IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/129440.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The impact of novelty examination on the regional distribution of patenting activity in early 20th century Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Tate, Anya

Abstract

The late 19th-century reforms to the British patenting system reduced the cost of obtaining a patent from over £100 in 1851 to just £4 by 1883. While increasing accessibility, this cost reduction led to an increase of low-quality patents often replicating previous inventions, raising concerns about the system's effectiveness. As a result, the 1902 policy proposed novelty examination for the first time, increasing the cost by 25%. This paper examines whether the implementation of this policy in 1905 had a differential effect on patenting activity across British regions. Despite the significance of this policy, it has received extremely limited academic attention. This research aims to fill this gap and add to the literature on the regional impacts of patent system reforms in this period. This study employs panel regressions using data on every geocoded patent sealed between 1895-1915 in the PatentCity database with regional employment in 28 industries as controls. Results indicate no change in the regional distribution of patenting activity as a result of the novelty examination. These findings are consistent with those of Nicholas (2011) for the 1883 policy and have important implications for the geography of inventive activity and the distributional impacts of invention policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Tate, Anya, 2025. "The impact of novelty examination on the regional distribution of patenting activity in early 20th century Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 129440, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:129440
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/129440/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Josh Lerner, 2009. "The Empirical Impact of Intellectual Property Rights on Innovation: Puzzles and Clues," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 343-348, May.
    2. Hanlon, W. Walker & Miscio, Antonio, 2017. "Agglomeration: A long-run panel data approach," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-14.
    3. Gaétan de Rassenfosse & William E. Griffiths & Adam B. Jaffe & Elizabeth Webster, 2021. "Low-Quality Patents in the Eye of the Beholder: Evidence from Multiple Examiners," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 37(3), pages 607-636.
    4. Moser, Petra, 2011. "Do Patents Weaken the Localization of Innovations? Evidence from World's Fairs," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(2), pages 363-382, June.
    5. Arundel, Anthony & Kabla, Isabelle, 1998. "What percentage of innovations are patented? empirical estimates for European firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 127-141, June.
    6. Nicholas Crafts, 2005. "Regional Gdp In Britain, 1871–1911: Some Estimates," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 52(1), pages 54-64, February.
    7. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    8. Allen, Robert C., 1983. "Collective invention," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 1-24, March.
    9. Schmookler, Jacob, 1962. "Economic Sources of Inventive Activity," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 1-20, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barge-Gil, Andrés & López, Alberto, 2014. "R&D determinants: Accounting for the differences between research and development," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1634-1648.
    2. Taalbi, Josef, 2017. "What drives innovation? Evidence from economic history," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1437-1453.
    3. Arora, Ashish & Athreye, Suma & Huang, Can, 2016. "The paradox of openness revisited: Collaborative innovation and patenting by UK innovators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1352-1361.
    4. Ozan Hatipoglu, 2012. "The relationship between inequality and innovative activity: a S chumpeterian theory and evidence from cross‐country data," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 59(2), pages 224-248, May.
    5. Quatraro, Francesco & Scandura, Alessandra, 2019. "Academic Inventors and the Antecedents of Green Technologies. A Regional Analysis of Italian Patent Data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 247-263.
    6. Jose M Barrutia & Carmen Echebarria & Ainhize Gilsanz, 2011. "Social capital and innovation: an empirical analysis in the context of European regions," ERSA conference papers ersa10p1347, European Regional Science Association.
    7. Matthias Bürger, 2011. "Dynamics of Collaborative Invention Tracking Growth of Cooperative and Total Patents in the Region," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-045, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    8. Drivas, Kyriakos & Kaplanis, Ioannis, 2020. "The role of international collaborations in securing the patent grant," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    9. Barros, Henrique M., 2021. "Neither at the cutting edge nor in a patent-friendly environment: Appropriating the returns from innovation in a less developed economy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1).
    10. Gamba, Simona, 2017. "The Effect of Intellectual Property Rights on Domestic Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 15-27.
    11. Armin Mertens & Marc Scheufen, 2024. "Intellectual property and fourth industrial revolution technologies: how the patent system is shaping the future in the data-driven economy," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 275-310, April.
    12. Caroline Flammer & Aleksandra Kacperczyk, 2016. "The Impact of Stakeholder Orientation on Innovation: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(7), pages 1982-2001, July.
    13. Sedgley, Norman & Elmslie, Bruce, 2010. "Reinterpreting the Jones critique: A time series approach to testing and understanding idea driven growth models with transitional dynamics," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 103-117, March.
    14. Ang, James B., 2010. "Financial Reforms, Patent Protection, and Knowledge Accumulation in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1070-1081, August.
    15. Sharma, Abhijit & Sousa, Cristina & Woodward, Richard, 2022. "Determinants of innovation outcomes: The role of institutional quality," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    16. Buesa, Mikel & Heijs, Joost & Baumert, Thomas, 2010. "The determinants of regional innovation in Europe: A combined factorial and regression knowledge production function approach," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 722-735, July.
    17. Sadowski, B.M. & Beers van, C., 2002. "The Innovation Performance of Foreign Affiliates: Evidence from Dutch Manufacturing Firms," Working Papers 02.17, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies.
    18. Barros, Henrique M., 2011. "The Effects of Innovation Partnership, Foreign Ownership and Enhanced Management Practices on the Use of Patents in Brazilian Manufacturing," Insper Working Papers wpe_255, Insper Working Paper, Insper Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa.
    19. Sadowski, Bert M. & Sadowski-Rasters, Gaby, 2006. "On the innovativeness of foreign affiliates: Evidence from companies in The Netherlands," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 447-462, April.
    20. Josef Taalbi & Mikhail Martynovich, 2024. "On the urban bias of patents and the scaling of innovation," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2422, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jul 2024.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • R10 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:129440. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.