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Zorina Khan

Professor of Economics, Bowdoin College

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Notable Women Inventors in Britain

February 21, 2023 By Zorina Khan

Fans of the history of technology can quickly name a dozen significant British inventors, but very few would be able to identify any women with noteworthy discoveries. Women who could circumvent institutional barriers tended to come from rather privileged backgrounds, or to have social connections – patent rosters featured many aristocrats, including a cotillion of countesses, baronesses, and even a duchess or two. However, studies of female patentees demonstrate that individual initiative could be just as potent as wealth, patronage, and self-promotion in generating technological innovation and social change.

Filed Under: Life on the Margin, Of Patents and Prizes, Women in the Republic of Enterprise Tagged With: diversity, gender, innovation, intellectual property, patents, technology, women

Thomas Edison and the Bowdoin Inventors

November 15, 2022 By Zorina Khan

Who invented the light bulb? Isaac Adams Jr., Bowdoin class of 1858, created an incandescent light bulb with a carbon filament 14 years before Thomas Edison. However, he failed to persevere and produce a scalable innovation that would benefit consumers in the market. Instead, two highly-educated mathematical scientists from the class of 1875, Francis Upton and Charles Clarke, provided invaluable systematic research at Edison’s lab in Menlo Park. As such, without the contributions of Bowdoin inventors, the discovery and diffusion of electrical lighting would have been significantly retarded.

Filed Under: Economics of/for The Common Good, Life on the Margin, Of Patents and Prizes, Old News: Bowdoin Then and Now Tagged With: Bowdoin College, innovation, intellectual property, patents, technology

Old School? Apprenticeships in the 21st Century

August 16, 2022 By Zorina Khan

The word apprentice conjures up visions of sorcerers and medieval guilds (and, in my case, my great-grandmother who learned the goldsmith’s trade through a family apprenticeship).  However, “new collar” apprenticeships seem destined to become the most effective means of  human-capital acquisition for the twenty first century, as they have been for millenia.

Filed Under: Economics of/for The Common Good, Life on the Margin Tagged With: diversity, economics, education, technology, women

Patent Waivers (or “Don’t know much about history…”)

June 17, 2022 By Zorina Khan

I have two words to describe patent waivers: arbitrary, irrational and unconstitutional. This proposal displays a shocking ignorance of American history and basic economics. The most fundamental principle of a free market system is secure property rights. Someone who grows potatoes has property rights in them; why should patentees be treated worse than potato planters?
American patent policy is vested in the U.S. Constitution, and its most fundamental principle is that “A patent is property of the highest order.” The Founders intended that patent rights should be absolute, and they explicitly rejected compulsory licenses, working requirements, and any other constraints on inventive property.

Filed Under: Life on the Margin, Of Patents and Prizes Tagged With: constitution, intellectual property, patents, technology, vaccines, waivers

Is Technology a Race? Patents and National Security

May 23, 2022 By Zorina Khan

Metaphors matter.  Is technology a race, or a war with an associated D-day?  References to “the race to 5G” and “innovation wars” are based on a zero-sum model of technological innovation, where there are glorious outcomes for “winners” and dire consequences for “losers.”  According to this ahistorical perspective, the leader takes all, and for the rest of the field, life promises to be poor, nasty, brutish, and short.  In order to avoid this doomsday scenario, previously unthinkable measures become acceptable in the name of “national security.”

Filed Under: Economics of/for The Common Good, Life on the Margin, Of Patents and Prizes Tagged With: China, constitution, economics, innovation, intellectual property, patents, technology, vaccines, waivers

Notable Women Inventors of Maine

February 6, 2022 By Zorina Khan

The surge of new inventions and innovations in nineteenth century America transformed the world to an extent that arguably remains unmatched today. Even among the New England states known for their “Yankee ingenuity,” Maine inventors surpassed their peers. Among the few female entries in the National Inventors Hall of Fame are Helen Blanchard and Margaret Knight, celebrated because of their successful industrial machines. But the typical woman inventor productively directed their attention to supposedly minor “feminine inventions” like dress charts and kitchen tools that improved the lives of other women and their families.

