Patentology Adopts DISQUS & Relaxes Moderation Policy

If you look at the bottom of this posting, you will see that Patentology has replaced the "vanilla" Blogger comment system with the DISQUS comment system and moderation tool.

DISQUS provides us with a great deal more control over comments and moderation.  For example, we can elect to require only comments containing certain "restricted words" to be moderated, or to require moderation for comments containing links.  We can also blacklist abusive users by email address, DISQUS username, or IP address.

For readers posting comments, creating a DISQUS profile enables centralised tracking and management of comments across all DISQUS-enabled sites.  DISQUS also allows replies to other comments, and displays these as discussion threads.

We know that the Patentology blog now receives a few hundred visitors each week, along with a few emails and comments via the Ask Patentology form.  We would like to see more discussion of some of the topics on the blog, although we are concerned to avoid becoming a platform for a few individuals to vent their spleens at one another, the law, government and/or officialdom as seems to happen on some unmoderated patent law blogs we could mention.  This kind of thing might be acceptable for an academic blogger, or one who owns and operates their own business.  However, as an employee practitioner in a relatively small profession in Australia, we consider that we need to ensure that comments and discussions are appropriately professional and respectful in tone.

Clearly, however, moderating all comments and denying readers the immediate feedback of seeing their comments, and those of other readers, appear on the blog, discourages people from commenting.  We are therefore trialling the use of DISQUS to allow most comments to be posted without moderation.

Our existing comment moderation policy will remain.  In particular, comments offending any of the following criteria will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be blacklisted:

1. language that any reasonable person would consider abusive, obscene, indecent or offensive;
2. statements that are defamatory, abusive, harassing or hateful, towards other participants in the discussion, or any other individual (whether or not they have a role in public life);
3. content that clearly infringes the intellectual property or other rights of any individual or corporation (eg copyrights, trade marks, personal privacy);
4. material that comprises spam, or other commercial content (eg advertising or solicitation for business); or
5. discussion that is clearly off-topic.

Comments on our changes to comments are welcomed!

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Before You Go…

Thank you for reading this article to the end – I hope you enjoyed it, and found it useful.  Almost every article I post here takes a few hours of my time to research and write, and I have never felt the need to ask for anything in return.

But now – for the first, and perhaps only, time – I am asking for a favour.  If you are a patent attorney, examiner, or other professional who is experienced in reading and interpreting patent claims, I could really use your help with my PhD research.  My project involves applying artificial intelligence to analyse patent claim scope systematically, with the goal of better understanding how different legal and regulatory choices influence the boundaries of patent protection.  But I need data to train my models, and that is where you can potentially assist me.  If every qualified person who reads this request could spare just a couple of hours over the next few weeks, I could gather all the data I need.

The task itself is straightforward and web-based – I am asking participants to compare pairs of patent claims and evaluate their relative scope, using an online application that I have designed and implemented over the past few months.  No special knowledge is required beyond the ability to read and understand patent claims in technical fields with which you are familiar.  You might even find it to be fun!

There is more information on the project website, at claimscopeproject.net.  In particular, you can read:

1. a detailed description of the study, its goals and benefits; and
2. instructions for the use of the online claim comparison application.

Thank you for considering this request!

Mark Summerfield

Tags: Patentology admin