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How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World Fairs

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Petra Moser

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Abstract

This paper introduces a new internationally comparable data set that permits an empirical investigation of the effects of patent law on innovation. The data have been constructed from the catalogues of two 19th century world fairs: the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London, 1851, and the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, 1876. They include innovations that were not patented, as well as those that were, and innovations from countries both with and without patent laws. I find no evidence that patent laws increased levels of innovative activity but strong evidence that patent systems influenced the distribution of innovative activity across industries. Inventors in countries without patent laws concentrated in industries where secrecy was effective relative to patents, e.g., food processing and scientific instruments. These results suggest that introducing strong and effective patent laws in countries without patents may have stronger effects on changing the direction of innovative activity than on raising the number of innovations.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9909.

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Date of creation: Aug 2003
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9909

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L0 - Industrial Organization - - General
O3 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change

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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Paul Duguid & Teresa da Silva Lopes & John Mercer, 2008. "Shifting Patterns in Marks and Registration: France, the United States and United Kingdom, 1870-1970," Working Papers 21, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research. [Downloadable!]
  2. David, Thomas & Mach, Andre, 2006. "Institutions and Economic Growth: The Successful Experience of Switzerland (1870-1950)," Working Papers RP2006/101, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER). [Downloadable!]
  3. Giovanni Dosi & Luigi Marengo & Corrado Pasquali, 2006. "How Much Should Society Fuel the Greed of Innovators? On the Relations between Appropriability, Opportunities and Rates of Innovation," LEM Papers Series 2006/17, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Shih-Tse Lo, 2004. "Strenghtening Intellectual Property rights: Experience from the 1986 Taiwanese Patent Reforms," Working Papers 04004, Concordia University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Alessandro Nuvolari & Valentina Tartari, 2009. "Mr. Woodcroft and the Value of English Patents, 1617-1841," LEM Papers Series 2009/03, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. [Downloadable!]
  6. Emmanuel Duguet & Claire Lelarge, 2004. "Does patenting increase the private incentives to innovate ? A microeconometric analysis," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques v04096, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1). [Downloadable!]
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  7. Young-Ro Yoon, 2007. "Endogenous Timing of Actions under Conflict between Two Types of Second Mover Advantage," Caepr Working Papers 2007-013, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Economics Department, Indiana University Bloomington. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Jesper Lindgaard Christensen, 2008. "The IPR System, Venture Capital and Capital Markets – Contributions and Distortions of Small Firm Innovation?," DRUID Working Papers 08-03, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies. [Downloadable!]
  10. Sebastian von Engelhardt & Sushmita Swaminathan, 2008. "Open Source Software, Closed Source Software or Both: Impacts on Industry Growth and the Role of Intellectual Property Rights," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 799, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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