Professor Shobita Parthasarathy’s book, Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe, has been awarded the prestigious Robert K. Merton Book Award. The award, given by the Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association, goes to the author of “an outstanding book on science, knowledge, and/or technology published during the preceding three years.”
Patent Politics was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2017. U of C Press writes, "Over the past thirty years, the world’s patent systems have experienced pressure from civil society like never before. From farmers to patient advocates, new voices are arguing that patents impact public health, economic inequality, morality—and democracy. These challenges, to domains that we usually consider technical and legal, may seem surprising. But in Patent Politics, Shobita Parthasarathy argues that patent systems have always been deeply political and social."
Shobita Parthasarathy is a leading scholar on modern patent policy and the public interest. She is a professor of public policy and women's studies at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and serves as director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the University of Michigan.