1. A method in a computer to automatically analyze a dependent claim, the method in the computer comprising: by the computer, parsing the dependent claim to obtain one or more claim strings, each claim string comprising words within a separate dependent claim element of the dependent claim and each claim string corresponding to the separate dependent claim element of the dependent claim; by the computer, determining a number of claim strings; by the computer, generating a number of claim strings score by merging the number of claim strings with a first factor; initializing a dependent claim score to the number of claim strings score; and for each claim string parsed from the dependent claim: by the computer, computing a word count for the words within the claim string, by the computer, determining a weighted word count based on the word count and a second factor, by the computer, merging the weighted word count with the dependent claim score; by the computer, determining a parent claim score associated with a parent claim of the dependent claim; merging the parent claim score with the dependent claim score.