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Authority and ownership: the growth and wilting of medicine patenting in Georgian England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2016

ALAN MACKINTOSH
ALAN MACKINTOSH*
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. Email: alanmackintosh@btinternet.com.
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Abstract

Secret, owned, Georgian medicines were normally known as patent medicines, though few had a current patent. Up to 1830, just 117 medicines had been patented, whilst over 1,300 were listed for taxation as ‘patent medicines’. What were the benefits of patenting? Did medicine patenting affect consumer perception, and how was this used as a marketing tool? What were the boundaries of medical patenting? Patents for therapeutic preparations provided an apparent government guarantee on the source and composition of widely available products, while the patenting of medical devices seems to have been used to grant a temporary monopoly for the inventor's benefit.

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Type
Research Article
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The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 49 , Special Issue 4: Owning Health: Medicine and Anglo-American Patent Cultures , December 2016 , pp. 541 - 559
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Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2016 

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