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Article ID: CBB875215202

A Tale of Two Inventions: Monsanto, Biotechnology, and the Geography of Postmodern Science (2019)

Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 110
Issue: 4
Pages: 701-725
Publication date: 2019
Language: English

DOI: 10.1086/706819

URI: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706819

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Biotechnology Intellectual property Patents Botany Herbicides Geography 20th century, late Canada Europe United States Monsanto Corporation

This essay explores the geography of postmodern science in nonacademic settings, focusing on two research breakthroughs by Monsanto scientists, in 1985–1986 and 1989–1991, that created plants resistant to the company’s herbicide, glyphosate. The essay follows this new knowledge as it was mobilized into refereed publications and patents, comparing and contrasting the two forms of scientific discourse that resulted. The patents are then traced further as they were challenged, interpreted, and transformed in patent offices and courtrooms across time and space, specifically in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Whereas the crucial peer-reviewed knowledge claims remained fixed, the patent knowledge claims morphed and became fragmented, spatially and temporally. Analyzing lawsuits that Monsanto launched in Britain, Canada, and the United States, the essay shows how the company used spatial-epistemic fragmentation to modify the patents’ meanings in desired ways in particular locations, sometimes with significant social and epistemic consequences. The essay concludes by reflecting more broadly on the expansion of biotechnology patenting as a form of nondisinterested knowledge production and how this trend has shaped the path and characteristics of postmodern science in this realm.

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