Specters of the Intangible: Law's Materiality Outside Paper

Where and what is the law in a digital network? Does the meaning of a law change with the change of medium? This paper problematizes the effects of digital mediation on the relationship

between legal epistemology and ontology by analysing computer-oriented representational practices in patent law. The international patent law system is based on an enormous digital

networked and physical infrastructure, which has transformed patent documents from text inscribed on paper to digital images and data. The effects are that words are dissolved into

digital codes, and documents into electronic signs. For analysing these phenomena, I think with works that have explored the intersection of material aesthetics, digital media and

mathematical semiotics: Matthew Kirschenbaum’s work on textuality and forensic materiality, Johanna Drucker’s work on material semiotics and her concept of diagrammatic writing, and

Brian Rotman’s analysis of digital computing in relation to semiotics of alphabetic and numeric inscriptions. The digitization of patents as a legal form raises issues of law’s visibility (relating to search, retrieval and storage), legibility (relating to sensorial perception and experience, as well as reader’s reception and interpretation), and instrumentality (relating to questions about ease of navigation, manoeuvrability, comparison, and translation).