Includes bibliographical references and index (pages 259-267)
Contents:
Maps and patents -- Pinpointing places -- Showing the way -- Folding, unfolding -- World views -- Global affairs -- Current events -- Appendix: how to find a patent -- Index.
Summary:
Explores the US patent system, which helped practical minded innovators establish intellectual property rights and fulfill the need for achievement that motivates inventors and scholars alike. In this sense, the patent system was a parallel literature: a vetting institution similar to the conventional academic-scientific-technical journal insofar as the patent examiner was both editor and peer reviewer, while the patent attorney was a co-author or ghost writer. In probing evolving notions of novelty, non-obviousness, and cumulative innovation, the author examines rural address guides, folding schemes, world map projections, diverse improvements of the terrestrial globe, mechanical route-following machines that anticipated the GPS navigator, and the early electrical you-are-here mall map, which opened the way for digital cartography and provided fodder for patent trolls, who treat the patent largely as a license to litigate.
Series:
Palgrave studies in the history of science and technology
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.