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<div style="margin: 0px;"><i>Ivory Tower Working Group</i></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">Before
there was The Bomb, there was Edison's light bulb and Franklin's stove
-- not to mention the development of an entire federal bureaucracy and
branch of legal practice. Come, enjoy lunch, and continue our
discussion of the history of American patent system on <b>Thursday,
March 23 at 12:30, room 252 of the Science Center</b>, when Kara
Swanson will speak on </div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><b><i>Professionalizing Ghostwriting:
Patents and the Authorship of Invention in the 19th Century United
States</i></b></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">Lunch will be served. Please RSVP to <a
href="mailto:kswanson@fas.harvard.edu"><font class="Apple-style-span"
color="#002aea">kswanson@fas.harvard.edu</font></a></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">______________________________________________________</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;"><b><i>Abstract</i></b><b>: </b>In
the 18th century, the best known inventor of the American colonies,
Benjamin Franklin, refused to consider seeking a patent for his new
stove. Instead, Franklin authored, printed, and sold a pamphlet which
described his invention and the scientific principles behind it, a
document which thus served triple-duty as a marketable commodity, a set
of instructions for constructing the stove, and a building block in the
creation of Franklin’s scientific reputation. By the late 19th
century, premier inventor Thomas Edison enthusiastically engaged in the
publication of his ideas as patents. His patents were documents which,
like Franklin’s pamphlet, were commodities, included instructions, and
enhanced the inventor's reputation. But unlike Franklin, after
generating his inventive ideas, Edison used other people to describe
the ideas in words, and to publish the verbal form of the ideas.
Edison relied upon ghostwriters to author his inventions.</div>
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<div style="margin: 0px;">Kara's
paper traces the 19th century history of the separation of inventors
from the authorship of their inventions, through the development of the
patent system. This separation was actively sought by the government
employees in the developing patent office, by legal practitioners, and
by members of a new profession, that of patent agent. All three groups
struggled in different ways to encourage inventors to consider patents
as a taken-for-granted step in the commercialization of invention, and
to train inventors to author patents by hiring patent practitioners as
ghostwriters. By an examination of the advice given to inventors by
each of these participants in patent authorship, she uncovers the
development of a new form of authorship of invention.</div>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
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Kara W. Swanson, B.S., M.A., J.D.
Ph.D. Candidate
History of Science
Harvard University
Science Center 371
Cambridge, MA 02138
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kswanson@fas.harvard.edu">kswanson@fas.harvard.edu</a>
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