Rethinking Patent Cultures

自工业革命以来，特别是自19世纪后期国际商业兴起以来，专利在许多国家和生活的不同领域变得普遍。例如，在1990年至2003年之间，美国专利的数量从每年约8万件增加到16.9万件，增加的幅度在生物科学领域尤为显著。然而，尽管这种高水平的全球活动通常导致学者们认为专利申请已成为一种简单的全球现象，但从Gooday最近的研究中可以清楚地看出，专利申请活动及其态度因国家、行业和社区而异。但是我们应该如何解释这个异常复杂的现象呢？专利是否已经成为所有国家在许多不同领域保护创新问题的一种自然而直接的解决方案？显然不是，因为从商业保密到公开知识共享等许多其他类型的知识产权管理在上个世纪也蓬勃发展。此外，并不是每个国家都把专利法作为创新的先决条件——尤其是在普通个人可能无法拥有或垄断创意的亚洲社会。然而，专利文化在工业社会中传播的地方，有时也会引起争议：许多国家长期禁止为医疗产品申请专利，以最大限度地提高公众获得医疗保健的机会。引人注目的是，申请专利的并不总是大企业，有时是寻求保护自己技术需求的少数群体，尤其是残疾人。因此，有很大的空间可以重新绘制影响谁申请什么专利以及为什么申请——或者实际上为什么不申请——的因素。该研究网络旨在探索19世纪末和20世纪这一现象在全球、国家和地方层面的发展。它试图探讨不同国家内专利活动的微妙之处，以及这些国家对专利的特殊态度发展的经济、社会和技术解释。专利活动在生物医学和人体多样性领域的当前显著意义尤其需要解释；因此，该网络最近将重点关注医学和残疾人器具的专利文化历史。因此，该项目旨在分析政府、行业、律师、发明家和科学家在创新和专利活动中所扮演的角色以及它们之间的关系。该网络特别感兴趣的是，旨在帮助残疾人的医疗工具、药品、设备和器具的使用者如何塑造创新，以及在全球资本主义扩张期间，专利是否为他们提供了一种颠覆行业规范的方法。因此，除了历史学家之外，这些不同的利益相关者将成为网络的重要组成部分，并将积极为计划中的三个研讨会做出贡献。将就每个关键领域和作为主要学术产出的随附编辑卷（除其他外）举办三个讲习班。第一个将侧重于国家地方性，并将审查世界各地不同的专利文化；第二份报告将审查医药领域的专利，并将研究专利、医生、科学家、行业和用户之间的关系；第三个将集中在残疾人器具上，以检查发明者和使用者使用专利的方式。为确保公众的充分参与，该网络的讲习班将包括商业、医疗保健、法律和残疾人的代表，并结合公开讲座和展览，在社交媒体上全面报道项目活动和成果。此外，每个项目讲习班都将有一个与之相关的公共活动，以最大限度地发挥影响。

Patenting has become widespread in many countries and different areas of life since the industrial revolution, and especially since the rise of international businesses in the late nineteenth century. For example, between 1990 and 2003 the number of U.S. patents more than doubled from about 80,000 to 169,000 per year, and the increase is particularly significant in the biological sciences. However, while this high level of global activity has typically led scholars to assume that patenting has become simply one global phenomenon, it is clear from Gooday's recent research that patenting activity and attitudes towards it has varied between country, by industry and by community.But how should we intepret this strikingly complex phenomenon? Has patenting been a natural and straightforward solution to problems of protecting innovation across many different areas in all countries? Evidently not, since many other kinds of intellectual property management ranging from trade secrecy to open knowledge sharing have also thrived over the last century. Moreover, not every country has embraced patent laws as a prerequisite of innovation - especially in Asian societies where ordinary individuals may not be able to own or monopolize creative ideas. Then again, where patent cultures have spread in industrial societies, it has sometimes been controversial: many countries long prohibited the patenting of medical products in order to maximize public access to healthcare. Strikingly, when patents have been taken up, it has not always been large businesses but sometimes by minority groups seek to protect their technological needs, most notably disabled people. So there is much scope for re-mapping the factors affecting who patents what and why - or indeed why not. This research network proposes to explore the late nineteenth and twentieth century development of this phenomenon at a global level and on a national and local scale. It seeks to explore the subtleties of patenting activity within different countries and the economic, social and technological explanation for the development of particular attitudes towards patenting in these countries. The obvious current significance of patenting activity within biomedicine and bodily diversity in particular requires explanation; and accordingly the network will latterly focus on the history of patenting cultures in medicine and for disability appliances. The project therefore seeks to analyse the roles played by government, industry, lawyers, inventors and scientists in innovation and patenting activity and the relationships between them. The network is particularly interested in the ways in which users of medical tools, pharmaceuticals, devices and appliances designed to assist those with disabilities shaped innovation and whether patents provided them with a method of subverting industry norms during the expansion of global capitalism. In addition to historians, this diverse range of stakeholders will therefore form a vital part of the network and will actively contribute to and shape the three planned workshops.Three workshops will be held on each of the key areas and accompanying edited volumes (inter alia) produced as the main academic output. The first will focus on national locality and will examine different patenting cultures across the world; the second will examine patenting within medicine and will look at the relationship between patents, medical practitioners, scientists, industry and users; the third will concentrate on appliances for people with disabilities to examine the ways in which patents were used by inventors and users. To ensure full public engagement this network's workshops will include representatives of business, healthcare, law and disability, with full social media reporting of project activities and outcomes, allied to public lectures and exhibits. Moreover, each of the project workshops will have a public event associated with it to maximize impact.