Patents, Cartographic Inventors, and a New Perspective for Map History

专利、制图发明者和地图历史的新视角

• 批准号: 1461552
• 负责人: Mark Monmonier
• 金额: $ 6.84万
• 依托单位: Syracuse University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2019-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1461552&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Patents; Cartographic; Inventors; New; Perspective

Map historians and others who study the sources, processes, and outcomes of cartographic creativity traditionally have looked to maps and other manifestations of geographic information that have been copyrighted or presented in literature that can be catalogued. Far less common has been the use of patents to record inventions that have changed the ways in which maps are produced and portrayed. This project will analyze the role of the patents system in stimulating and recording cartographic creativity. The investigators will examine inventors as well as inventions, and it will focus on the technological, social, and intellectual context in which new map products and new techniques for making or using maps were deemed sufficiently original and non-obvious to warrant patent protection. The project will provide a complementary perspective to the literature dominated by academic and government cartographers. The project will yield new information and insights about those forms of cartographic innovation that have been patented. Project outcomes will include a biographical directory of cartographic inventors and their patents that the investigator and others can use to explore the personal and social motives of cartographic innovators, their contacts with other inventors, and the temporal context and impact of their inventions. The project therefore will stimulate fundamental thinking in map history, the history of sciences, geographer, and other scholarly fields. Another outcome of the project is expected to be a book accessible to lay readers examining this understudied aspect of creativity and innovation. The project will provide education and training experience for a graduate student. Data gathered during the conduct of the project will be deposited with the Geography and Map Division of the U.S. Library of Congress and other collections that will assist in the online dissemination of these data.The project will expand upon two pilot studies. One pilot examined the diverse types of map-related U.S. patents awarded between 1840 and 2012 that were classified as "Printed matter--map" or "Printed matter--indexed maps." The other pilot studied the education, employment, and residential histories of two inventors and their efforts to exploit their patents. During the conduct of this project, the investigators will broaden the database to include other arenas of cartographic creativity, in particular map-related inventions assigned to the "Education and Demonstration" category. The principal research approach to be used in the conduct of this project is examination of "Big Microdata," a collective term for newspaper, bibliographic, and patents databases as well as individual-level archival population records like those provided online by Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org, which integrate information from city directories, pre-1950 Census schedules, and the diverse vital and public records used by genealogical researchers. In addition to broadening the scope of historical scholarship about mapping to include the systematic analysis of many little-known innovators, the investigators will provide an evidence-based critique of the concepts of utility, novelty, and patentability; the effectiveness of the patents system in maintaining standards of originality and non-obviousness. They also will examine the value of a monopoly right in stimulating creative endeavors, and they will explore information flows among inventors and the Theory of Multiples, whereby discoveries by two or more innovators suggest that many inventions might be seen, in retrospect, as an inevitable consequence of need or related technology. As a final part of this project, the investigators will evaluate the usefulness and limitations of Big Microdata as a research tool, and they will assess triangulation strategies for coping with transcription and coding errors.

地图历史学家和其他研究制图创造力的来源、过程和结果的人，传统上一直关注地图和其他地理信息的表现形式，这些表现形式已经受到版权保护，或者在可以编目的文献中出现。 使用专利来记录那些改变了地图制作和描绘方式的发明远不常见。 本项目将分析专利制度在激发和记录制图创造力方面的作用。 调查人员将审查发明人和发明，并将重点放在技术，社会和知识背景下，新的地图产品和制作或使用地图的新技术被认为具有足够的原创性和非显而易见的专利保护。 该项目将为学术界和政府制图员主导的文献提供一个补充视角。 该项目将产生新的信息和见解，这些形式的制图创新已获得专利。 项目成果将包括一个地图发明者及其专利的传记目录，调查人员和其他人可以使用它来探索地图创新者的个人和社会动机，他们与其他发明者的联系，以及他们发明的时间背景和影响。 因此，该项目将激发地图史、科学史、地理学家和其他学术领域的基本思维。 该项目的另一个成果预计将是一本书，供外行读者阅读，研究创造力和创新的这一未充分研究的方面。 该项目将为一名研究生提供教育和培训经验。 在执行该项目期间收集的数据将存放在美国国会图书馆地理和地图部以及其他有助于在线传播这些数据的收藏处。 一个试点研究了1840年至2012年期间授予的各种类型的与地图相关的美国专利，这些专利被归类为“印刷品-地图”或“印刷品-索引地图”。另一个试点研究了两位发明家的教育、就业和居住历史，以及他们利用专利的努力。 在实施该项目期间，调查人员将扩大数据库，以包括制图创造力的其他领域，特别是与“教育和示范”类别有关的地图发明。 主要的研究方法将用于在这个项目的进行是检查“大微数据”，报纸，书目和专利数据库的统称，以及个人层面的档案人口记录，如由Ancestry.com和Familysearch.org提供的在线，其中集成了来自城市目录，1950年前的人口普查时间表，以及家谱研究人员使用的各种重要和公共记录的信息。 除了扩大有关映射的历史学术的范围，包括许多鲜为人知的创新者的系统分析，调查人员将提供一个基于证据的实用性，新奇和可专利性的概念的批评;专利制度在保持原创性和非显而易见的标准的有效性。 他们还将研究垄断权在刺激创造性努力中的价值，并将探索发明者之间的信息流和多重理论，即两个或两个以上创新者的发现表明，许多发明可能被视为，回顾过去，作为需求或相关技术的必然结果。 作为该项目的最后一部分，研究人员将评估大微数据作为研究工具的有用性和局限性，并评估应对转录和编码错误的三角测量策略。