Talk:Modular data center

Latest comment: 8 years ago by Aeonx in topic Patents

Patents edit

Patents should only be used as references with caution. They are not peer reviewed in the same way as journal articles. People can, and do, make all sorts of spurious claims in patents. It is certainly wrong to make a reference to a google search of patents. A search engine results page is not a reliable source of anything. SpinningSpark 22:43, 25 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

I disagree. Firstly, it's important to identify the point that is being made in the article is not a claim that is being supported by a patent. If it were, I would agree - Patents certainly are not a reliable secondary source to justify a claim. However, that's not the point being presented in the wiki article, the claim in the article is along the lines that: there are a large number of heavily commercialised solutions with generally innovative ideas. The fact that many patents have been listed is proof of this by demonstration. The google search result which is cited as a reference pulls directly from associated patent databases and I have no reason to doubt it's reliability for making the claim which is in the article that "several patents have been taken out on various Containerized Data Center solutions.". Aeonx (talk) 07:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
The problem with search engine results is that they won't be the same next year, or even the next day. What you think they are verifying now, may not be so in the future. What would be much more appropriate is a RS stating that there are many innovative solutions rather than your own WP:OR of presenting many references. SpinningSpark 10:47, 26 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
I disagree again, patents searches are not like normal search engine results. They don't pull from metadata and unreliable content that frequently changes; they mostly pull from patent databases which are persistent and only updated with new submissions. There are news articles, like this [1] and [2], and [3], that illustrate the same thing if you are concerned about WP:OR.Aeonx (talk) 22:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)Reply