Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RollBack Rx


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete.  ·Add§hore·  T alk T o M e ! 05:45, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

RollBack Rx

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Tagged for notability for nearly 6 years; couldn't establish notability. Boleyn (talk) 15:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Undecided: Right now, the referencing consists of product reviews, which means little to me -- products get reviewed, big deal. The article claims that the software uses a patented algorithm, though. If someone can find that patent, I'll buy notability under WP:NSOFT. -- BenTels (talk) 16:57, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Which part of WP:NSOFT would that meet? I don't see anything about patents showing notability, and I'm not sure simply owning a patent makes one notable, because patents aren't necessarily hard to come by.  If that patent were itself notable, or was shown to be used by other companies or something it might be different but I don't think simply having a patent is sufficient for notability. - SudoGhost 17:01, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Which part of WP:NSOFT would that meet?
 * Significance in its particular field. If this software is an implementation of a totally new invention, that would count as significant in my book. -- BenTels (talk) 19:09, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Merely having a patent isn't significant in itself, even I have a software patent that's been implemented into applications but that doesn't make me notable just because it's a verifiable patent. If reliable sources were to show that the patent were notable in some way that would be different, but merely having a patent doesn't meet any of the criteria of WP:NSOFT, because that's not significant, especially when WP:NSOFT says "software is discussed in reliable sources as significant in its particular field"; reliable sources have to say its significant in some way and I doubt there will be any sources that say this software having a patent is in any way significant to the software/recovery field, unless this patent has been implemented by others or has some effect on the field outside of a single program. - SudoGhost 19:28, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If software is an implementation of a non-trivial patent, that means its underlying algorithm is a totally new invention. That by definition makes it significant since it enlarges the knowledge in the field of computing science. The patent is the reliable source. And unless you are claiming that you personally are a piece of software, no, being noted as the owner of a software patent does not make you notable. -- BenTels (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:NSOFT requires reliable sources discussing the significance of the software; short of reliable sources saying that the patent makes the software notable, it doesn't. Wikipedia's policy on verifiability notes that patents are self-published sources, and are (1) not acceptable as sources and (2) do not give notability to the subject, and if Wikipedia policy weren't enough, looking through the archives at WP:RSN seems to show a consensus that concurs with the policy. - SudoGhost 19:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Patents are self-published sources? That's ridiculous. Patents are written by the entity that is requesting patent, but they are examined by an international searching authority to determine if the applied-for protection can be granted with respect to newness and inventive step. Which is why you know for any given patent if its contents are truly new or not. And to dismiss a patent as self-published is to completely deny the value and even the existence of that review process. Which idiot came up with that? -- BenTels (talk) 18:06, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia consensus came up with that policy. It doesn't matter if the patent is processed, it (1) is not hard to acquire, just a little expensive, and (2) unless the patent is tested and held up in court, the courts have shown that receiving a patent is not some end all and be all guarantee of anything.  If the examination was as thorough as you're suggesting, there wouldn't be all of these court cases with successful motions to dismiss on the basis of prior art or even sometimes because the patents are concerning things that are unpatentable.  It is not Wikipedia editors that are suggesting that review process isn't reliable, but the courts themselves.  However, this is ignoring the fact that even if the patent were a reliable third-party source, it still wouldn't show notability for this article, because this article is not about the patent.  Using notable technologies or properties does not convey notability to other things, notability is not inherited. - SudoGhost 18:26, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * That's even more ridiculous. Yes, mistakes happen in patenting -- the whole of human invention is a large subject matter. That doesn't change the fact that patents have been examined by subject matter experts to determine their applicability for protection with regards to the known state of human knowledge, which is a better hint of whether something is truly new and therefore notable than most of sourcing used on Wikipedia. To introduce a blanket dismissal of all patents because there have been cases where a patent was overturned is nothing more or less than the stupidity of throwing the baby out with the bathwater -- borne from community consensus or otherwise (and serves only to show that the community can be as wrong as an individual). Worse, given Wikipedia's human-knowledge-must-be-free roots, it smacks more of anti-intellectual property bias than anything else. -- BenTels (talk) 18:41, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * You're right, Wikipedia policy is wrong and nobody else knows what they're talking about. That still doesn't make that patent relevant for this article.  Does it verify that the patent exists?  Yes, but that's about it.  Does it mean that anything that uses the patent is notable?  Unless reliable sources show that it's a notable use of the patent, no.  Is the use of the patent significant for the relevant fields?  Unless reliable sources show this, then no.  Without reliable sources showing that the patent is relevant or important in some way, it doesn't contribute towards the notability of the article. - SudoGhost 20:03, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, based on what you have said above, I am going to assume you don't really know what a patent is. A patent is a monopolistic right for a limited time to exploit an invention. Patents are granted for the protection of the inventions that meet (as far as can be determined at time of application) certain criteria, including that the invention be new (i.e. not exist yet) and is not, in the estimate of an expert in the field employed by the issuing patent office, a trivial development of something that already existed. Once issued by the patent office, the patent includes a report by that expert that lists what in the patent is and is not questionable with regards to these criteria. If the central algorithm of this piece of software is an invention that was granted a patent by the U.S. Patent Office and the report cites that the claimed invention is indeed new and not trivial, that is by its very definition notable because it increases the knowledge available in the field of software engineering -- for an engineering discipline, new and not trivial is essentially what notable means. And no, that does not cover everything that uses the patented technology -- just the first thing. After that it's not new anymore. -- BenTels (talk) 22:17, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * While I do not doubt that you gave an educated and researched guess, it was still a guess and was ultimately incorrect. To claim that a patent is "is a monopolistic right for a limited time to exploit an invention" is inaccurate:
 * ""A patent is not the grant of a right to make or use or sell. It does not, directly or indirectly, imply any such right. It grants only the right to exclude others. The supposition that a right to make is created by the patent grant is obviously inconsistent with the established distinctions between generic and specific patents, and with the well-known fact that a very considerable portion of the patents granted are in a field covered by a former relatively generic or basic patent, are tributary to such earlier patent, and cannot be practiced unless by license thereunder." - Herman v. Youngstown Car Mfg. Co., 191 F. 579, 584-85, 112 CCA 185 (6th Cir. 1911)"


