I've done some experimenting with Google Docs over the weekend and found out that this platform has some very cool features. One such feature of particular interest is that several people can work on one and the same document at the same time. The interesting part is that each editor can (with a delay of a few seconds at most) see what the others are doing. In fact, you can even see who is editing at any particular time.
This opens up the possibility for making tools that can be developed, edited, corrected continuously. The only two things that are required are internet access and a Google account. You can make text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. So you could envisage a free, editable, (hopefully) updated version of (an annotated) EPC and/or PCT, which is available online 24/7. Or, what about presentations/ flowcharts on specific topics or parts of the law....
This all sounds very nice of course, but developing all this material requires time. So, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in contributing to such "online projects". Keep in mind that the more people that join, the less each person has to do/type.
Please send me an e-mail if you'd like to contribute..
18/10/2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I don't mean to be unduly negative, but my experience of wikis and other collaborative document construction is that they often struggle to maintain people's commitment and interest for long-enough to become useful (Wikipedia being a notable exception!).
ReplyDeleteAre you familiar with http://eppatents.wikispaces.com/ which seems to be a similar initiative?
Thanks for your comment and sharing your experience.
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar (yet) with the initiative you mentioned, but for sure I will have a look.
Just looked at the eppatents wiki. Seems this website is related to EPC 1973, hence outdated (which relates to your concern).
ReplyDeleteOther than that there is a slight difference between my idea and a wiki. I was thinking about creating documents that people can download either as PDF or text-document (possibly for further editing). Of course, I fully agree with you that if not maintained properly such documents are useless.