On March 11, 2026, Gemma Milne will give a lecture titled New Dog, Old Tricks: The central contradiction of intellectual property in “deep tech”, the latest wave of science solutionism at the Centre for Privacy Studies (University of Copenhagen), a partner institution of Secrets to Patents. The lecture is open to all. Registration on the link: https://teol.ku.dk/privacy/events/events-2026/new-dog-old-tricks-the-central-contradiction-of-intellectual-property-in-deep-tech-the-latest-wave-of-science-solutionism/
Trans-Imperial Strategies for Keeping Medicines as Private Assets from 1500 to 1900
Secrets to Patents
The Project
The Research Environment Secrets to Patents investigates the long-term history of how life-saving and health-improving medicines became for-profit commodities from 1500 to 1900. Focusing on the Atlantic Colonial Nexus, the project’s team will investigate the strategies that different historical agents used to claim ownership of medicinal knowledge.
Funding
Secrets to Patents has been generously funded by the Swedish Research Council (2025-2030) and hosted at Lund University (SE), in collaboration with the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen (DK) and the History Department of Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (BR).
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