Inventing the Industrial Revolution
The English Patent System, 1660-1800
Published on 15. December 1988
Book
Hardback
314 pages
978-0-521-30104-6 (ISBN)
Description
This book examines the development of the English patent system and its relationship with technical change during the period between 1660 and 1800, when the patent system evolved from an instrument of royal patronage into one of commercial competition among the inventors and manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution. It analyses the legal and political framework within which patenting took place and gives an account of the motivations and fortunes of patentees, who obtained patents for a variety of purposes beyond the simple protection of an invention. It includes the first in-depth attempt to gauge the reliability of the patent statistics as a measure of inventive activity and technical change in the early part of the Industrial Revolution, and suggests that the distribution of patents is a better guide to the advance of capitalism than to the centres of inventive activity. It also queries the common assumption that the chief goal of inventors was to save labour, and examines contemporary criticism of the patent system in the light of the changing conceptualisation of invention among natural scientists and political economists.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
538 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-30104-6 (9780521301046)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Book
05/2002
Cambridge University Press
€59.70
Shipment within 15-20 days
Additional editions
Book
05/2002
Cambridge University Press
€59.70
Shipment within 15-20 days
Content
List of tables and figures; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Notes on style; Introduction; 1. Patents 1550-1660: law, policy and controversy; 2. The later-Stuart patent grant - an instrument of policy?; 3. The development of the patent system, 1660-1800; 4. The judiciary and the enforcement of patent rights; 5. The decision to patent; 6. Invention outside the patent system; 7. Patents in a capitalist economy; 8. The long-term rise in patents; 9. The goals of invention; 10. Patents: criticisms and alternatives; 11. A new concept of invention; Notes; Bibliography; Index.