Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Intellectual Property and the Connection of Intangible and Tangible Commodities in Taiwan and China

哥伦比亚大学博士生Matthew E. West将在Myron L. Cohen博士的指导下，对创新的过程和实践进行人类学研究。研究的重点将是在设计和制造绿色技术产品过程中不同形式的知识产权的生产和流通的民族志。这项研究将主要在一家绿色科技公司的台湾设计和许可部门进行，并在其中国制造基地进行额外的研究。这项研究很重要，因为它将更好地理解知识产权的日常实践，知识产权及其相关实践是全球知识经济的基础，并促进了知识和制造业之间的全球分工。研究人员将专注于知识产权与设计、许可和其他产品之间的联系，人们通常通过这些产品接触到知识产权。他将跟踪产品从其知识组件的创建和许可到最终制造。数据收集方法将包括在公司的台湾和中国站点进行参与式实地观察；与公司员工和其他行业专家进行半结构化访谈；并对相关文献资料进行了收集和分析。该项目将为高科技企业的社会科学理论做出贡献，补充其他关于开源软件和本土文化财产的研究。它还将提供一个必要的微观层面的视角，了解将新的无形所有权对象与有形商品联系起来的各种联系，从而有助于制定管理知识产权政策的持续挑战。资助这项研究也支持了社会科学家的教育。

Columbia University doctoral student, Matthew E. West, with the guidance of Dr. Myron L. Cohen, will undertake anthropological research on the process and practice of innovation. The focus of the research will be an ethnography of the production and circulation of different forms of intellectual property during the design and manufacture of a green technology product. The research will be carried out primarily in a single green technology company's Taiwanese design and licensing branch, with additional research in their Chinese manufacturing site. This research is important because it will provide a better understanding of the everyday practice of intellectual property, a kind of property with its associated practicies that is at the foundation of the global knowledge economy and that facilitates a global division of labor between knowledge and manufacturing. The researcher will focus on the connections between intellectual property and the designs, licenses, and other products through which people normally encounter intellectual property. He will follow the product from the creation and licensing of its intellectual components through to its final manufacture. Data collection methods will include participant observation fieldwork in the company's Taiwanese and Chinese sites; semi-structured interviews with company employees and other industry experts; and the collection and analysis of related documentary materials.This project will contribute to social science theory of high technology businesses, complementing other research on open-source software and indigenous cultural property. It also will provide a needed micro-level perspective on the variety of connections that tie new intangible objects of ownership to tangible commodities, and so contribute to the ongoing challenges of creating policies for managing intellectual property. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.