Article ID: CBB399280188

Patents as Vehicles of Social and Moral Concerns: The Case of Johnson & Johnson Disposable Feminine Hygiene Products (1925–2012) (November 2021)

unapi

This paper is about disposability as a technological concern and about how to trace the related issues through the analysis of patents. It examines how moral and social concerns happened to be embedded (or not) in technology, based on the case of disposable feminine hygiene products. The focus is placed on what “disposable” means and on exploring relative notions as well as their dynamic and consequences. To conduct such analysis, the paper proposes to perform a classic and computer-assisted analysis of the patents published by Johnson & Johnson over almost a century (1925–2012). Tracing social and moral concerns in patents challenges the existing literature in law, which tends to envision patents as legal assets deprived of moral considerations. The paper shows how hygiene products addressed women, how these products were made disposable, and how what disposability means evolved, both in the heart of technology and in the wider space of “concerned” markets.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB399280188/

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Authors & Contributors
Biagioli, Mario
Prudham, Scott
Jared Moore
Larry Busbea
Miki Namba
Heather Anne Swanson
Concepts
Environment
Technology and society
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Land transportation
Patents
Roads and highways
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
18th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Benin
Luang Prabang, Laos
Belarus
New York City (New York, U.S.)
Institutions
United States. Department of Defense
United States. Environmental Protection Agency
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