Continuing our round-up of the prizes and award announced at the recent meeting of the American Society for Legal History, we turn now to the Anne Fleming Article Prize -- a prize that is particularly meaningful for us here at the blog. About the prize:
The Anne Fleming Article Prize is a joint prize of the the ASLH and the
Business History Conference (BHC). It is awarded every other year to the
author or authors of the best article published in the previous two
years in either
Law and History Review or
Enterprise and Society on the relation of law and business/economy in any region or historical period.
For a remembrance of our late colleague Anne Fleming, follow the link.
This year's award went to
Gerardo Con Díaz (University of California, Davis) for
“Patent Law and the Materiality of Inventions in the
California Oil Industry: The Story of Halliburton v. Walker, 1935–1946,”
Economy & Society 24.1 (2023): 174-96. The citation:
Professor Diaz’s paper starts in 1941, when an independent engineer and
inventor named Cranford Perry Walker decided to Mile a suit against
Halliburton – not then the company it was to become – for patent
infringement with regard to an instrument that Walker had devised and
patented, christened the “Depthograph.” The Depthograph was designed to
measure pressure and obstructions inside oil pipes and wells, providing
vital knowledge to the booming oil industry. Walker was determined to
defend his place in the market from the much larger competitor.
Eventually the case went all the way to the Supreme court, where Waker
was decisively defeated. From these seemingly obscure beginnings,
Professor Diaz expertly unfolds a story with far-reaching implications
for how intellectual property is understood and adjudicated in the US
down to this day. We were unanimous in our decision. Deeply researched,
beautifully crafted, and crisply written, this is an exemplary piece of
scholarship in the art of bridging disciplinary divides between business
and legal history.An Honorable Mention went to
Nora Slonimsky (Iona University) for “‘To Save the Benefit of the Act of
Parliamt’: Mapping an Early American Copyright,”
Law and History Review
40.4 (2022): 625-54.
Congratulations to Professor Con Díaz and Professor Slonimsky -- and may Anne's memory continue to be a blessing.
-- Karen Tani
