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

地图历史学家和其他研究地图创意的来源、过程和结果的人，传统上一直关注已受版权保护或在可以编目的文献中呈现的地图和其他地理信息的表现形式。使用专利记录改变了地图制作和描绘方式的发明，这种情况要少得多。本项目将分析专利制度在激发和记录地图创造力方面的作用。调查人员将审查发明者和发明，并将重点放在技术、社会和智力背景下，在这些背景下，制作或使用地图的新地图产品和新技术被认为足够原创和不明显，足以保证专利保护。该项目将为学术和政府制图员主导的文献提供一个补充视角。该项目将提供有关已获专利的地图创新形式的新信息和见解。项目成果将包括制图发明家及其专利的传记目录，调查员和其他人可以利用该名录探索制图创新者的个人和社会动机、他们与其他发明家的联系以及他们的发明的时代背景和影响。因此，该项目将激发地图历史、科学史、地理学家和其他学术领域的基本思考。预计该项目的另一个成果是出版一本非专业读者可以阅读的书，探讨创造力和创新这一未被充分研究的方面。该项目将为研究生提供教育和培训经验。在项目实施期间收集的数据将存放在美国国会图书馆的地理和地图部以及其他有助于在线传播这些数据的收藏品中。该项目将在两项试点研究的基础上进行扩展。一位飞行员研究了1840至2012年间授予的与地图相关的各种美国专利，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，以及他们为利用自己的专利所做的努力。在实施这一项目期间，调查人员将扩大数据库，以纳入其他制图创意领域，特别是与地图有关的发明，归入“教育和示范”类别。在这个项目的实施中使用的主要研究方法是检查“大微数据”，这是报纸、书目和专利数据库的统称，以及个人级别的人口档案记录，如Ancestry.com和Familyearch.org在线提供的记录，其中整合了来自城市名录、1950年前人口普查时间表的信息，以及家谱研究人员使用的各种重要和公共记录。除了扩大关于地图绘制的历史学术范围，以包括对许多鲜为人知的创新者的系统分析之外，调查人员还将对效用、新颖性和专利性的概念；专利制度在维护原创性和非显着性标准方面的有效性提供基于证据的批评。他们还将研究垄断权在激励创造性努力方面的价值，他们将探索发明者之间的信息流和倍增理论，根据该理论，两个或更多创新者的发现表明，回过头来看，许多发明可能被视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，他们将评估应对转录和编码错误的三角测量策略。

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.