CFP: Medicine, Patenting and Ownership, Leeds, 14-15 July 2014
Call
For Papers
Medicine, Patenting and Ownership in Historical
Perspective
Thackray
Medical Museum, Leeds, 14-15 July 2014
An
international workshop supported by the AHRC Network grant: Rethinking
Patent Cultures
Thanks
to the AHRC we have funding to support speakers’ travel and accommodation
expenses both in the UK and internationally.
Your
proposal should address at least one of the following themes, covering any
historical period:
i) In national contexts where the patenting of medical
products was permissible, how did medical practitioners decide whether to
patent their innovations? Relevant motivations for some included financial gain
from sales or patent licensing achieved by legal protection from infringements
by rivals, whilst for others the imperative was to make their devices freely
available, often in exchange for other forms of professional credit or
eponymous recognition. By contrast, manufacturers and others outside the
medical profession were able to capitalise on their exemption from medical
codes of conduct: what strategies of patenting, ownership and marketing did
they adopt in collaborating with clinicians? More generally: how (far) have
informal ethical codes motivated clinicians to embrace eponymity as the
legitimate marker of credit for inventive devices instead of financially
motivated patenting activity?
ii) How did decisions about patenting affect the usage
and user perception of specific medical technologies? To what extent did the
patented status of a device affects its price, its availability, and its
perceived therapeutic or diagnostic efficacy, and how did this change when
patents expired? To what extent did patented instruments and those eponymously
named after specific individuals secure greater cachet and credibility among
both professionals and high-street entrepreneurs? Recent research has revealed
major challenges for inventors in gaining credibility outside the formal
clinical sphere in the early 20th century, highlighting new roles
for patenting and commerce in medicine.
iii) How did patents and the process of patenting
function as a marketing tool for medical technologies? Numerous devices were
emblazoned with a patent number and country, or simply the phrase “patent
pending”, sometimes even with fraudulent claims to patented status. How
important was this within the various roles of persuading potential purchasers
(both medical practitioners and patients) that the device was trustworthy and
effective, dissuading competitors from manufacturing similar kinds of tools,
and or justifying a particular luxury price tag?
If
you wish to participate, please send a paper proposal (300 words maximum) to
James Stark j.f.stark@leeds.ac.uk by
Friday 28th March. Further enquiries about topic and the scope of papers are
welcomed.
--
Dr James F. Stark
Research Fellow
The
Making of Modern Anthrax, 1875-1920 (Pickering & Chatto, 2013)
Leeds Humanities Research Institute
University of Leeds
LEEDS LS2 9JT UK
Twitter: @KingTekkers / @ArtsEngaged
phone: +44 (0)113 343 2021
+44 (0)113 343 2021
+44 (0)113 343 2021