The Information Society Project Lunch Series hosts:
Daniel Kevles
Professor of History and Chair of the Program in History of Science and Medicine
Yale University
who will be presenting
Protections, Privileges, and Patents
Intellectual Property in American Horticulture
The Late Nineteenth Century to 1930
October 10, 2007, 12:30p - 1:50p (note special time)
Room 120
Yale Law School
Lunch and presentation to be followed by Q&A
Abstract:
In the late nineteenth century, horticulturalists in America grew increasingly eager to obtain protection for what they called the rights of "originators," or what we can recognize as the protection of their intellectual property (IP) in their new fruits. Since their innovations did not qualify for utility patents, they tried to achieve rents from their IP through pricing strategies, trademarks, and a registration system. Finding all these inadequate, they began to agitate for legislation that would protect their type of IP. This paper will explore why they became interested in IP at this time, why their strategies were inadequate, and how their legislative effort eventually produced the Plant Patent Act of 1930.
Bio:
Dan Kevles writes about issues in science and society past and present. His work deals with a variety of topics that involve the law, including due process in allegations of scientific fraud and misconduct, genetic information and privacy, classification and national security, and intellectual property in biotechnology. He is currently writing a history of intellectual property protection in living organisms and their parts and teaches a course on this subject (The Engineering and Ownership of Life) in the Law School. His works include The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America, and numerous articles, essays, and reviews in scholarly and popular journals. He is also coeditor, with Leroy Hood, of The Code of Codes: Scientific and Social Issues in the Human Genome Project. From 1964 to 2001, he taught at the California Institute of Technology. In 2001 he joined the faculty of Yale University where he is the Stanley Woodward Professor of History and Chair of the Program in History of Science and Medicine.
Michael Zimmer, PhD
Assistant Professor
School of Information Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
e: zimmerm@uwm.edu
w: www.michaelzimmer.org