Making Patents: Professions, Expertise and the Fallacy of Patents in Biomedical Innovation (original) (raw)
2018, Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference
The common narrative that patent is indispensable for generating innovation in biomedical sectors has long been contested with primary lines of critics focusing on either its short of empirical evidences or its insufficient theoretical grounding. While political discourse on the intersection of patent, innovation, access to medicines and the realisation of the right to health is ongoing, patent law practice evolves in its rather distinctive manner in both national and transnational contexts. Practicing patent law has played an important role in constructing and sustaining the meanings and understandings of patent in the context of biomedical innovation. The expertise held by patent lawyers and attorneys has been the main site of making the meaning of patents. The extent to which the establishment of patent law professions and the role of expertise knowledge have contributed to the patent politics in the context of biomedical innovation, is of interest for research. The paper intends to draw upon the notion of co-production, examines the patterns of making patent law professions and the impact on the making and interpreting the meaning of patent on biomedical innovation. It looks at the professional development path of patent attorneys, discusses the interaction of disciplinary knowledge and norms from law and science in the process of making profession and expertise in patent practices. It uses examples of typical life science patent practices to illustrate the reconciliation of conflicting expertise in law and science in defining the boundary of patenting, and its social implications. The paper intends to feedback to the broad debates on the intersection of patent and health, discusses the possible re-examining and reconstruction of expertise in the context of patent and biomedical innovation.
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