UC Irvine

In this paper, I consider the construction of patents as social practices. The goal is to observe patents in action, that is, to catch patents in the act of becoming patents. This method of “following the action” is well established in the sociology of science. Similar consideration of the artifices by which a new patent is staged reveals parallels to the known staging of technical papers, including the recruitment of rhetorical allies, se¬mantic fortification against subsequent challenges, and trials of cognitive strength. In each situation, assertions become stabilized facts only if subsequent recipients are in¬duced to accept them as such. However, the patent is formed in a process that largely sidesteps the mechanisms of peer review and material experimentation, substituting in¬stead legal and procedural affordances to facilitate closure. Thus, following the action from which the stabilized patent is fabricated reveals the patent as a uniquely legal, rather than technical, social object.