Patents in miniature: the effects of microfilm as an information technology, 1938–68

How did microfilm come to shape patent work? This article shows that, despite initial resistance to the new medium, microfilms changed not just search rooms but international connections and collaborations. It traces how legal and media technologies coalesced by considering how microfilm changed the patent office and the work of patent examiners and information brokers. As a photographic medium, microfilm enabled patents to be seen differently: not merely as documents, but as a distinct literature that could be abstracted, linked, and disseminated. The article explores how microfilm technology changed the ways that patents were organized, distributed, and used.