The sociologist of science Robert Merton long ago proposed that, for purposes of understanding the rise of modern science, there was much to be gained by considering priority disputes and patent disputes as linked under the concept of "intellectual property". This paper will briefly sketch the case for an updated and expanded version of this proposal, with particular attention to how three different sort of knowledge-claims, and disputes over them, have interacted over the historical long-run: (1) claims to have discovered a principle or phenomenon before anybody else did (priority claims); (2) claims to have invented a useful technique or technology before anybody else did (patent claims); (3) claims about the power of a body of scientific knowledge to generate useful techniques and technologies thanks to its latching onto reality (productivity claims).