards":{"no_result_note":null,"queries":["Help with Fees EX160C fee remission calculator","site:legislation.gov.uk court fee remission gross monthly income rates","Maryland Judiciary sliding scale court fee waiver"],"source_ids":["SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"]},"synonyms_and_historical_terms":{"no_result_note":null,"queries":["fee remission graduated contribution court tribunal","partial fee waiver ability to pay taper","older terminology court fees remission disposable income contribution"],"source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3"]}},"sources":[{"claims_supported":["Official review identified the former 50% partial-remission rule as too rigid.","The review expressly identified an upper cliff edge and proposed marginal taper bands intended to increase contributions relatively smoothly.","The proposed scheme preserved threshold-based full remission, a fee cap, and exceptional-remission authority."],"publisher":"UK Ministry of Justice","source_id":"SRC1","source_type":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","title":"Revising the ‘Help with Fees’ remission scheme – protecting and enhancing access to justice","url":"https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/revising-the-help-with-fees-remission-scheme/revising-the-help-with-fees-remission-scheme-protecting-and-enhancing-access-to-justice"},{"claims_supported":["The 2023 Order enacted marginal contribution rates of 50%, 70%, and 90% across successive £1,000 excess-income ranges.","No contribution may exceed the fee payable.","The Order preserves passporting-benefit full remission and specifies household thresholds, an income cap, and one-month or three-month earnings measurements."],"publisher":"The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)","source_id":"SRC2","source_type":"OFFICIAL_STANDARD","title":"The Courts and Tribunals (Fee Remissions and Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2023","url":"https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/1094/pdfs/uksi_20231094_en.pdf"},{"claims_supported":["Current HMCTS guidance operationalizes full and partial filing-fee remission based on savings, benefits, household composition, and income.","Applicants may use the lower of the previous month's income or a three-month average when income varies.","Exceptional-hardship review and an appeal process remain available outside or after ordinary calculations."],"publisher":"HM Courts & Tribunals Service","source_id":"SRC3","source_type":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","title":"How to apply for help with fees: EX160A","url":"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-apply-for-help-with-a-court-or-tribunal-fee-ex160a/how-to-apply-for-help-with-fees-ex160a"},{"claims_supported":["Official Maryland Judiciary guidance permits sliding-scale fees for low-income litigants in covered court-connected services.","A complete waiver must remain available below stated income thresholds.","Partial waivers above thresholds may coexist with individualized consideration of extraordinary expenses."],"publisher":"Maryland Judiciary","source_id":"SRC4","source_type":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","title":"Special Conditions for FY26 Jurisdictional Family Services Grants","url":"https://www.mdcourts.gov/sites/default/files/solicitation_docs/fy26jurissc.pdf"}],"world_novelty_boundary":"This bounded public-web screen establishes neither world novelty nor patentability. It found an enacted and operational court-fee-remission practice that substantially covers the proposal's core bounded monotone allocation mechanism, so the coarse disposition is ESTABLISHED_PRACTICE. The narrower combination of a fully continuous curve with retrospective resolution, perturbation, rounding, and logging controls was not established by these four sources, but that search miss cannot demonstrate novelty, market value, expert acceptance, or realized benefit."}