Mattias Arvola wrote:
> patents are not publications (even though some people count them).
An invention, an innovation, a novel step of some kind, some
incremental change that is new, might be said to be 'published' when
it has been subject to close peer review, where there is an enduring
record in the public domain, and where it can be searched for and
located for all to see and scrutinise, and for future scholars to
follow or build upon.
A _full_ patent has all these attributes. Compared with some journals
and conference proceedings, I would consider it to be a very solid
publication (patent _applications_ do not hold the same value because
they have not necessarily been subject to deep scrutiny).
As Chris Rust suggests, paper or product is not 'either/or', and all
evidence may form part of a portfolio that seeks to persuade an
audience of the merits of the case and/or demonstrate the research
process.
I sometimes have the feeling that for some, the peer reviewed and
printed [on real paper] journal article is the only means of
publishing. Some journals are very good and have excellent peer review
processes, some journals do not. The fact that the work is published
in a journal does not guarantee excellence. A few conferences uphold
high standards of peer review (and have very high rates of attrition),
and some conferences accept almost everybody who applies.
I often say to early career researchers that they must be critical of
the face value of _every_ publication, and seek to verify it by
carefully considering and checking the research process described and
its results, and by consulting as many other sources as possible.
David
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David Durling FDRS PhD http://durling.tel
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