Figures of Invention

A History of Modern Patent Law a History of Modern Patent Law
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-0-19-959563-1
Verlag: OUP UK

Buch, Englisch, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 514 g

Taking the invention as its object of study, this book develops a radical new perspective on the making of modern patent law. It develops an extended historical and conceptual exploration of the invention in modern patent law. Focussing primarily on the figures that make inventions material, and on how to overcome the intangibility of ideas, this intellectual challenging book makes explicit a dimension of patent law that is not commonly found in traditional commentaries, treatises
and cases.

The story is told from the perspective of the material media in which the intangible form of the invention is made visible; namely, models, texts, drawings, and biological specimens. This approach brings to light for the first time some essential formative moments in the history of patent law. For example, Figures of Invention describes the central role that scale models played in the making of nineteenth-century patent jurisprudence, the largely mythical character of the nineteenth-century theory that patents texts should function as a means of disclosing inventions, and the profound conceptual changes that emerged from debates as to how to represent and disclose the first biological inventions. At the same time, this historical inquiry also reveals the basic conceptual architecture of modern patent law. The story of how inventions were represented is also the story of the formation of the modern concept of invention, or of the historical processes that shaped the terms in which patent lawyers still apprehend the intangible form of the invention.

Although the analysis focuses on the history of patent law in the United States, it develops themes that illuminate the evolution of patent regimes in Europe. In combining close historical analysis with broad thematic reflection, Figures of Invention makes a distinctive contribution both to the field of patent law scholarship and to emerging interdisciplinary debates about the constitution of patent law and of intellectual property in general.

Zielgruppe

The primary market is scholars and post-graduate students primarily in the field of intellectual property, but also in the fields of legal theory, economic and legal history, anthropology and philosophy. Whilst the examples are drawn from US case law, the arguments are applicable in other jurisdictions, including the UK and Europe.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pottage, Alain

Sherman, Brad

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Wirtschaftsrecht Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz Patentrecht, Gebrauchs- und Geschmacksmusterrecht, Designrecht
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsgeschichte, Recht der Antike
• Rechtswissenschaften Internationales Recht und Europarecht Internationales Recht Internationaler Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz, Medien-, IT- und Urheberrecht
• Rechtswissenschaften Ausländisches Recht Common Law (UK, USA, Australien u.a.)
• Rechtswissenschaften Internationales Recht und Europarecht Europarecht Europäischer Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz, Medien-, IT- und Urheberrecht

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1: Introduction
2: Industrial copies
3: Recollection and possession
4: The principle of a machine
5: Mechanical jurisprudence
6: Reissues
7: Textual machines
8: Organisms as manufactures
9: Bio-legal hybrids

Über Autor(innen)

Alain Pottage is Reader in Law at the London School of Economics. He holds degrees from the University of Edinburgh and the London School of Economics. Before joining the Law Department of the LSE, he was a researcher at the Law Commission and a lecturer in the School of Law at King's College London. He has been a visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris, the University of Sydney, and Cornell Law School.

Brad Sherman is Professor of Law at Griffith University, Brisbane , and Director, Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture.