Google was recently issued a patent for Delegating authority to evaluate content. It seems to mainly focus on delegation of authority to others.
Essentially we're delegated varied levels of authority based on our points, but some are delegated special community mod privileges.
I know most of these things don't get solved/understood/worked out until they go to court, but does anyone who's more patent/legaleese savy have any insight?
The patent was filed in 2010, after SO came into existence, and SO's method for rating posts hasn't changed since then. Therefore the patent cannot affect SO as it is (if SO was covered by one of the claims then it would constitute prior art and invalidate that claim).
It's possible that some of the claims (which I haven't read too closely) might affect Stack Exchange's plans with anonymous feedback. But those claims look awfully generic; if this patent is at all accepted, the broadest claims are not likely to survive.
It's not the same thing.
Read the last 5 paragraphs for an example of how their model works. I really don't think that's something that could reliably be put into practice.
And certainly not without a tremendous amount of work involved by the various "authorities" it mentions. SO shouldn't have anything to worry about.
