Patzke_Comparisons

Comparisons

What comparisons would generate critical insight on your issue?

2. Comparative legal scholarship presents two or more legal ‘solutions’ that address one kind of problem. These usually are national comparisons.
 * a.) In relation to genetics and patenting, Shobita Parthasarathy’s comparison of US and British struggles with Myriad Genetics is the pivotal work on this case. However, her work is focused on the regulatory structures in place, not the case law that has informed the socio-techno positioning of biotech patents (hopefully the latter is what my work is doing). But, to answer the question of what //legal// comparison is helpful, I’ve been relying on the constructs within US cases that are cited as comparison (//Chakrobarty//, //Funk// //Bros//, //Prometheus//, etc)
 * b.) Finding an alternative or comparative court to the Appellate Court for the Federal Circuit (the so-called ‘science and technology’ court in the US) would be interesting. Japan has a specialized patent court system in which conflicts that reside in a specific disciplinary domain are resolved by a court that specializes in that domain. (I could be wrong about this though)

3. Innovation seems to be another critical component of this research and I wonder how a comparison of innovation may take place. Within patent law, ‘natural’ and ‘manufactured’ are presented as criteria for patentability. What other domain is this categorization maintained? Is it an interesting or fruitful one?

1. Linguistically I rely on language to convey (sometimes rather confusing) comparisons: I rely on ‘technologies’ as a discursive link between genetics and law by saying things like “biotechnologies” and “legal technologies.” But I struggle to actually say how these practices and tools are similar and come to together for the same ends. For instance what legal and bio- technologies come together to form (and value) intellectual property?
 * Also, how might one distinguish a comparison from a metaphor? In my own writing I find it difficult to maintain the difference and fall into annoying traps like:
 * “These court cases do not only //codify// legal definitions of genes and genetic practices; they //produce// an understanding of genetics that goes out into the world and influences the actual practices of the scientific community.”