Codification, Patents and the Geography of Knowledge Transfer in the Electronic Musical Instrument Industry
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Codification, patents and the geography of knowledge transfer in the electronic musical instrument industry TIM REIFFENSTEIN Department of Geography, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, Canada, E4L 1A7 (e-mail: [email protected]) Recent research in economic geography has Les recherches actuelles en g´eographie mettent emphasized tacit knowledge as the basis of industrial l’accent sur les connaissances tacites comme learning. In contrast, codification and the practices of fondement de l’apprentissage industriel. Cependant, industrial writing have received little attention for the la codification et les pratiques relatives ala` roles they play in mobilizing knowledge across space. composition industrielle ont ´et´e peu ´etudi´ees du point This paper offers insight into the geographies of de vue de leurs rˆoles dans la mobilisation des codification through an examination of technology connaissances dans l’espace. Cet article donne un transfer in the electronic musical instrument industry aperc¸u des g´eographies de la codification suite a` une between 1965 and 1995. The research draws on a analyse du transfert technologique dans l’industrie variety of primary and secondary data that include des instruments de musique ´electronique entre 1965 interviews with inventors, biographical accounts and et 1995. Fond´ee sur un ensemble de donn´ees patent analysis. These sources offer perspective on primaires et secondaires, cette ´etude pr´esente une the career trajectories of three U.S. inventors who s´erie d’entrevues r´ealis´ees aupr`es d’inventeurs, des transferred knowledge from various contexts in comptes-rendus biographiques et des analyses de California’s high-tech industry to the Japanese firm, brevets. Ces donn´ees permettent de consid´erer avec Yamaha. Conceptually, the paper draws on the recul le cheminement professionnel de trois actor–network theory and Latour’s idea of translation inventeurs am´ericains responsables du transfert des to highlight the detours inventors must take to connaissances depuis diff´erents secteurs de register novelty. The analysis reveals the problematic l’industrie de haute technologie californienne vers la nature of codified knowledge and its transfer; in this soci´et´e japonaise Yamaha. Sur un plan conceptuel, case codified knowledge was mobile internationally l’article reprend la th´eorie acteur-r´eseau et aborde la but not locally, at least until it reached Japan. The notion de traduction d´evelopp´ee par Latour afin de paper argues for the need to understand how texts mettre en relief les principaux d´etours qu’empruntent such as patents are produced—the context of their les inventeurs pour obtenir un brevet d’innovation. authorship, the geographies of their circulation and L’analyse fait ressortir le caract`ere probl´ematique their efficacy for shaping further innovative practice. des connaissances codifi´ees et de leur transfert; The Canadian Geographer / Le G´eographe canadien 50, no 3 (2006) 298–318 C / Canadian Association of Geographers / L’Association canadienne des g´eographes Codification, patents and the geography of knowledge transfer 299 dans ce cas, les connaissances codifi´ees ´etaient mobiles al’` ´echelle internationale et non al’` ´echelle locale avant qu’elles n’arrivent au Japon. Cet article plaide en faveur de la n´ecessit´e de comprendre comment les textes tels que les brevets sont ´elabor´es: le contexte entourant la r´edaction du document, les g´eographies de leur diffusion et les r´epercutions sur les pratiques novatrices. Introduction the whole philosophy of industrialization’. In the Economic geographers have long recognized in- industrial arena, knowledge externalization pro- dustrial learning as a situated process that is duces several outcomes including blueprints, for- territorially and socially embedded. The vast lit- mulas, sketches and patents. Though each of erature on industrial districts, clusters and learn- these inscriptions fixes knowledge in a potentially ing regions that accumulated through the 1990s mobile form, they vary according to the situated emphasized place-based learning (Markusen 1996; conditions governing their authorship and use. A Braczyk et al. 1998; Malmberg and Maskell 2002). patent serves as a more authoritative claim to More recently, a second current of inquiry has novelty than an idea hastily sketched on a cock- sought to unravel how learning takes place across tail napkin. space and between regions (Bunnel and Coe Intellectual properties (IP)1 are the currency 2001; Oinas and Malecki 2002; Bathelt et al. of a knowledge-driven economy. Taplin (2004, 2004). Both groups of studies have frequently re- 1) estimates that these sorts of