SSRN PAPER: Michael BIRNHACK, "Colonial Patents: Industrial Property Law and Nationality in Mandate Palestine" (The Journal of Legal History) [OPEN ACCESS]

(image source: SSRN)

Abstract:

This Article offers the first historical analysis of patent law in British Mandate Palestine (1917-1948), examining 4,395 patent applications through a reconstructed registry and archival sources. It develops Colonial Patents as a framework for analysing legal transplantation in colonial contexts. The analysis reveals Britain's hybrid imperial patent policy: rejecting empire-wide unification while creating preferential procedures for British patents. Palestine's 1924 Patent Ordinance emerged from London-Jerusalem negotiations, including London's rejected proposal to abolish local patents. The registry shows profound participation asymmetries: while foreign and local inventors each filed approximately half of applications, Jewish inventors comprised nearly all local applicants, with scant Arab Palestinians filings. Archival sources confirm British engagement with Jewish patent agents but no Arab involvement. This disparity reflects patent law's ideological foundations in Enlightenment progress and industrial capitalism, which resonated with European-educated Jewish immigrants but remained peripheral to Arab Palestinian society, demonstrating how nominally neutral colonial institutions operated differentially.

Read the article here: DOI 10.2139/ssrn.6383879.

(source: Legal History Blog)

CFP: 'Intellectual property: Historical perspectives' - Special Issue of the Revista Chilena de Historia del Derecho [DEADLINE 31 DEC 2025]

 

 CfP: Intellectual property: Historical perspectives

Special Issue of Revista Chilena de Historia del Derecho

 

The Revista Chilena de Historia del Derecho, a fully electronic journal, invites original, unpublished contributions for a special issue on the histories of intellectual property.

Since the 15th century and the invention of printing in Europe, intellectual property has gradually developed into a legal institution, marked by the meeting of the logics of creation, economics and law. Its history and dissemination evidence the changing relationship between the author, inventor, creator, or breeder, society and the State.

The aim of this special issue is to examine this institution over the long term and beyond European borders. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the historical conditions that led to the emergence of the various forms of intellectual property from the 18th century onwards (literary and artistic property, copyright, patents, etc.).

Contributions may focus on, but are not limited to, the following areas:

·        History of copyright and related rights

·        History of pharmaceutical patent and drug law

·        Brand history and trade mark registration.

·        History of scientific property (inventions, discoveries)

·        History of corporate law and its relationship with employees’ skill and knowledge

·        History of the legal professionalisation of intellectual property rights (specialised lawyers, agents and courts)

·        History of the protection of plant varieties and living organisms

·        The historical challenges of protecting intangible heritage.

 

Contributions may also address specific methodological or theoretical issues, provided they have a historical dimension.

Proposals for articles (title, an abstract between 300 and 500 words, accompanied by a 5-line bio-bibliographical note) should be sent to the coordinators of this special issue (addresses: J.A.Bellido@kent.ac.uk and gabriel.galvez-behar@univ-lille.fr), with a copy to the editorial board of the Revista Chilena de Historia del Derecho at the following address: aargouse@derecho.uchile.cl

Provisional timetable

Deadline for proposals: December 31, 2025

Notification of acceptance: January 15, 2026

Closing date: August 31, 2026

Publication date: December 2026

 

Articles, written in French, Spanish or English, must be between 7000 and 9000 words (approx.), and comply with the magazine's editorial standards (available at https://historiadelderecho.uchile.cl/index.php/RCHD/about/submissions).

BOOK: P. Sean MORRIS (ed.), The Silent Peacemaker: Intellectual Property Rights and the Interwar International Legal Order, 1919–1939 [Legal History Library, eds. Dirk HEIRBAUT, Michelle McKINLEY, Matthew C. MIROW & C.H. VAN RHEE; Studies in the History of International Law ed. Randall LESAFFER; 72/26] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill , 2024), 444 p., ISBN 978-90-04-71465-6

 

Abstract:

This collection of essays explores the role intellectual property played in the interwar period and the expansion and protection of intellectual property rights. The geographical scope of the book is global so as to give perspectives from different regions on how intellectual property law developed. The topics covered range from a synopsis of intellectual property in Jewish works confiscated by the Nazis to how intellectual property can be understood as part of the evolution of inventors’ moral rights. This volume’s aim is to develop new narratives on the ideas and structures of intellectual property during the interwar period and on how those ideas and structures were held together by the competing forces of markets, ownership and political ideals of the international legal order at that time.

