Science in the garden of midnight : how contract and intellectual property build the military-industrial complex

Abstract

Intellectual property and contract have been integral to the construction of an enframing paradigm of militarized science for the institution of science. The paper traces how the Manhattan project provided the U.S. with its first large-scale experience of using contracts and intellectual property to restrict the diffusion of sensitive military technology. In the following decades private law, namely contract and intellectual property, were used to bind the military, firms and universities into a system. Science, including university science finds itself in an iron military cage. The final section asks whether private law tools can help science break out of this cage.