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A few hours ago, 50 months after Elsevier submitted a patent application for an “Online peer review system and method” the patent was awarded to the company.

HOW or IF Elsevier is currently utilizing or will utilize the technology/method receiving patent is unknown.

The complete patent is linked below.

Here’s the abstract:

An online document management system is disclosed. In one embodiment, the online document management system comprises: one or more editorial computers operated by one or more administrators or editors, the editorial computers send invitations and manage peer review of document submissions; one or more system computers, the system computers maintain journals, records of submitted documents and user profiles, and issue notifications; and one or more user computers; the user computers submit documents or revisions to the document management system; wherein one or more of the editorial computers coordinate with one or more of the system computers to migrate one or more documents between journals maintained by the online document management system.



Direct to U.S. Patent: Online peer review system and method (U.S. Patent No. 9,430,468)

Assignee: Elsevier

Awarded: August 30, 2016

UPDATE 1: Comment/Tweet From Tom Reller, Head of Corporate Relations at Elsevier

There is no need for concern regarding the patent. It’s simply meant to protect our own proprietary waterfall system from being copied. — Tom Reller, Elsevier (@TomReller) August 31, 2016

UPDATE 2: Stupid Patent of the Month: Elsevier Patents Online Peer Review (via EFF)