The British Patent System during the Industrial Revolution 1700–1852
From Privilege to Property
Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law Series

The British Patent System during the Industrial Revolution 1700?1852 presents a fundamental reassessment of the contribution of patenting to British industrialisation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It shows that despite the absence of legislative reform, the British patent system was continually evolving and responding to the needs of an industrialising economy. Inventors were able to obtain and enforce patent rights with relative ease. This placed Britain in an exceptional position. Until other countries began to enact patent laws in the 1790s, it was the only country where inventors were frequently able to appropriate returns from obtaining intellectual property rights, thus encouraging them to develop the new technology industrialisation required.

1. Introduction; Part I. The Patent 'System': 2. The administration of patents: a poor man's tale?; 3. The jurisprudence of patents: the specification requirement; 4. Of patents and pirates: the adjudication of patent disputes; 5. The substantive development of patent law; Conclusion to Part I; Part II. Patents and Technology: 6. Patents and the Industrial Enlightenment; 7. The market in patent rights; 8. Patents and the Newcomen and Watt steam engines; 9. Capital, patents and the joint-stock company; Conclusion to Part II.

Sean Bottomley is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Toulouse School of Economics, Université Toulouse 1. His research interests are the British industrial revolution and the relationship between technological change and economic development.