Article Title

Questioning Authority: Patents and Source Evaluation in an Era of Misinformation

Authors

Jess O'Toole, Georgetown UniversityFollow

Abstract

In the world of academic research, patents are classified as primary literature, and are recognized as “a rich source of technical, legal and business information presented in a generally standardized format and often not reproduced anywhere else” (World Intellectual Property Organization, 2015, p.4). Because of their status, patents are often left out of conversations surrounding source credibility and evaluation. Recent news relating to the conspiracy theories surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and several patents, however, demonstrates the potential use of patents in spreading misinformation and disinformation. Through applying source evaluation techniques in keeping with the Association of College & Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, particularly the frames “Authority is Constructed and Contextual” and “Information Creation as a Process,” librarians and other educators can encourage students to take a more nuanced view of patents as information sources.

Recommended Citation

O'Toole, Jess (2021) "Questioning Authority: Patents and Source Evaluation in an Era of Misinformation," Journal of the Patent and Trademark Resource Center Association: Vol. 31, Article 3.
Available at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/jptrca/vol31/iss1/3

References

Abbott, R. (2019). Everything is Obvious. UCLA Law Review, 66(1), 2-53.

Angell, K., & Tewell, E. (2017). Teaching and un-teaching source evaluation: Questioning authority in information literacy instruction. Communications in Information Literacy, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2017.11.1.37

Association of College & Research Libraries. (2015, February 9). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL). http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework

Brotherton, R. A. (2013). Measurement Issues and the Role of Cognitive Biases in Conspiracist Ideation [Doctoral, Goldsmiths, University of London]. http://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/10428/

Chien, C. (2018). Comparative patent quality. Arizona State Law Journal, 50(1), 71-140.

Cornwall, W. (2020, June 30). Just 50% of Americans plan to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Here’s how to win over the rest. Science | AAAS. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/just-50-americans-plan-get-covid-19-vaccine-here-s-how-win-over-rest

Douglas, K. M., Uscinski, J. E., Sutton, R. M., Cichocka, A., Nefes, T., Ang, C. S., & Deravi, F. (2019). Understanding conspiracy theories. Political Psychology, 40(S1), 3–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12568

Frakes, M. D., & Wasserman, M. F. (2015). Does the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office grant too many bad patents: Evidence from a quasi-experiment. Stanford Law Review, 67(3), 613–676.

Garnai, B., & Gauder, H. (2020). Co-curricular innovation: Teaching about patents as primary sources. Case Studies on Teaching with Primary Sources. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/roesch_fac/66/

Ghebreyesus, A. (2020, February 15). Munich Security Conference. https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/munich-security-conference

Gugliuzza, P. R. (2016). (In)valid patents. Notre Dame Law Review, 92(1), 271–330.

Härtinger, S., & Clarke, N. (2016). Using patent classification to discover chemical information in a free patent database: Challenges and opportunities. Journal of Chemical Education, 93(3), 534–541. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00740

Heller, J. (2015). Rumors and realities: Making sense of HIV/AIDS conspiracy narratives and contemporary legends. American Journal of Public Health, 105(1), e43–e50. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302284

Henkel, J., & Zischka, H. (2019). How many patents are truly valid? Extent, causes, and remedies for latent patent invalidity. European Journal of Law and Economics, 48(2), 195–239. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-019-09627-4

Jaiswal, J., LoSchiavo, C., & Perlman, D. C. (2020). Disinformation, misinformation and inequality-driven mistrust in the time of COVID-19: Lessons unlearned from AIDS denialism. AIDS and Behavior, 24, 2776-2780. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-020 -02925-y

Jarry, J. (2020, August 28). Patently False: The Disinformation Over Coronavirus Patents. Office for Science and Society. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19 pseudoscience/patently-false-disinformation-over-coronavirus-patents

Keeley, B. L. (1999). Of conspiracy theories. The Journal of Philosophy, 96(3), 109-126. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2564659