 * A patent is not a right to exploit an invention, it isn't the right to even use the invention in any way, it is only the means to stop others from using the invention, nothing more. The software is not the patent, and the patent is not the software.  That the software uses something that has been patented is both routine and unremarkable, unless you can provide reliable sources that show otherwise.  "New" does not and never has equated to "notable" on Wikipedia under any circumstances without reliable sources showing notability.  About one in three patents get approved, and there are on average  over 1,300 patents approved every single day, so having a patent on something is wholly routine and unremarkable.  Short of having reliable sources say that it's a big deal, it isn't a big deal, and isn't notable.  That it was "the first thing" that used a specific patent means nothing without reliable sources showing that this is somehow significant.  - SudoGhost 00:15, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. &#9733;&#9734;  DUCK IS PEANUTBUTTER &#9734;&#9733; 21:23, 14 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete - Non-notable software that fails WP:NSOFT. - SudoGhost 20:00, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Weak delete since it is at the non-notable end of WP software articles (I know, that is a sort of WP:OTHERSTUFF argument but applicable and usefull in these marginal ones) and there is the well known and well documented systemic bias towards computing topics. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 07:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete I can't find anything that constitutes a reliable source with significant coverage. &mdash;Darkwind (talk) 19:48, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete This article appears to be non-notable in reliable sources for significant coverage requirements, as per WP:NSOFT. According to an internet, there are no reliable sources that prove the subject's meeting of significant coverage requirements, so this is not suitable for an article in an encyclopedia. This topic also exists at the Swedish Wikipedia, which I will tag for deletion, although it is not my general language. TBrandley (what's up) 23:10, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.