Today I received SmartCILP June 27, 2008, which included notice of this article:

Cavicchi, Jon R., “Lexis v. Westlaw for research–better, different, or same and the qwerty effect?,” 47 IDEA 363-406 (2007).

The author presents his own poll of LexisNexis versus Westlaw preferences.  The author sent email to the IPPROFS listerv, third year law students at Pierce Law Center, and graduate students in his school’s Master of Intellectual Property, Commerce and Technology (M.I.P.) and Master of Laws in Intellectual Property, Commerce and Technology (LL.M.) programs asking which service they prefer and why. He received comments from nineteen IP law professors and ten students.

The article concludes:

This article could easily be double in size to cover all the bases. As I was concluding this article, an IDEA editor came to my office to check some footnotes. I told her that this article was coming to a close, and she immediately said, “So, what’s your conclusion; which is better for IP research?” Alas, we end where we start. There is no one answer. Only you can define which service best meets your information needs. I hope this article has informed you on some content and features to consider in helping you define your needs. I use Lexis and Westlaw liberally, which gives me the advantage to compare and contrast on an ongoing basis. We also return to the ongoing themes of this series. Lexis and Westlaw are doing battle with a host of no cost and low cost information providers. The smart IP researcher faced with having to pay for Wexis access will craft a package that includes those features and databases that may be beyond cost effective alternatives.