intangible as- hearsed Michael Polanyi’s (1967) conceptual dis- sets comprise 70 percent of the assets of major tinction between tacit and codified knowledge. corporations. As Macdonald (2004, 135) argues, In a world where codified knowledge is thought patents have acquired ‘a strategic value increas- to be increasingly ubiquitous (Maskell and Malm- ingly independent of innovation’. IBM’s patent berg 1999) many of these accounts view the lead- portfolio, for example, annually generates U.S. ing edge, the quality that makes places special, $1 billion in profit through licensing. To pro- as the province of tacit knowledge. In contrast duce a comparable figure, IBM would have to there remains a lacuna in our understanding of sell an additional $20 billion in products (Rivette how industrial geographies shape and are shaped and Kline 2000, 56). IP management has thus be- by the practice of codification. This imbalance come a crucial firm competency to be integrated is regrettable, especially considering Nonaka and throughout the product cycle. According to its Takeuchi’s (1995) widely cited observation that former vice president of R&D, when razor man- the cycling between codified and tacit knowledge ufacturer Gillette sought to develop the Sensor holds the key to industrial problem solving. To brand, ‘the first challenge ...was mapping out the address this research gap, it is necessary to more patent landscape surrounding the shaver’s key fully consider the codified dimension and the art performance attribute’ (Rivette and Kline 2000, of industrial writing. 58; emphasis added). Accompanying these spa- Codified knowledge serves as the recipe for in- tial metaphors that hint at the tacit component dustrial learning. Codification is the process of of working with these inscriptions, is an increas- inscribing information, the translation from prac- ing recognition that in the world of IP, geography tice to page or what Nonaka and Takeuchi re- matters. National patent systems across major fer to as ‘externalization’. Maskell and Malmberg industrialized countries differ significantly and (1999, 15) capture the significance of this pro- firms face great uncertainty in both registering cess when they state that ‘technological progress is to a large extent the result of an interlinked process of knowledge creation and subsequent 1 Intellectual properties comprise patents, trademarks, copy- codification. Codification is thus at the heart of rights and trade secrets. The Canadian Geographer / Le G´eographe canadien 50, no 3 (2006) 300 Tim Reiffenstein and defending their patents across borders. The the paper sketches the career trajectories of three United States judges patents according to the U.S. inventors who transferred knowledge from ‘first to invent’ principle, whereas virtually every various contexts in California’s high-tech industry other country follows the ‘first to file’ system. to Yamaha, a Japanese firm based in Hamamatsu. However, moves towards international patent har- In this transfer of knowledge, special attention monization, such as the WTO’s Trade Related is paid to the role of patents, most notably key Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) protocol, ‘breakthrough’ patents that became the focus of have been criticized by countries in the global considerable controversy. In terms of organiza- south for undermining indigenous knowledge sys- tion, the paper first elaborates on spatial trans- tems (Shiva 2000). As these examples illustrate, fers of knowledge through conduits and networks codified knowledge matters, yet there is a poor comprising people, texts and artifacts, primarily understanding of the processes through which with reference to science studies and the theme patents and other industrial inscriptions are pro- of translation. Empirically, the paper then ana- duced, mobilized and officiated. lyzes the role of engineers, firms and patents in This paper offers insight into the geographies the transformation and relocation of the EMI in- of codification through an examination of the dustry. electronic musical instrument (hereafter EMI) in- dustry between 1965 and 1995. This period is marked by two profound shifts in the EMI in- Knowledge Transfers, Codification dustry. First, the technological basis of the EMI and Translation over Space industry shifted from analog to digital sound syn- thesis (Theberge 1997; Pinch and Trocco 2002). The tacit–codified knowledge dichotomy is fre- Second, the industrial advantage shifted deci- quently the starting point for economic ge- sively from the United States to Japan, specif- ography’s examination of knowledge creation ically to Hamamatsu, an industrial city located and transfer (Asheim 1999; Cowan et al. 2000; on the Pacific coast midway between Tokyo and Johnson et al. 2002). Codified knowledge, also Osaka (Reiffenstein 2004, 2005). Yet,