Sponsored by the Science, Technology, and Society Center
and the Office for History of Science and Technology
Daniel Schneider
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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Public vs. Private Science: Biological Sewage Treatment and the Struggle Over Patents, 1896-1937
In the early 20th century, chemists and sanitary engineers in the U.S. and England battled over the legality and ethics of patenting biological sewage treatment processes: the septic tank (1896-1913) and the activated sludge process (1914-1937). What unites these two cases, aside from sewage, was the open and vocal controversy over public vs. private science-whether patents should be taken out for research performed by public bodies. These cases also reveal the lingering scepticism on the part of engineers concerning the rights to "process" patents, which many considered to be the privatization of basic scientific principles.
12:00PM
Monday, October 30
3401 Dwinelle Hall
UC Berkeley
Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350
tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: ohst@berkeley.edu
