Economic History

Invention, Techno-Nationalism and Progress: The Discourse of Intellectual Property in Nineteenth-Century Spain

This article examines the discourse of the social actors who operated within or through the Spanish patent institution during the nineteenth century. The article’s principal focus is the representation and conceptualisation of technological change in the social sites of invention and patenting activity. During the mid-nineteenth century, a discourse in support of mechanisation, industrial progress and intellectual property became dominant in this social environment. This discourse had an important techno-nationalistic component in a context of increasing economic globalisation, with its winners and losers, and the international technological competition displayed in colossal industrial exhibitions. Specifically, this article analyses the content of La Gaceta Industrial, a technical journal devoted largely to the world of invention and patents, and the explicit and implicit discourse of the technical and administrative documentation of patents granted in Spain during the period.

Keywords: : Invention, progress, techno-nationalism, La Gaceta Industrial, patents.

El artículo estudia el discurso elaborado en los espacios de la propiedad industrial durante el siglo XIX español. Se presta especial atención a la conceptualización y representación del cambio tecnológico y la retórica empleada por aquellos agentes sociales próximos al mundo de la invención tecnológica y la propiedad industrial. En las décadas centrales del siglo XIX empezó a generalizarse entre este grupo social un discurso apologético de la mecanización, el progreso industrial y la propiedad del invento. Este discurso se impregnaba de una retórica nacionalista que se veía estimulada por la creciente globalización económica, con sus consiguientes líderes y seguidores, y la competencia tecnológica escenificada en colosales exposiciones industriales. En concreto, el artículo analiza el contenido de una publicación técnica vinculada con la promoción y difusión de la información contenida en las patentes, La Gaceta Industrial, y el discurso, tanto explícito como implícito, de la documentación técnica y administrativa de los privilegios reales y de las patentes de invención solicitadas en España en este periodo.

Palabras clave: : Invención, progreso, nacionalismo tecnológico, La Gaceta Industrial, patentes.

"Review of Christine MacLeod: Heroes of invention. Technology, Liberalism and British Identity, 1750-1914", Investigaciones de Historia Económica 05(13), (193-195).

Christine MacLeod, Heroes of Invention: Technology, Liberalism and British Identity, 1750-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xv + 458 pp. $105 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-521-87370-3.

Pretel, D. Review: Edward Beatty. Technology and the Search for Progress in Modern Mexico. University of California Press, 2015.
Investigaciones de Historia Económica - Economic History Research (2016).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ihe.2016.07.004.

Durante el siglo XIX los sistemas de patentes de los distintos países tuvieron una evolución institucional heterogénea. Este artículo explora los determinantes internacionales de esta diversidad institucional tomando como estudio de caso el sistema español. En vez de trazar la causalidad de la institución al desempeño económico, se explora la relación inversa, es decir, cómo la dependencia y el retraso tecnológico españoles incidieron en la organización institucional de su sistema de patentes. El impacto de las dinámicas internacionales se hizo sentir en distintas esferas del sistema: en su naturaleza periférica, híbrida y dual; la recepción de las controversias europeas en torno a las patentes; la temprana integración de España en el sistema internacional de patentes; y el protagonismo de los intermediarios internacionales. Se concluye señalando que las variaciones en la arquitectura institucional y la práctica administrativa de los distintos sistemas nacionales fueron la consecuencia de la construcción de un sistema internacional de patentes asimétrico.

Abstract
The various nineteenth-century national patent systems had a heterogeneous institutional evolution. This article explores the international determinants of this institutional diversity, using the Spanish system as a case study. Instead of presenting the causality as running from institutions to economic performance, it explores the inverse relationship, that is, how Spain's technological backwardness and dependency set the stage for the institutional organisation of this country's patent system. The international dynamics manifested in different aspects of the system: its peripheral, hybrid and dual nature; the Spanish reception of the European controversy over patent rights; the early Spanish integration into the international patent system; and the prominence of international intermediaries. The article concludes that nineteenth-century variations in the institutional architecture and the administrative practices of the various national systems were the consequence of the historical making of an asymmetric international patent system.

This paper examines the rise of various forms of patent expertise over the course of
the second industrialisation. The essential insight here is that patent agents and lawyers, as well as consultant engineers, became, in the late 19th century, critical actors in the production and transmission of patent rights and patented technologies within and among societies. This paper considers three main themes. First, the global institutionalisation of patent agents during the late nineteenth century and their growing centrality in several national systems. Second, the transnational patenting networks created during the 1880s, particularly the activities of associations of patent agents and their impact on the making of an international patent system. Third, the controversial role of patent experts as agents of corporate globalism. The most important point remains that agents’ powers, and their many services to multinational corporations, had enduring consequences on the structure of knowledge property worldwide.

Este trabajo ofrece un estudio de los sistemas coloniales de patentes durante el siglo XIX. En primer lugar, se muestra la heterogeneidad en la regulación y práctica administrativa de las instituciones de patentes coloniales en los distintos imperios atlánticos, con especial atención al caso de América Latina. En segundo lugar, se estudia en detalle el funcionamiento y la evolución institucional del sistema de patentes
colonial en Puerto Rico, Cuba y Filipinas. Se sostiene que entre 1820 y 1860 este sistema fue una institución imperfecta, de corte neomercantilista, controlada por las corporaciones coloniales y que servía de espacio colectivo de intercambio de información tecnológica. En tercer lugar, se muestra la reconguración del sistema de patentes en las colonias españolas durante las dos últimas décadas del siglo XIX, en un contexto de acuerdos multilaterales y creciente inuencia estadunidense.

Palabras clave: patentes; colonialismo; neo-mercantilismo; instituciones; tecnología.

https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319962979

This book examines the development of the Spanish patent system in the years 1826 to 1902, providing a fundamental reassessment of its evolution in an international context. The Spanish case is particularly interesting because of this country’s location on the so-called European periphery and also because of the centrality of its colonial dimension. Pretel gauges the political regulation and organisation of the system, showing how it was established and how it evolved following international patterns of technological globalisation and the emergence of the ‘international patent system’ during the late nineteenth century.

Crucially, he highlights the construction and evolution of the patent system in response to the needs of Spain's technologically dependent economy. The degree of industrial backwardness in mid-nineteenth-century Spain set the stage for the institutionalisation of its modern patent system. This institutionalisation process also entailed the introduction of a new technological culture, social infrastructure and narrative that supported intellectual property rights. This book is important reading to all those interested in the history of patents and their role in globalisation.