, the free online encyclopedia that is open for editing to the general public, with its 14 million articles in over 260 languages, continues to be a life-saver for students around the world. It seems like not so long ago when the dominant mentality was that online content should never be cited in scholarly work, and Wikipedia would have been a prime example of the type of source that should be avoided. Though many still adhere to this type of a standard, that the “number of U.S. patents issued last year that contain one or more references to Wikipedia articles totalled 809, a 59 percent jump from 2008”. Though this is still a fairly small percentage of the 17000 issued patents that contain URLs, and an even smaller percentage of the , it is nonetheless an interesting trend.

The implication of Wikipedia citations in patents is that ordinary individuals, who may not have any specialized knowledge about the topic they are contributing to, can influence whether or not a patent is issued, and perhaps even any infringement claims brought up down the road. I would imagine that most patents containing references to Wikipedia would most likely do so for the purpose of explaining prior art. Though a person skilled in the art would still be the standard used to determine questions of novelty, obviousness, etc., the way prior art is described and explained in a Wikipedia article can still potentially affect a decision-maker’s understanding of the matter.

It can be argued that use of material from Wikipedia cannot be trusted for its correctness since virtually anyone is able to edit an article. Whereas, if one were to instead cite a peer-reviewed journal or other published source, it would be understood that the author(s) of an article there would have met some standards of rigour when submitting a work. However, one major advantage Wikipedia could have over a single source, is that a Wikipedia article may be more reflective of collective knowledge about a topic, since many of its articles have been edited by multiple parties. This collective knowledge may be preferred over a singular expert’s knowledge, especially since other ‘experts’ may have different opinions. Additionally, just because something has been given the blessing of a major publisher, it should not mean that a reader ought not be critical of the work. Such an outlook, whether considering an article from Wikipedia or one from an IEEE journal, is always healthy.

Of course, Wikipedia articles may have other potential issues that could hamper the integrity of the patent issuance process. For example, the anonymity of the edits and posts made to a Wikipedia article allow for few, if any, consequences for the authors for being wrong, which may make these online articles less reliable. Without knowledge of such basic information about the author, Wikipedia articles appear less credible. Additionally, just as with any other website, pages are constantly updated so that information that may have been on there when a patent is drafted may not be there by the time an examiner reads it. The time at which prior art is made available to the public is important, and determining when online information was actually available can be difficult, as explained . However, despite the constant changes made to articles on its site, Wikipedia keeps track of past versions, each with its own permanent link.

To me it seems that an increase in Wikipedia citations in patents should be nothing to worry about, especially with respect to prior art, where a variety of non-scientific texts seem to be cited. I would think that this trend is simply an effect of the larger movement being culturally driven by Web 2.0 influences. As long as examiners are able to thoroughly review an application before issuing a patent, it should be left to their judgment as to whether specific references offer adequate explanations.

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Wikipedia's open policy to editing has allowed impressive growth and responsiveness. In fact, it has proven so responsive that information---of , for example---is sometimes posted before it happens. The resulting bad publicity and lawsuits have led to a lot of discussion in the Wikipedia community about how to address the problem. The current confusion appears to stem from a that conflates two of the approaches suggested by the community.

Two approaches

The first is called "". When this feature is enabled for an article, edits are possible but they will not be visible to the general public until an established editor flags the article as free of vandalism. This approach---the one discussed in the media---has been around for quite a while. It was by the in 2008 and , Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales strongly its adoption on the English version.

The second approach is called "". It uses the same flagging system as the first but the flags are informational only; edits go live immediately but visitors can see whether the article has been vetted or not.

Both of these are provided by installing an extension to the current Wikipedia software called "".

What really happened

The Wikipedia community to a trial run which entails installing the software extension and combining the two above approaches. Currently, certain high profile articles are locked: no unregistered or new users can edit them. The trial will replace article locking with flagged protection. This will actually open Wikipedia further by allowing new and unregistered users to suggest changes where they could not before. The trial will also have patrolled revisions applied to articles on living people. The trial proposal document is titled "" which should not be confused with an earlier proposal entitled "".

As I'm sure you've guessed by now, the whole misunderstanding was just a mistake based on confusing names.

This case provides an interesting example of how fast misinformation can spread. The New 91��ɫ Times article was published on August 24th. The next day it was cited in numerous blogs and within one more it was being discussed on CNN. It also highlights how quickly the media (old and new) move on to a new subject. The Wikimedia Foundation issued a ---which initially contained the same mistake itself---on the 26th and my research has only turned up that cites it.

This phenomenon will continue to pose a problem in the future. Hopefully we can find a way to alleviate it.

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In March, Wikipedia volunteer Derrick Coetzee was able to use special software to thus allowing him to capture the whole portrait in high resolution. Coetzee was able to capture about , which were then uploaded to the online encyclopedia . The NPG requested that Wikipedia remove the images from its database, but when Wikipedia did not do so, NPG for breach of copyright against Coetzee, unless he both from Wikipedia and from his own hard drive by July 20^th.  As of Tuesday, the portraits were still available on . The portraits themselves are part of the public domain, as their term of copyright protection has expired. In , photographs of public domain works are not copyrightable, but under , copyright may subsist in a photograph of a public domain painting. 

Erik Moeller, the deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation, states that the gallery is to materials for the sake of earning extra revenue. The NPG responded that they will only be able to meet their goal of having their entire collection online through , and having the images available online at Wikipedia the use of its images. Moeller two German photographic archives donated 350,000 copyrighted images to be used on Wikipedia; however, the NPG pointed out that these archives had supplied the images in medium-resolution and that the NPG had offered similar material to Wikipedia.

The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation has that this dispute could negatively affect U.S. web companies who make their content available world-wide, and the group has not ruled out the possibility of bringing a declaratory judgment against the NPG. On the other side of the dispute, the NPG has stated it has no intention to sue Wikipedia; however, since the July 20^th deadline has passed and the images are still available on Wikipedia (and presumably Coetzee's hard drive) it will be interesting to see if the NPG takes any legal action against Coetzee.

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