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Bennet Woodcroft and the Value of English Patents, 1617-1841

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  • Alessandro Nuvolari
  • Valentina Tartari

Abstract

We examine the potentialities of a new indicator for measuring the value of English patents in the period 1617-1841. The indicator is based on the relative visibility of each individual patent in the contemporary technical and legal literature as summarized in Bennet Woodcroft's Reference Index of Patents of Invention. We conclude that the indicator provides a reasonable proxy for the value of patents and that it can be usefully employed to shed light on the timing and nature of innovation during the Industrial Revolution. In particular, our indicator offers a suitable reconciliation between the patent records evidence and the Crafts-Harley view of the Industrial Revolution.

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Paper provided by Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy in its series LEM Papers Series with number 2009/03.

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Date of creation: 30 Mar 2009
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Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2009/03
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • N73 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - Europe: Pre-1913
  • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

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  1. Bessen, James, 2008. "The value of U.S. patents by owner and patent characteristics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 932-945, June.
  2. Petra Moser, 2005. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1214-1236, September.
  3. Sullivan, Richard J., 1989. "England's Age of invention: The acceleration of patents and patentable invention during the industrial revolution," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 424-452, October.
  4. Nuvolari, A., 2001. "Collective Invention during the British Industrial Revolution: The Case of the Cornish Pumping Engine," Working Papers 01.04, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies.
  5. Christine MacLeod & Jennifer Tann & James Andrew & Jeremy Stein, 2003. "Evaluating inventive activity: the cost of nineteenth-century UK patents and the fallibility of renewal data," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(3), pages 537-562, 08.
  6. Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2011. "The Puzzle of Patent Value Indicators," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/60729, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  7. MacLeod,Christine, 2007. "Heroes of Invention," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521873703, November.
  8. Nicholas Crafts, 2002. "Productivity growth in the Industrial Revolution: a new growth accounting perspective," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
  9. Sullivan, Richard J., 1995. "Patent Counts and Textile Invention: A Comment on Griffiths, Hunt, and O’Brien," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(03), pages 666-670, September.
  10. Gerald Silverberg & Bart Verspagen, 2003. "Breaking the waves: a Poisson regression approach to Schumpeterian clustering of basic innovations," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(5), pages 671-693, September.
  11. Sullivan, Richard J., 1990. "The Revolution of Ideas: Widespread Patenting and Invention During the English Industrial Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(02), pages 349-362, June.
  12. Allen,Robert C., 2009. "The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521868273, November.
  13. O’Brien, Patrick K. & Griffiths, Trevor & Hunt, Philip, 1995. "There Is Nothing Outside the Text, and There Is No Safety in Numbers: A Reply to Sullivan," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 55(03), pages 671-672, September.
  14. Bessen, James, 2009. "Estimates of patent rents from firm market value," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 1604-1616, December.
  15. Harhoff, Dietmar & Scherer, Frederic M. & Vopel, Katrin, 2003. "Citations, family size, opposition and the value of patent rights," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1343-1363, September.
  16. Christine MacLeod & Alessandro Nuvolari, 2006. "Inventive Activities, Patents and Early Industrialization. A Synthesis of Research Issues," DRUID Working Papers 06-28, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
  17. Mark Schankerman, 1998. "How Valuable is Patent Protection? Estimates by Technology Field," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(1), pages 77-107, Spring.
  18. N. F. R. Crafts & C. K. Harley, 1992. "Output growth and the British industrial revolution: a restatement of the Crafts-Harley view," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 45(4), pages 703-730, November.
  19. Temin, Peter, 2000. "A Response to Harley and Crafts," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(03), pages 842-846, September.
  20. Morten O. Ravn & Harald Uhlig, 2002. "On adjusting the Hodrick-Prescott filter for the frequency of observations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 371-375.
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Cited by:

  1. Bottomley, Sean, 2014. "Patenting in England, Scotland and Ireland during the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1852," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 48-63.
  2. Stephan Heblich & Alex Trew, 2015. "Banking and Industrialization," CESifo Working Paper Series 5503, CESifo Group Munich.
  3. Feldman, Naomi E. & van der Beek, Karine, 2016. "Skill choice and skill complementarity in eighteenth century England," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 94-113.
  4. Bottomley, Sean, 2014. "Patenting in England, Scotland and Ireland during the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1852," IAST Working Papers 14-07, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
  5. Mara P. Squicciarini & Nico Voigtländer, 2014. "Human Capital and Industrialization: Evidence from the Age of Enlightenment," NBER Working Papers 20219, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Lehmann, Sibylle & Streb, Jochen, 2015. "The Berlin Stock Exchange in Imperial Germany – a Market for New Technology?," CEPR Discussion Papers 10558, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  7. Walker Hanlon & Antonio Miscio, 2014. "Agglomeration: A Dynamic Approach," NBER Working Papers 20728, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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