Ledford, H. (2013). Myriad ruling causes confusion. Nature, 498(7454), 281–282. http://dx.doi.org.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/10.1038/498281a

Ledford, H. (2015). Congress seeks to quash patent trolls. Nature, 521(7552), 270–271. http://dx.doi.org.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/10.1038/521270a

Lemley, M. A., Lichtman, D., & Sampat, B. N. (2005). What to Do About Bad Patents (SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 869826). Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.869826

Lenker, M. (2017). Developmentalism: Learning as the basis for evaluating information. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 17(4), 721-737

Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H., & Cook, J. (2017). Beyond misinformation: Understanding and coping with the “post-truth” era. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(4), 353–369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.07.008

MacMillan, D. (2005). Patently obvious: The place for patents in information literacy in then sciences. Research Strategies, 20(3), 149–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resstr.2006.06.004

MacMillan, D., & Thuna, M. (2010). Patents under the microscope: Teaching patent searching to graduate and undergraduate students in the life sciences. Reference Services Review, 38(3), 417–430. https://doi.org/10.1108/00907321011070900

Majetic, C., & Pellegrino, C. (2014). When science and information literacy meet: An approach to exploring the sources of science news with non-science majors. College Teaching, 62(3), 107–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2014.916650

Meola, M. (2004). Chucking the checklist: A contextual approach to teaching undergraduates web-site evaluation. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 4(3), 331–344. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2004.0055

O’Connor, C., & Weatherall, J. O. (2019). The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread. Yale University Press.

Ostenson, J. (2014). Reconsidering the checklist in teaching internet source evaluation. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 14(1), 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1353/pla.2013.0045

Owen, T. (2018). Twenty one years of HIV/AIDS medicines in the newspaper: Patents, protest, and philanthropy. Media, Culture & Society, 40(1), 75–93. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443717703795

Russo, A., Jankowski, A., Beene, S., & Townsend, L. (2019). Strategic source evaluation: Addressing the container conundrum. Reference Services Review, 47(3), 294–313. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-04-2019-0024

Santos Rutschman, A. (2020). The COVID-19 Vaccine Race: Intellectual Property, Collaboration(s), Nationalism and Misinformation (SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3656929). Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3656929

Schaeffer, K. (2020, April 8). Nearly three-in-ten Americans believe COVID-19 was made in a lab. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2020/04/08/nearly-three-in-ten-americans-believe-covid-19-was-made-in-a-lab/

Segal, D. (2018). Facts, alternative facts and patent literature. In One Hundred Patents That Shaped the Modern World (pp. 1–12). Oxford University Press.

Sherman, P. B., & Oakley, E. F. I. (2003). Pandemics and panaceas: The World Trade Organization’s efforts to balance pharmaceutical patents and access to AIDS drugs. American Business Law Journal, 41(2–3), 353–412.

Society of American Archivists. (2018). Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy | Society of American Archivists. https://www2.archivists.org/standards/guidelines-for-primary-source-literacy

Sullivan, M. C. (2019). Why librarians can’t fight fake news. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 51(4), 1146–1156. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000618764258

United States Patent & Trademark Office. (n.d.). Seven Step Strategy. Retrieved February 11, 2021, from https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/support-centers/patent-and-trademark-resource-centers-ptrc/resources/seven

United States Patent & Trademark Office. (2015, October). General information concerning patents. https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics

Wineburg, S., & McGrew, S. (2017). Lateral Reading: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluating Digital Information. (SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3048994). Social Science Research Network. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3048994

World Intellectual Property Organization. (2015, July). WIPO Guide to Using Patent Information. https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_l434_3.pdf

Yelderman, S. (2014). Improving patent quality with applicant incentives. Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, 28(1), 77–136.

Zwicky, D. (2019). Thoughts on patents and information literacy. Journal of the Patent & Trademark Resource Center Association. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/lib_fsdocs/216

Zwicky, D., & Stonebraker, I. (2021). A critical librarianship approach for teaching patent searching: Who becomes an inventor in America? Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship. https://doi.org/10.1080/08963568.2021.1872247