The Patent System and Inventive Activity during the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1852. By H. I. Dutton. (Dover, N. H.: Manchester University Press, 1984. vii + 232 pp. $32.50.)

1985 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 518-519
Author(s):  
Jeremy Atack
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Patent System ◽  
Inventive Activity

Inventive Activity in the British Textile Industry, 1700–1800

1992 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 881-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Griffiths ◽  
Philip A. Hunt ◽  
Patrick K. O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Total Factor Productivity ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Technical Change ◽  
Consumer Goods ◽  
Textile Industry ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Factor Productivity ◽  
Inventive Activity

An analysis of innovations in the eighteenth-century British textile industry is the basis for an evaluation of aggregate studies of invention during the Industrial Revolution, derived from patent evidence alone. Disaggregation of the data challenges recent generalizations concerning the pace and pattern of technical change over the period. Discontinuities in the nature of invention, promoting an acceleration in total factor productivity growth, are traced to the 1790s. Prior to that date, industrial development conformed to a pattern of Smithian growth, as manufacturers diversified their output in response to an expanding domestic market for consumer goods.

Property Rights and Patent Litigation in Early Nineteenth-Century America

1995 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Zorina Khan
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Patent System ◽  
Expected Returns ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Early America ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
Patent Rights ◽  
Inventive Activity

Economic development depends on the establishment of appropriate institutions, such as a patent system that defends property rights in inventions. Skeptics argue that patents in early America were unenforceable because judges arbitrarily ruled against patentees. I examine 795 patent cases to assess the role of the courts and find that judges protected patent rights because they believed that inventors were motivated by expected returns. Although changes occurred in the 1850s, the courts consistently upheld the view that the patent system fostered economic growth. If inventive activity indeed responded to material incentives, this finding implies that the legal system stimulated technical change by reinforcing the effectiveness of the patent system.The laws of the United States are extremely favorable to the division of property.—Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English Patent System, 1660-1800

1990 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 519
Author(s):  
Eric Robinson ◽  
Christine MacLeod
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Patent System
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