Médecine, brevet et propriété

Medicine, Patenting and Ownership in Historical Perspective

Call For Papers



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 Starkj.f.stark@leeds.ac.uk by Friday 28th March. Further enquiries about topic and the scope of papers are welcomed.