Patents as Scientific Information 1895-2010 (PASSIM)

Eva Hemmungs Wirtén

Professor of Mediated Culture at Linköping University, Sweden.

In addition to managing and leading PASSIM's different activities, the PI's own work in the project will be a study on the multifaceted ways by which patents have evolved within a history of information order, focusing on the networks and technologies that have formed patents into "boundary objects" traveling across the borders of law, science and information.

José Bellido

Senior lecturer in Law, University of Kent, United Kingdom
 
My current research focus is on the history of character merchandising but I am also interested in the links between industry and intellectual property and the changes in patent offices throughout the twentieth century.

In PASSIM I will explore the question of copyright of patent specifications, which raised questions of authorship, technologies of copying and transfer as paper documents. 

Johanna Dahlin

Postdoctoral fellow in Culture Studies at Linköping University, Sweden.
 
My main research interests are heritage and memory work, and more recently the enclosure and privatization of common resources. 

My contribution to PASSIM will be a study on secrecy and securitization in relation to scientific discoveries in the Soviet Union.

Martin Fredriksson

Associate Professor in Culture Studies at Linköping University, Sweden.

My research has mainly been on piracy and the history of copyright, and I am currently researching biopiracy and traditional knowledge. 

Within PASSIM, I will be looking at how counter-discourses to patent expansionism are formulated in relation to the global political agenda shifts from the new utopias of the 1970s to the cementation of a globalized economic order in the 1990s.

Björn Hammarfelt

Senior Lecturer in Library and Information Science at the University of Borås and Researcher at Linköping University, Sweden

My current research is situated in the intersection between information studies and sociology of science, with the organization and communication of knowledge in focus.  

In PASSIM I will work on an historically informed study on the concept of 'citation' in two main scientific/technical documents, the patent and the scientific paper.

Hyo Yoon Kang

Senior Lecturer in Law at Kent Law School, University of Kent, United Kingdom.

My primary research focus is on intellectual property law, especially patents, scientific and legal knowledge techniques, the value and valuation of intellectual property.

As part of the PASSIM project, I will examine scientists’ use of patent documents and information contained in them.  The question of patent value will be elucidated from the point of view of the intended users.

Mattis Karlsson

Ph.D. Candidate in Culture Studies at Linköping University, Sweden.

Primarily interested in how science and scientific knowledge is made and mediated, I am currently working on a dissertation project on the discovery of the prehistoric human species Denisova Hominin.

In PASSIM I work as a Research Assistant, responsible for administrative coordination, running our website and Twitter account.

Gustav Källstrand

PhD, Senior Curator, Nobel Center and Researcher at Linköping University, Sweden

I am interested in the cultural history of science; how science is ascribed meaning in culture and society, particularly in the history of the Nobel Prize.

My PASSIM-project will look at which forms of information was granted the most importance by the scientific Nobel Committees - papers, patents or personal recommendations.

Isabelle Strömstedt

Ph.D. Candidate in Culture Studies at Linköping University, Sweden.

I am particularly interested in the mediation of innovation and science and knowledge in popular culture.

My contribution to PASSIM will be in the shape of my thesis, which will focus on the display of innovation at the New York World Fair 1939, “The World of Tomorrow.” By considering how the fair administration dealt with legal protection of the exhibited innovations, I explore tensions between the object and the text, between modes of secrecy and disclosure.