Contributors are: Michael Blakeney, Enrico Bonadio, Patricia Covarrubia, Christine Haight Farley, Laura Ford, Giacomo Gabbuti, Johanna Gibson, Phillip Johnson, Ekaterina Kirsanova, Anat Lior, P. Sean Morris, Alessandro Nuvolari, Emmanuel Oke, Véronique Pouillard, Akshita Rohatgi, Anele Simon, Caterina Sganga, Noppanun Supasiripongchai, Masabumi Suzuki, and Lior Zemer. 

On the editor:

P. Sean Morris is a Research Scholar at the Faculty of Law University of Helsinki and an Affiliated Research Fellow at the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki, Finland. Sean is the editor of Intellectual Property and the Law of Nations, 1860 – 1920 (Brill, 2022). 

 

Find more here.

 

BOOK: Elena COOPER, Art and Modern Copyright : The Contested Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). ISBN 9781107179721, £ 85.00

(Source: Cambridge University Press)

Cambridge University Press has just published a book on the history of copyright protecting the visual arts.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book is the first in-depth and longitudinal study of the history of copyright protecting the visual arts. Exploring legal developments during an important period in the making of the modern law, the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, in relation to four themes - the protection of copyright 'authors' (painters, photographers and engravers), art collectors, sitters and the public interest - it uncovers a number of long-forgotten narratives of copyright history, including views of copyright that differ from how we think today. As well as considering the distinct nature of the contribution of copyright to the history of the cultural domain accounted for by scholars of art history and the sociology of art, this book examines the value to lawyers and policy-makers today of copyright history as a destabilising influence: in taking us to ways of thinking that differ from our own, history can sharpen the critical lens through which we view copyright debates today.

Looks at legal developments in the making of modern law in relation to the visual arts, providing fresh perspectives and critical insights into copyright and its history

This book is based on extensive original archival work that uncovers unexplored facets of copyright history

Explores the contribution of copyright history to broader developments described by scholars of art history and the sociology of art

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elena Cooper, CREATe, University of Glasgow

Elena Cooper is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at CREATe, University of Glasgow, where she has been a postdoctoral researcher since 2014. Prior to this, she was Orton Fellow in Intellectual Property Law at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge. Prior to her time at Cambridge, Elena was a solicitor specialising in intellectual property litigation. Elena is a member of the British Art Network organised by the Tate and The Institute of Art and Law.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Art, copyright and 'authors', 1: 1850–62

3. Art, copyright and 'authors', 2: 1862–11

4. Art, copyright and collectors: the wrongs that artists commit

5. Art, copyright and the face: a nineteenth-century publicity right

6. Art, copyright and the public interest: galleries, printsellers and 'pirates'

7. Drawing conclusions: images of art and images of copyright.

More info here

BOOK: Oren BRACHA, ed., The History of Intellectual Property Law [Critical Concepts in Intellectual Property Law Series] (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing , 2018). ISBN 978178536 8554, £517.50

(Source: Edward Elgar Publishing)

Edward Elgar Publishing has just published a two-volume collection which includes some of the most important and influential articles published on the history of intellectual property law.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This comprehensive two-volume collection includes some of the most important and influential articles published on the history of intellectual property. The seminal works compiled in these volumes encompass a broad variety of specific legal fields, periods and methodological perspectives. The collection focuses on the three main subfields of intellectual property: patent, copyright and trademark law. Volume I covers patent and copyright in Britain as well as U.S. patents. Volume II discusses U.S. copyright and trademarks along with colonial and international intellectual property law.

