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Patents as Public Disengagement

Patents as Public Disengagement. Stephen Hilgartner Cornell University. Public Engagement Mechanisms as devices for giving voice or opening channels for (pre-existing) citizens, publics to speak and act As devices that constitute citizens with enhanced capacities of speech and action

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Patents as Public Disengagement

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  1. Patents as Public Disengagement Stephen Hilgartner Cornell University Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  2. Public Engagement Mechanisms • as devices for giving voice or opening channels for (pre-existing) citizens, publics to speak and act • As devices that constitute citizens with enhanced capacities of speech and action • Lots of work: • Public engagement exercises • Journal articles on how to do them • Journal articles questioning what they accomplish • Alan Irwin’s (xxxx) critique won a best article prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science • 25K Google hits on “public engagement mechanisms” Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  3. Little work on Public Disengagement Mechanisms • Not a category: 2 Google hits • Research on public disengagement mechanisms would: • Not naturalize citizen, public disengagement • Examine how citizens, publics with limited voice and capacity for action are constituted • Integrate study of PEM and PDM Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  4. Patent System as a Public Disengagement Mechanism • Contrast two policy discourses • Innovation discourse • Politics-of-technology discourse • A policy discourse: • an organized assemblage of concepts, categories, frames, metaphors, and narratives that gives definition and structure to a domain of policy making Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  5. Innovation Discourse • Discursive starting point: • A narrative that frames innovation as a social good, inventor as hero, free rider as villain, limited property rights as solution, society as beneficiary Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  6. Innovation Discourse • Central questions: • What constitutes a patentable invention? What counts as infringement? How should novelty be codified? What way of structuring IP rights will maximize innovation? Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  7. Innovation Discourse metric of success = stimulating innovation Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  8. Politics of Technology Discourse • Discursive starting point: • Given the awesome power of modern technologies, decisions about emerging technologies are decisions about the future shape of societies. This situation poses deep problems for democratic states. Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  9. Politics of Technology Discourse • Central questions: • Do patents at times limit the ability of publics to exercise voice and choice in these negotiations? • More deeply, what forms of citizenship do various intellectual property regimes constitute? What kinds of democratic representation do they tend to support? Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  10. Comparing the Perspectives • Visions of technological change Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  11. Comparing the Perspectives • Visions of technological change • Market power or configuration power Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  12. Comparing the Perspectives • Visions of technological change • Market power or configuration power • Transparent or opaque Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  13. Comparing the Perspectives • Visions of technological change • Market power or configuration power • Transparent or opaque • The inventor or the citizen Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  14. Comparing the Perspectives • Visions of technological change • Market power or configuration power • Transparent or opaque • The inventor or the citizen • Efficient innovation or adequate representation Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  15. Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

  16. Lessons • For Intellectual Property debate • Independent argument for IP minimalism • Argument for open source innovation • For Public Engagement • Importance of attending not just to new add-on mechanisms of engaging but also to institutional structures that constitute publics as disengaged Foro-Taller ASCTI, October 2010

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