Working Knowledge: Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930

(University of North Carolina Press) While skilled workers of the early 19th century “owned” their workplace knowledge and technical skill, most sectors of today’s economy accept that legal ownership of employee-generated intellectual property belongs to businesses. In this book, Fisk examines the 19th century legal and social transformations that caused the ownership of employee innovation to transfer into the hands of management. She argues that this contentious change occurred at the expense of workers’ entrepreneurial independence, and ultimately at the expense of economic democracy. Fisk is a law professor at the University of California, Irvine.