With an original introduction by the editor, this essential compilation will be of great interest to legal historians, economic historians and anyone interested in intellectual property and its history.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents:

Volume I

Introduction Oren Bracha

PART I. EARLY ORIGINS
1. Pamela O. Long (1991), ‘Invention, Authorship, "Intellectual Property," and the Origin of Patents: Notes toward a Conceptual History’, Technology and Culture, 32 (4), October, 846–84
2. Joanna Kostylo (2010), ‘From Gunpowder to Print: The Common Origins of Copyright and Patent’, in Ronan Deazley, Martin Kretschmer and Lionel Bently (eds), Privilege and Property: Essays on the History of Copyright, Chapter 1, Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 21–50
3. Carlo Marco Belfanti (2004), ‘Guilds, Patents, and the Circulation of Technical Knowledge: Northern Italy During the Early Modern Age’, Technology and Culture, 45 (3), July, 569–89
4. Liliane Hilaire-Pérez (1991), ‘Invention and the State in 18th-Century France’, Technology and Culture, 32 (4), October, 911–31
5. Martha Woodmansee (1984) ‘The Genius and the Copyright: Economic and Legal Conditions of the Emergence of the “Author”’, Eighteenth Century Studies, 17 (4), Summer, 425–48

PART II. BRITISH PATENTS
6. Chris R. Kyle (1988), ’But a New Button to an Old Coat: The Enactment of the Statute of Monopolies, 21 James I cap.3’, Journal of Legal History, 19 (3), December, 203–23
7. Adam Mossoff (2001), ‘Rethinking the Development of Patents: An Intellectual History, 1550–1800’, Hastings Law Journal, 52 (6), August, 1255–322
8. John N. Adams and Gwen Averley (1986), ‘The Patent Specification: The Role of Liardet v. Johnson’, Journal of Legal History, 7 (2), September, 156–77
9. Eric Robinson (1972), ‘James Watt and the Law of Patents’, Technology and Culture, 13 (2), April, 115–39
10. Christine MacLeod (1999), ‘Negotiating the Rewards of Invention: The Shop-Floor Inventor in Victorian Britain’, Business History, 41 (2), April, 17–36

PART III. BRITISH COPYRIGHT
11. Ian Gadd (2016), ‘The Stationer’s Company in England before 1710’, in Isabella Alexander and H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui (eds), Research Handbook on the History of Copyright Law, Chapter 5, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 81–95
12. Ronan Deazley (2010), ‘The Statute of Anne and the Great Abridgement Swindle’, Houston Law Review, 47 (4), December, 793–818
13. Mark Rose (1988), ‘The Author as Proprietor: Donaldson v. Becket and the Genealogy of Modern Authorship’, Representations, 23, Summer, 51–85
14. H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui (2014), ‘Copyright at Common Law in 1774—’, Connecticut Law Review, 47 (1), November, 1–57 
15. Will Slauter (2013) ‘Upright Piracy: Understanding the Lack of Copyright for Journalism in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Book History, 16 (1), 34–61
16. Isabella Alexander (2007), 'Criminalising Copyright: A Story of Publishers, Pirates and Pieces of Eight', Cambridge Law Journal, 66 (3), November, 625–56
17. Jose Bellido and Kathy Bowrey (2014), ‘From the Author to the Proprietor: Newspaper Copyright and The Times (1842–1956)’, Journal of Media Law, 6 (2), 206–33

PART IV. THE U.S. CONSTITUTIONAL CLAUSE 

18. Tyler T. Ochoa and Mark Rose (2002), ‘The Anti-Monopoly Origins of the Patent and Copyright Clause’, Journal, Copyright Society of the U.S.A., 49 (3), 675–706
19. L. Ray Patterson and Craig Joyce (2003), 'Copyright in 1791: An Essay Concerning the Founders' View of the Copyright Power Granted to Congress in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution', Emory Law Journal, 52, 909–52
PART V. AMERICAN PATENTS
20. Mario Biagioli (2006), ‘Patent Republic: Representing Inventions, Constructing Rights and Authors’, Social Research, 73 (4), Winter, 1129–72
21. Steven Lubar (1991), ‘The Transformation of Antebellum Patent Law’, Technology and Culture’, 32 (4), October, 932–59
22. Kara W. Swanson (2009), ‘The Emergence of the Professional Patent Practitioner’, Technology and Culture, 50 (3), July, 519–48
23. Adam Mossoff (2011), ‘The Rise and Fall of the First American Patent Thicket: The Sewing Machine War of the 1850s’, Arizona Law Review, 53 (1), 165–21
24. Alain Pottage and Brad Sherman (2007), 'Organisms and Manufactures: On the History of Plant Inventions', Melbourne University Law Review, 31 (2), 539–68

