Patents, Cartographic Inventors, and a New Perspective for Map History

Syracuse University, Syracuse NY

Investigators

Abstract

Map historians and others who study the sources, processes, and outcomes of cartographic creativity traditionally have looked to maps and other manifestations of geographic information that have been copyrighted or presented in literature that can be catalogued. Far less common has been the use of patents to record inventions that have changed the ways in which maps are produced and portrayed. This project will analyze the role of the patents system in stimulating and recording cartographic creativity. The investigators will examine inventors as well as inventions, and it will focus on the technological, social, and intellectual context in which new map products and new techniques for making or using maps were deemed sufficiently original and non-obvious to warrant patent protection. The project will provide a complementary perspective to the literature dominated by academic and government cartographers. The project will yield new information and insights about those forms of cartographic innovation that have been patented. Project outcomes will include a biographical directory of cartographic inventors and their patents that the investigator and others can use to explore the personal and social motives of cartographic innovators, their contacts with other inventors, and the temporal context and impact of their inventions. The project therefore will stimulate fundamental thinking in map history, the history of sciences, geographer, and other scholarly fields. Another outcome of the project is expected to be a book accessible to lay readers examining this understudied aspect of creativity and innovation. The project will provide education and training experience for a graduate student. Data gathered during the conduct of the project will be deposited with the Geography and Map Division of the U.S. Library of Congress and other collections that will assist in the online dissemination of these data. The project will expand upon two pilot studies. One pilot examined the diverse types of map-related U.S. patents awarded between 1840 and 2012 that were classified as "Printed matter--map" or "Printed matter--indexed maps." The other pilot studied the education, employment, and residential histories of two inventors and their efforts to exploit their patents. During the conduct of this project, the investigators will broaden the database to include other arenas of cartographic creativity, in particular map-related inventions assigned to the "Education and Demonstration" category. The principal research approach to be used in the conduct of this project is examination of "Big Microdata," a collective term for newspaper, bibliographic, and patents databases as well as individual-level archival population records like those provided online by Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org, which integrate information from city directories, pre-1950 Census schedules, and the diverse vital and public records used by genealogical researchers. In addition to broadening the scope of historical scholarship about mapping to include the systematic analysis of many little-known innovators, the investigators will provide an evidence-based critique of the concepts of utility, novelty, and patentability; the effectiveness of the patents system in maintaining standards of originality and non-obviousness. They also will examine the value of a monopoly right in stimulating creative endeavors, and they will explore information flows among inventors and the Theory of Multiples, whereby discoveries by two or more innovators suggest that many inventions might be seen, in retrospect, as an inevitable consequence of need or related technology. As a final part of this project, the investigators will evaluate the usefulness and limitations of Big Microdata as a research tool, and they will assess triangulation strategies for coping with transcription and coding errors.