During much of the nineteenth century, physicians and pharmacists alike considered medical patenting and the use of trademarks by drug manufacturers unethical forms of monopoly; physicians who prescribed patented drugs could be, and were, ostracized from the medical community. In the decades following the Civil War, however, complex changes in patent and trademark law intersected with the changing sensibilities of both physicians and pharmacists to make intellectual property rights in drug manufacturing scientifically and ethically legitimate. By World War I, patented and trademarked drugs...
During much of the nineteenth century, physicians and pharmacists alike considered medical patenting and the use of trademarks by drug manufacturers u...