25. Steven W. Usselman and Richard R. John (2006), ‘Patent Politics: Intellectual Property, the Railroad Industry, and the Problem of Monopoly’, Journal of Policy History, 18 (1), 96–125
26. Catherine L. Fisk (1998), ‘”Removing the Fuel” of Interest from the ‘Fire of Genius’: Law and the Employee Inventor, 1830-1930’, University of Chicago Law Review, 65 (4), Autumn, 1127–99
27. Kara W. Swanson (2011), ‘Getting a Grip on the Corset: Gender, Sexuality, and Patent Law’, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism’, 23 (1), 57–115
28. Christopher Beauchamp (2016), ‘The First Patent Litigation Explosion’, Yale Law Journal, 125 (4), February, 848–944

Volume II

An introduction to both volumes by the editor appears in volume 1

PART I. AMERICAN COPYRIGHT
1. Jane C. Ginsburg (1990), ‘A Tale of Two Copyrights: Literary Property in Revolutionary France and America', Tulane Law Review, 64 (5), May, 991–1031
2. Meredith L. McGill (1997), ‘The Matter of the Text: Commerce, Print Culture, and the Authority of the State in American Copyright Law’, American Literary History, 9 (1), Spring, 21–59
3. Oren Bracha (2008), ‘The Ideology of Authorship Revisited: Authors, Markets, and Liberal Values in Early American Copyright’, Yale Law Journal, 118 (2), November, 186–271
4. Robert Brauneis (2009), ‘The Transformation of Originality in the Progressive-Era Debate over Copyright in News’, Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal, 27 (2), 321–73
5. Zvi S. Rosen (2007), ‘The Twilight of the Opera Pirates: A Prehistory of the Exclusive Right of Public Performance for Musical Compositions’, Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal, 24, 1157–1218

PART II TRADEMARKS
6. Paul Duguid (2009), ‘French Connections: The International Propagation of Trademarks in the Nineteenth Century’, Enterprise and Society, 10 (1), March 3–37
7. Lionel Bently (2007), ‘The Making of Modern Trade Mark Law: The Construction of the Legal Concept of Trade Mark 1860–80’, in Lionel Bently, Jennifer Davis and Jane C. Ginsburg (eds), Trade Marks and Brands: An Interdisciplinary Critique, Chapter 1, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 3–41
8. Robert G. Bone (2006), ‘Hunting Goodwill: A History of the Concept of Goodwill in Trademark Law’, Boston University Law Review, 86 (3), June, 547–622
9. Steven Wilf (2008), ‘The Making of the Post-War Paradigm in American Intellectual Property Law’, Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts, 31 (2), 139–207

PART III COLONIAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
10. Lionel Bently (2007), ‘Copyright, Translations, and Relations Between Britain and India in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, Chicago-Kent Law Review, 82 (3), 1181–240
11. Michael D. Birnhack (2011), ‘Hebrew Authors and English Copyright Law in Mandate Palestine’, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 12 (1), January, 201–40

PART IV INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
12. Lionel Bently and Brad Sherman (2001), ‘Great Britain and the Signing of the Berne Convention in 1886: Part 2’, Journal, Copyright Society of the U.S.A., 48 (3), Spring, 311–40
13. Catherine Seville (2008), ‘Authors as Copyright Campaigners: Mark Twain’s Legacy’, Journal, Copyright Society of the U.S.A., 55 (2/3), Winter/Spring, 283–359

PART V ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES
14. B. Zorina Khan (1995), ‘Property Rights and Patent Litigation in Early Nineteenth-Century America’, Journal of Economic History, 55 (1), March, 58–97
15. Petra Moser (2005), ‘How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World’s Fairs’, American Economic Review, 95 (4), September, 1214–36
16. Naomi R. Lamoreaux, Kenneth L. Sokoloff, and Dhanoos Sutthiphisal, (2013), ‘Patent Alchemy: The Market for Technology in U.S. History’, Business History Review, 87 (1), Spring, 3–38

Index

More information with the publisher

BOOK: David M. HIGGINS, Brands, Geographic Origin, and the Global Economy : A History from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). ISBN 9781107032675, £ 90.00

(Source: Cambridge University Press)

