Germenis A E
The Athens Medical Society, Greece.
Med Inform Internet Med. 1999 Jul-Sep;24(3):165-70. doi: 10.1080/146392399298366.
According to the so-called Ingelfinger Rule (IR), biomedical journals do not accept for publication papers which have already been publicized elsewhere. This rule was subjected to fierce criticism which was mainly based on the fact that authors transfer the intellectual rights of their work to the journals. With the emergence of the Internet, the scientific community has a golden opportunity to re-evaluate the IR concept. Scientists no longer have to depend on the debatable benefits (i.e. publicity and review) stemming from journal publications; rather they can be free to explore novel communication opportunities and, subsequently, to tackle the emerging intellectual property issues. This approach should take into account the tight bond between applied research and the world economy, the need for teamwork instead of individual effort for effective scientific research, and the added value of journal publications. Based on such an analysis, it would appear that the inherent characteristics of the Internet promote a re-assessment of the intellectual property theory on three levels: the cognitive (the way in which knowledge is made up from its building blocks), the morphological (the use of hypertext) and finally the sociological (the formation of virtual scientific communities). It is concluded that publishing on the Internet necessitates a different approach to the question of intellectual property based on the primal values of science. This can be achieved only if the scientific community embraces and nourishes the academic nature of the Internet as well as laying down the rules to control the dissemination of ideas without the intervention of non-scientific third parties.
根据所谓的英格尔芬格规则（IR），生物医学期刊不接受已在其他地方发表过的论文用于发表。这条规则受到了激烈批评，主要基于作者将其作品的知识产权转让给期刊这一事实。随着互联网的出现，科学界有了重新评估IR概念的绝佳机会。科学家不再依赖于期刊发表带来的有争议的好处（即宣传和评审）；相反，他们可以自由探索新的交流机会，进而解决新出现的知识产权问题。这种方法应考虑到应用研究与世界经济之间的紧密联系、有效开展科学研究需要团队合作而非个人努力，以及期刊发表的附加值。基于这样的分析，互联网的固有特性似乎在三个层面促进了对知识产权理论的重新评估：认知层面（知识由其组成部分构成的方式）、形态层面（超文本的使用）以及最后社会学层面（虚拟科学社区的形成）。结论是，在互联网上发表文章需要基于科学的基本价值观，对知识产权问题采取不同的方法。只有当科学界接受并培育互联网的学术性质，并制定规则以在没有非科学第三方干预的情况下控制思想传播时，这一点才能实现。
