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Myths of the medical methods exclusion: medicine and patents in nineteenth century Britain
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2018
Abstract
This paper explores the interaction of British medical practitioners with the nascent intellectual property system in the nineteenth century. It challenges the generally accepted view that throughout the nineteenth century there was a settled or professionally agreed hostility to patenting. It demonstrates that medical practitioners made more substantial use of the patent system and related forms of protection than has previously been recognised. Nevertheless, the rate of patenting remained lower than in other fields of technical endeavour, but this can largely be explained by the public nature of medical practice during this period. This paper therefore seeks to retell the history of the exclusion of medical methods from patent protection, an exclusion whose history has produced a substantial body of scholarship. However, its aims go beyond this in that it also seeks to illuminate how medical practitioners engaged with the broader political and policy landscape in order to secure financial remuneration for their inventions. Through an exploration of how prominent doctors interacted with Parliament around claims for a financial reward, it demonstrates that doctors sought to use reputational advantage to leverage financial success and the important role that Parliament could play in that process.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Society of Legal Scholars 2018
Footnotes
†
Our thanks go to Graeme Gooday, Claire Jones, James Stark and the participants at the ‘Rethinking Patent Cultures’ workshop held at Leeds University in July 2014 where this paper and our data set were first presented. Thanks must also go to Lionel Bently, Phillip Johnson, Mario Biagioli, Kara Swanson, Gerardo Con Diaz, Joseph Gabriel and the anonymous reviewers.
References
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