ABSTRACT Patents for invention have a history that goes back centuries in England. As a result, they can be used to interrogate changes in the practices of governance that occurred over that time (and further back). Using the ideas of Michel Foucault, that described the conditions of possibility for ‘governmentality’, an analysis of patents over military equipment allows a reconception of Foucault’s modes of governance. Military patents facilitate the goals of research, given the centrality of the monopolies of the use of force in the modern state. The revised model presented here indicates that over the millennium governance shifted from feudal, to the governmentalist, via a period that was neither fully feudal, nor fully governmental.

中文翻译：

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军事装备专利：改变用途以改变治理模式

摘要 发明专利在英国的历史可以追溯到几个世纪前。因此，它们可用于询问当时（以及更早）发生的治理实践的变化。使用米歇尔·福柯的思想，描述“治理”的可能性条件，对军事装备专利的分析允许重新认识福柯的治理模式。鉴于现代国家使用武力垄断的中心地位，军事专利有助于研究目标。这里提出的修改后的模型表明，在过去的千年中，治理从封建主义转变为政府主义，经历了一个既不是完全封建也不是完全政府的时期。