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A recent question asked about research involving a patented method (within the scope of the site), and a scientist from the company (assignee) provided an answer linking to the commercial web site. In a second answer, he provided what I believe to be a sufficient disclosure of his affiliation with the company and a reasonable answer that I believe fits with the question without being construed as spam.

I think it would be helpful to provide a Help topic for describing how to provide appropriate disclosure of commercial affiliations and potential conflict of interest when asking and answering questions (only in cases where it is applicable, of course).

For instance, when asking or answering a question about a patent, disclosing "I am the inventor of patent X" or "I am an employee of company X, which the assignee of patent Y".

Are there other SE sites that have such guidelines, and are there other conflict-of-interest issues that should be considered on this site?

Here are some other recent examples:

https://patents.stackexchange.com/q/13524/14417

Prior art request for US4420261A

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There are currently two Help Center articles addressing the issues of self-promotion and posting answers that happen to include a product you are affiliated with.

What kind of behavior is expected of users?

How to not be a spammer

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  • Thank you, I missed those somehow. These are more than adequate.
    – Parker
    Commented Sep 8, 2015 at 20:04

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