Elsevier Awarded U.S. Patent For “Online Peer Review System and Method”
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)
Filed under: Elsevier, Management and Leadership, News, Profiles

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.