The Constitution of Intellectual Property as an Academic Subject

This essay offers a reinterpretation of the constitution of intellectual property as an academic subject by focusing on the work of Thomas Anthony Blanco White (1916–2006). His textbooks were fundamental for the development of ‘intellectual property’ in Britain and the Commonwealth. Not only did they provide the basis for a discipline in the making, their timely publication also helped to connect and, more importantly, constitute a diverse audience of articled clerks, practitioners and students. This essay traces the making of Blanco's first booklets and his subsequent rewriting of them, which culminated in the publication of what would become a standard textbook writing technique in British intellectual property in the twentieth century. In explaining the history of these textbooks and their pivotal role for the recognition of intellectual property as an academic subject in the university curriculum, the essay explores the ways in which a distinctive knowledge of and writing about intellectual property emerged in Britain in the post-war years.