Preliminary Programme

Wed 24 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Thu 25 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Fri 26 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.15

Sat 27 March
    11.00 - 12.15
    12.30 - 13.45
    14.30 - 15.45
    16.00 - 17.00

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Thursday 25 March 2021 11.00 - 12.15
K-5 TEC01 Patents and Innovation in 19th- and Early 20th-Century Europe
K
Network: Science & Technology Chair: Alexander Donges
Organizer: Alexander Donges Discussant: Alexander Donges
Chris Colvin, Stephen Billington & Christopher Coyle : Do Patents affect Firm Financing? Evidence from Britain’s 1902 Patents Act
What role do patents play in firm financing? There is a growing body of literature focused on how patents can act as a signal of a firm’s quality to investors. But this literature has yet to isolate which facet of a patent right does all the work. We ask whether ... (Show more)
What role do patents play in firm financing? There is a growing body of literature focused on how patents can act as a signal of a firm’s quality to investors. But this literature has yet to isolate which facet of a patent right does all the work. We ask whether it is the quality control aspect resulting from the patent examination process. We do this by investigating the effect of the introduction of the 1902 Patents Act, which inserted a patent examination stage into the application process in the UK for the first time. One interesting facet of this examination process was patent examiners could forcibly add references to other, similar, patents into new patent applications. We are able to isolate these “forced references” and use them to construct a patent quality metric. We hand-collect a new dataset of over 170 firms which applied for patents between 1899 and 1913. We use this to investigate the effect the change in patent law had on a firm’s ability to attract finance. We will compare our patenting firms with a sample of over 200 similar firms which did not hold a patent. We will conduct comparisons both before and after the year of the patent reform. Besides contributing to literature on the economics of innovation, our results should help to illuminate the role Britain’s patent system during the country’s relative industrial decline. (Show less)

Peter Meyer : Patent Technology Classifications for Early Aeronautics
We examine the technology classifications applied by patent offices from over a dozen countries and multiple time periods, focusing on aeronautics and aviation patents from 1880 to 1918. These classifications are intended mainly to make it feasible for patent examiners and potential applicants to find the set of patents relevant ... (Show more)
We examine the technology classifications applied by patent offices from over a dozen countries and multiple time periods, focusing on aeronautics and aviation patents from 1880 to 1918. These classifications are intended mainly to make it feasible for patent examiners and potential applicants to find the set of patents relevant to a particular technology. National systems before 1900 were different from one another and were fairly simple, with fewer than 100 categories for all patents. Their complexity grew sharply from 1900-1920. Now, aeronautics has hundreds of categories. We compare the advance of aeronautics to the greater precision for these category systems generally. We show how aeronautics and aviation patents changed substantively, technologically, expanding toward the dominant design of a fixed-wing aircraft with propellers, while older categories for balloons and dirigibles continued as before.
We comment on what these different schemes accomplish, and how this explains their differentes and evolution over time. We illustrate a tagging and classification approach that incorporates various category systems. (Show less)

Homer Wagenaar : Reconstructing the patenting process: the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, 1817-1830
This article describes a new dataset retracing the administrative process of the patent system of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830), a semi-federal state spanning the present-day territories of Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. Based on the rich surviving archives, I have reconstructed the administrative steps for each application, in ... (Show more)
This article describes a new dataset retracing the administrative process of the patent system of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830), a semi-federal state spanning the present-day territories of Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. Based on the rich surviving archives, I have reconstructed the administrative steps for each application, in an early case of an examination system. My dataset includes both successful or unsuccessful applications. It provides a significant advantage over historical patent datasets that only include granted patents, as they obscure the effects of the patent systems themselves. The dataset provides a valuable inside view in the innovation and patenting process in a state comprising both the second industrialiser in Europe after Britain (Belgium) and a late industrialiser (Netherlands). Besides these uses, its focus on administrative process can provide wider lessons for building similar databases in other contexts. (Show less)



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