Filed Under: Economics of/for The Common Good, Life on the Margin, Of Patents and Prizes, Women in the Republic of Enterprise Tagged With: diversity, gender, innovation, patents, technology, women

Looking Backward: From 5G to the Telegraph

December 1, 2021 By Zorina Khan

The advent of 5G cellular technology has induced imaginative speculations about spectacular virtual universes, Humans 3.5 artificial intelligence, and an Internet of Things that will trigger “smart houses” and even smarter cities.  What lessons can earlier telecommunications inventions offer? The focus here is on five issues regarding 5G: the social savings from new innovations; business to business (B2B) relative to consumer markets; private sector versus government-led initiatives; net neutrality; and the right to privacy.

Filed Under: Antitrustworthy, Economics of/for The Common Good, Life on the Margin, Of Patents and Prizes Tagged With: antitrust, China, innovation, intellectual property, patents, technology

U.S. Patents: A Play in 10 Million Acts

November 21, 2021 By Zorina Khan

Patents represent an invaluable curated stock and flow of cultural knowledge, dating back to the founding of the Republic. Moreover, every one of the ten million patents filed in the USPTO generates a word cloud of information about a person or team and their individual creativity. According to Lawrence Langner, founder of Ladas & Parry, “our industrial supremacy is due largely to the striking differences which exist between our patent system and the patent systems of the rest of the world…America is the fountainhead of invention; exports the products of its brains in the form of foreign patents; and through its inventive products, is spreading democratic ideals throughout the world.”

Filed Under: Life on the Margin, Of Patents and Prizes Tagged With: innovation, intellectual property, patents, technology

Women and Innovation in Developing Countries

August 2, 2021 By Zorina Khan

Round table discussion of gender, patents, open source, and technology policy in India. Participants include Zorina Khan (the moderator) and leading Indian academics, patentees, entrepreneurs, and innovators.

Filed Under: Economics of/for The Common Good, Life on the Margin, Women in the Republic of Enterprise Tagged With: diversity, gender, innovation, open source, patents, technology, women

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Recent Posts

  • Notable Women Inventors in Britain February 21, 2023
  • The Mystery of the Missing Minority Millionairess February 1, 2023
  • A Pioneering Black Woman Patent Attorney February 1, 2023
  • Thomas Edison and the Bowdoin Inventors November 15, 2022
  • A Hallowe’en Debate: Diversity and Exclusion October 13, 2022
  • Who was the First U.S. Economics Professor? Samuel Newman, of Bowdoin College September 17, 2022
  • Old School? Apprenticeships in the 21st Century August 16, 2022
  • In Search of Hetty Green: Self-Made Women Millionaires July 12, 2022
  • Patent Waivers (or “Don’t know much about history…”) June 17, 2022
  • Is Technology a Race? Patents and National Security May 23, 2022
  • Hanami: Cherry Blossom Time, in Perpetuity April 10, 2022
  • Banking on Women March 2, 2022
  • Notable Women Inventors of Maine February 6, 2022
  • Back to School for the “Spring” Semester (1861) January 14, 2022
  • Looking Backward: From 5G to the Telegraph December 1, 2021
  • U.S. Patents: A Play in 10 Million Acts November 21, 2021
  • Crypt-ic Tales October 31, 2021
  • Women and Wealth in the New Gilded Age October 23, 2021
  • Travelling Light October 4, 2021
  • Patent Priority: the First Woman Patent Lawyer September 14, 2021
  • Publish and Perish September 10, 2021
  • Reading on Location August 27, 2021
  • Copyrighting the Cultural Revolution in China and America August 26, 2021
  • The (New) Cultural Revolution in China August 23, 2021
  • Women and Innovation in Developing Countries August 2, 2021
  • Who’s Afraid of Standard Oil? July 31, 2021
  • Are Patents Monopolies? July 28, 2021
  • Between the Covers July 27, 2021
  • An Essay in Idleness July 27, 2021

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  • Economics of/for The Common Good
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  • Of Patents and Prizes
  • Old News: Bowdoin Then and Now
  • Women in the Republic of Enterprise

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Notable Women Inventors in Britain

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