Working Knowledge: Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930 (Studies in Legal History)

Fisk, Catherine L.

ISBN 10: 0807833029 / ISBN 13: 9780807833025

Editore: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009

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Pages unmarked. Dust jacket glossy. Binding square & firm.

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Working Knowledge: Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930 (Studies in Legal History)
• Editore: The University of North Carolina Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0807833029
• ISBN 13: 9780807833025
• Rilegatura: Hardcover
• Condizione: Fine
• Condizione della sovraccoperta: Fine
• Tipo di libro: Book

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Skilled workers of the early nineteenth century enjoyed a degree of professional independence because workplace knowledge and technical skill were their "property," or at least their attribute. In most sectors of today's economy, however, it is a foundational and widely accepted truth that businesses retain legal ownership of employee-generated intellectual property.

In Working Knowledge, Catherine Fisk chronicles the legal and social transformations that led to the transfer of ownership of employee innovation from labor to management. This deeply contested development was won at the expense of workers' entrepreneurial independence and ultimately, Fisk argues, economic democracy.

By reviewing judicial decisions and legal scholarship on all aspects of employee-generated intellectual property and combing the archives of major nineteenth-century intellectual property-producing companies--including DuPont, Rand McNally, and the American Tobacco Company--Fisk makes a highly technical area of law accessible to general readers while also addressing scholarly deficiencies in the histories of labor, intellectual property, and the business of technology.

Dal risvolto di copertina interno

In most sectors of today's economy, it is a foundational and widely accepted truth that businesses retain legal ownership of employee-generated intellectual property. That was not the case in the 19th century, however, when workplace knowledge and technical skill were considered the property of skilled workers. Fisk chronicles the legal and social transformations that led to the transfer of ownership of employee innovation from labor to management and argues that this deeply contested development was won at the expense of workers' entrepreneurial independence and ultimately economic democracy.