Cambridge University Press has published a book on the history of national and international laws protecting geographical origins.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Indications of geographic origin for foodstuffs and manufactures have become an important source of brand value since the beginnings of globalization during the late nineteenth century. In this work, David M. Higgins explores the early nineteenth-century business campaigns to secure national and international protection of geographic brands. He shows how these efforts culminated in the introduction of legal protocols which protect such brands, including, 'Champagne', 'Sheffield', 'Swiss made' watches and 'Made in the USA'. Higgins explores the major themes surrounding these indications, tying in the history of global marketing and the relevant laws on intellectual property. He also questions the effectiveness of European Union policy to promote 'regional' and 'local' foods and why such initiatives brought the EU in conflict with North America, especially the US He extends the study with a reflection on contemporary issues affecting globalization, intellectual property, less developed countries, and supply chains.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David M. Higgins, Newcastle University

David M. Higgins is a Professor of Accounting and Finance at Newcastle University Business School.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Geographic origin in the global economy

2. Firms, indications of geographic origin in the first global economy

3. Country of origin and agricultural trade during the nineteenth century

4. Cooperation, country of origin, and agricultural trade during the interwar period

5. 'Unfair competition' and the British Merchandise Marks Act, 1926

6. From Paris to London: the international legal framework for the protection of IGOs, c.1880–1945

7. The evolving international framework for the protection of IGOs after 1945

8. EU Policy on geographical indications: ambitious, but misguided?

9. 'Made in' and 'Country of Origin' in the post-1945 period

10. Reflections on the history of IGOs.

More information with the publisher

BOOK: Barbara LAURIAT, Intellectual Property and Victorian Inquiry: The Royal Commissions on Patent and Copyright (Oxford: Hart, 2018), ISBN 9781509914029, £ 70

(image source: Hart)

Book abstract:

This monograph examines the Royal Commissions on Patent (1864) and Copyright (1878) by exploring the people, procedures, and politics behind these in-depth inquiries into intellectual property reform of the latter half of the nineteenth century, and by placing them within their historical and ideological context. In examining copyright and patent law from the ground up, commission members were necessarily forced to grapple with fundamental questions about the nature of property itself. Commissioners' views on the nature and purpose of copyright and patent influenced their views on how far the rights should extend-in time, geography, and scope. Close analysis of the Commissions provides insight into our own debates about the nature of intellectual property and provide a model for future attempts at law reform. The book is a contribution to the history not only of intellectual property law but also of royal commissions in the nineteenth century.
The author gives a well-rounded picture of developments in thought about intellectual property as a whole in the period, which are still critical in the way we understand and approach the subject today.

On the author:

Barbara Lauriat is a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London and a Research Fellow of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre.

More information here.
(Source: Law and Humanities Blog)

BOOK: Isabella ALEXANDER & H. Tomás GÓMEZ-AROSTEGUI (eds.), Research Handbook on the History of Copyright Law [Research Handbooks in Intellectual Property]. Cheltenham: E. Elgar, 2016, 496 p. ISBN 978 1 78347 239 0, £ 162

(image source: Edward Elgar)

Edward Elgar just published a research handbook on the history of copyright law.

Book abstract:

There has been an explosion of interest in recent years regarding the origin and of intellectual property law. The study of copyright history, in particular, has grown remarkably in the last twenty years, with a flurry of activity in the last ten. This Handbook takes stock of the field of copyright history as it stands today, as well as examining potential developments in the future.
 The contributions feature copyright and history experts from across the UK, Australia, the United States, France, Spain and Italy. Covering European, US and international copyright history and traversing from the 16th Century to the early 20th century, this book offers a broad survey of the field and a solid foundation for future research.
 Students and scholars of copyright law, authorship, art, and the book and music trades will find this book to be an invaluable resource. It will also be of use to practising lawyers and judges with an interest in the doctrinal history of copyright law.

