American Patent Law

by Robert P. Merges

2023 · Cambridge University Press

Students and established scholars of intellectual property law often look for historical context when trying to understand the development and present-day contours of IP rules and systems. American Patent Law supplies this context, offering readers a comprehensive account of the evolution of the US patent system and patent doctrine beginning in 1790. From the technologies for harvesting wood and shoemaking in the earliest periods to computer software and biotechnology of the present, each chapter of the book covers the characteristic technologies of each historical era. The book also describes how businesspeople in each era acquired and enforced patents and used patents as the foundation of various business arrangements. This book is a landmark in the history of technologies, the US patent system, and the way private actors have deployed patents across American history.

Hayek: A Collaborative Biography

by Robert Leeson

2017 · Springer

This tenth part of Robert Leeson's collaborative biography of Friedrich August von Hayek explores Hayek’s thought on the free market and democracy. Using an unparalleled array of archival materials, Leeson reconstructs Hayek’s thinking as the notorious economist and his acolytes set about reshaping the post-war economic order. Darker areas of Hayek’s thought are also explored, including the influence of eugenics on his thought and his support for radical right-wing dictatorships in South America. Leeson concludes this volume with a collection of chapters written by eminent scholars of Hayek. These chapters cover subjects as diverse as Hayek’s influence on scholars of Darwinian evolution, his views on psychology, and cultural evolution.

Taming the Past

by Robert W. Gordon

2017 · Cambridge University Press

A critical catalogue of how lawyers use history - as authority, as evocation of lost golden ages, as a nightmare to escape and as progress towards enlightenment.