Journal ArticleDOI
The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present.
W. Ashworth,David S. Landes +1 more
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This article is published in The Economic Journal.The article was published on 1970-03-01. It has received 251 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Technological change.read more
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Patents for invention : setting the stage for the British industrial revolution?
Abstract: La importancia de las patentes para el desarrollo economico en general y para la industrializacion inglesa en particular sigue siendo una cuestion sin resolver a pesar de la intensa investigacion historica que ha tenido lugar en los ultimos veinticinco anos. Este articulo reexamina este debate a la luz de estas investigaciones y de la historia revisionista de la revolucion industrial inglesa. El articulo se centra en la naturaleza y en el funcionamiento del sistema de patentes ingles durante el siglo XVIII y parte del siglo XIX, concretamente hasta la reforma de 1852. En primer lugar se reinterpreta la tendencia al alza en el numero de patentes desde 1762 y coincidiendo con los supuestos anos clasicos de la revolucion industrial. En segundo lugar, se investiga que parte de la actividad inventiva tuvo lugar fuera del sistema de patentes, esto es, no fue capturado en las estadisticas. En tercer lugar, se sugiere que debemos pensar en el sistema de patentes como una tecnologia que, como cualquier otra, fue conformada por las circunstancias en que tuvo lugar su invencion y desarrollo. Este sistema fue el producto de un periodo en el que la propiedad se redefinio como un derecho privado exclusivo. A menos que reconozcamos que una patente crea, ante todo, un derecho de propiedad privada estaremos equivocando el punto de vista. Las patentes tenian que ver tanto con la inversion como con la invencion. En conclusion, este articulo revierte el famoso argumento de Douglass North, y ofrece, en su lugar, el argumento de que fue la revolucion industrial la que creo el marco para el surgimiento del sistema de patentes. The importance of patents for economic development in general and for British industrialization in particular remains an unresolved issue, but one that during the past twenty-five years has benefited from intensive historical research. This paper re-examines the debate in the light both of that research and of revisionist histories of the British industrial revolution. It focuses on the nature and operation of the English patent system during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, prior to its reform in 1852. First, it re-examines the upward trend in patenting that begins in 1762 and coincides neatly but deceptively with the classic industrial revolution. Second, it investigates how much inventive activity was conducted beyond the patent system and is consequently not captured by the patent statistics. Third, it suggests we should think of the patent system as a technology in its own right: as with all technologies, it was shaped by the circumstances of its invention and development. It was a product of a period that was redefining property as subject to exclusively private ownership, and to this «intellectual property» was no exception. Unless we recognise that a patent, first and foremost, created a piece of private property, we are missing the point. Patenting had at least as much to do with investing as inventing; as much to do with capitalism as creativity. In conclusion, the paper reverses Douglass North’s famous causal claim, arguing instead that the industrial revolution «set the stage» for the patent system.
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