Contributors:

I. Alexander, J. Bellido, C. Bond, K. Bowrey, O. Bracha, E. Cooper, I. Gadd, J.C. Ginsburg, H.T. Gómez-Arostegui, B. Lauriat, N.A. Mace, H. MacQueen, A.J. Mann, S. Ricketson, F. Rideau, C. Seville, M. Woodmansee

Table of contents:

1. Introduction
 Isabella Alexander and H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui
 PART I HISTORIOGRAPHY
 2. Copyright History in the Advocate’s Arsenal
 Barbara Lauriat
 3. Law, Aesthetics and Copyright Historiography: A Critical Reading of the Genealogies of Martha Woodmansee and Mark Rose
 Kathy Bowrey
 4. The ‘Romantic’ Author
 Martha Woodmansee
 PART II UNITED KINGDOM PERSPECTIVES
 5. The Stationers’ Company in England before 1710
 Ian Gadd
 6. The Anatomy of Copyright Law in Scotland before 1710
 Alastair J. Mann
 7. Literary Property in Scotland in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
 Hector MacQueen
 8. Music Copyright in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century Britain
 Nancy A. Mace
 9. How Art Was Different: Researching the History of Artistic Copyright
 Elena Cooper
 10. Determining Infringement in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries in Britain: ‘A ticklish job’
Isabella Alexander
 11. Equitable Infringement Remedies before 1800
 H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui
 PART III INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
 12. Proto-Property in Literary and Artistic Works: Sixteenth-Century Papal Printing Privileges
 Jane C. Ginsburg
 13. British Colonial and Imperial Copyright
 Catherine Seville
 14. The Public International Law of Copyright and Related Rights
 Sam Ricketson
 15. El Salvador and the Internationalisation of Copyright
 Jose Bellido
 PART IV NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
 16. United States Copyright, 1672–1909
 Oren Bracha
 17. ‘Cabined, Cribbed, Confined, Bound In’: Copyright in the Australian Colonies
 Catherine Bond
18. Aspects of French Literary Property Developments in the Eighteenth (and Nineteenth) Centuries
 Frédéric Rideau
 19. Codified Anxieties: Literary Copyright in Mid-Nineteenth Century Spain
 Jose Bellido

ARTICLE: Isabella ALEXANDER on "Manacles Upon Science”: Re-Evaluating Copyright in Informational Works in Light of 18th Century Case Law" (SSRN)

(image: the Court of Chancery under George I, source: Wikimedia Commons)

Isabella Alexander (Sydney) published a paper on SSRN entitled "“Manacles Upon Science”: Re-Evaluating Copyright in Informational Works in Light of 18th Century Case Law". The text has appeared previously in the Melbourne University Law Review 38 (2014): 317-61.

Abstract:

Questions over whether, and if so how, copyright law should protect works of fact and information have occupied the courts of several common law countries in recent decades. In Australia, they recently came to the fore in two Federal Court decisions relating to telephone directories. While the Court paid considerable attention to nineteenth century cases, consideration of the eighteenth century cases on which these precedents were based sheds greater light on the later development of the law. This article takes a microhistorical legal approach and examines a series of cases relating to road books from the late eighteenth century to explore some of the earliest legal approaches to works of geographical information, placing them in their social and cultural context.

The fulltext can be consulted here.


(source: Legal History Blog)

BOOK: "Working Knowledge: Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930", by Catherine L. Fisk

Working Knowledge: Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930, by Catherine L. Fisk, University of California Irvine Law

University of North Carolina Press

All information here

The book, which appeared in "Studies in Legal History" (the American Society for Legal History’s book series), won both the Littleton-Griswold Prize of the American Historical Association and the ASLH’s John Phillip Reid Book Award in 2010: Skilled workers of the early nineteenth century enjoyed a degree of professional independence because workplace knowledge and technical skill were their "property," or at least their attribute. In most sectors of today's economy, however, it is a foundational and widely accepted truth that businesses retain legal ownership of employee-generated intellectual property.

In Working Knowledge, Catherine Fisk chronicles the legal and social transformations that led to the transfer of ownership of employee innovation from labor to management. This deeply contested development was won at the expense of workers' entrepreneurial independence and ultimately, Fisk argues, economic democracy.

By reviewing judicial decisions and legal scholarship on all aspects of employee-generated intellectual property and combing the archives of major nineteenth-century intellectual property-producing companies--including DuPont, Rand McNally, and the American Tobacco Company--Fisk makes a highly technical area of law accessible to general readers while also addressing scholarly deficiencies in the histories of labor, intellectual property, and the business of technology.