On the Link Between the English Patent System and the Industrial Revolution: Economic, Legal, and Sociological Issues

MARIANO ZUKERFELD

Intersect: The Stanford Journal of Science, Technology and Society

Stanford University

Año: 2014 vol. 8 p. 1 - 24

This paper is a part of a broader attempt to link shifts in stages of capitalism with changes in intellectual property law. The article is focused on the 18th century in England and it attempts to combine sociological, economic, and legal literature to underscore the bond between the ideology of the rational profit-seeking individual, the takeoff of industrial revolution, and the evolution of patent law. Firstly, we show that while the usual economic measures (TFP, labor and capital productivities, foreign trade, etc.) are not useful to distinguish the UK from other countries in that period, the quantity of patents is one of the only measures which announced the changes that were taking place. Secondly, we explain the historical development of the complex institutional arrangements that resulted in a patent system that, paradoxically, fostered particular micro inefficiencies that turned into macro efficiencies.