acknowledged the value of collective intelligence from civil society, academic and private sector participants of the Delphi, especially in a field of rapid change, such as technology policies. Use in patent participation identification In the early 1980s Jackie Awerman of Jackie Awerman Associates, Inc. designed a modified Delphi method for identifying the roles of various contributors to the creation of a patent-eligible product. (Epsilon Corporation, Chemical Vapor Deposition Reactor) The results were then used by patent attorneys to determine bonus distribution percentage to the general satisfaction of all team members. Use in policy-making From the 1970s, the use of the Delphi technique in public policy-making introduces a number of methodological innovations. In particular: the need to examine several types of items (not only forecasting items but, typically, issue items, goal items, and option items) leads to introducing different evaluation scales which are not used in the standard Delphi. These often include desirability, feasibility (technical and political) and probability, which the analysts can use to outline different scenarios: the desired scenario (from desirability), the potential scenario (from feasibility) and the expected scenario (from probability); the complexity of issues posed in public policy-making tends to increased weighting of panelists’ arguments, such often solicited pro and con each item along with new items for panel consideration; likewise, methods measuring panel evaluations tend to increased sophistication such as multi-dimensional scaling. Further innovations come from the use of computer-based (and later web-based) Delphi conferences. According to Turoff and Hiltz, in computer-based Delphis: the iteration structure used in the paper Delphis, which is divided into three or more discrete rounds, can be replaced by a process of continuous (roundless) interaction, enabling panelists to change their evaluations at any time; the statistical group response can be updated in real-time, and shown whenever a panelist provides a new evaluation. According to Bolognini, web-based Delphis offer two further possibilities, relevant in the context of interactive policy-making and e-democracy. These are: the involvement of a large number of participants, the use of two or more panels representing different groups (such as policy-makers, experts, citizens), which the administrator can give tasks reflecting their diverse roles and expertise, and make them to interact within ad hoc communication structures. For example, the policy community members (policy-makers and experts) may interact as part of the main conference panel, while they receive inputs from a virtual community (citizens, associations etc.) involved in a side conference.