Invented by Law : Alexander Graham Bell and the Patent That Changed America / Christopher Beauchamp.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Beauchamp, Christopher, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bell, Alexander Graham, 1847-1922.

Bell, Alexander Graham.

Patent laws and legislation--United States--History.

Patent laws and legislation.

Telecommunication--Patents.

Telecommunication.

Telecommunication--Law and legislation--United States.

Patents--United States--History.

Patents.

Inventors--United States--History.

Inventors.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (283 p.)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone in 1876 stands as one of the great touchstones of American technological achievement. Bringing a new perspective to this history, Invented by Law examines the legal battles that raged over Bell’s telephone patent, likely the most consequential patent right ever granted. To a surprising extent, Christopher Beauchamp shows, the telephone was as much a creation of American law as of scientific innovation. Beauchamp reconstructs the world of nineteenth-century patent law, replete with inventors, capitalists, and charlatans, where rival claimants and political maneuvering loomed large in the contests that erupted over new technologies. He challenges the popular myth of Bell as the telephone’s sole inventor, exposing that story’s origins in the arguments advanced by Bell’s lawyers. More than anyone else, it was the courts that anointed Bell father of the telephone, granting him a patent monopoly that decisively shaped the American telecommunications industry for a century to come. Beauchamp investigates the sources of Bell’s legal primacy in the United States, and looks across the Atlantic, to Britain, to consider how another legal system handled the same technology in very different ways. Exploring complex questions of ownership and legal power raised by the invention of important new technologies, Invented by Law recovers a forgotten history with wide relevance for today’s patent crisis.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

1. Invention in the Lawyers’ World

2. Acts of Invention

3. The Telephone Cases

4. The United States versus Bell

5. Atlantic Crossings

6. Patent the Earth

7. Patents, Firms, and Systems

8. Patents and the Networked Nation

Conclusion

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jun 2020)

ISBN:

9780674735545

0674735544

OCLC:

897599808