Intellectual Property Right Regimes, Firms and the Commodification of Knowledge
29 Pages Posted: 30 Jul 2009
Date Written: July 29, 2009
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyse the evolution of the intellectual property regime, and more precisely the patent regime, in the USA, since the 19th century. To do so, we shall consider intellectual property within the context of general transformations in capitalism, focusing on two main historical phases. Firstly, the period covering the formation and development of 'corporate capitalism' dominated by large corporations. And then the new phase, which opened up in the 1980s, marked by the rise to power of finance. From a perspective of institutional complementarities, we seek to show how the characteristics and implications of IPR regimes can only be understood in relation to transformations in the main institutional forms of capitalism: forms of the firm, the status of labour (the 'wage-labour nexus'), and market forms.
Keywords: intellectual property, patent, knowledge, corporate capitalism, firm, market, financiarisation, institutional complementarities.
JEL Classification: O34, P1
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Inventors, Firms, and the Market for Technology in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
-
Inventive Activity and the Market for Technology in the United States, 1840-1920
-
Financing Invention During the Second Industrial Revolution: Cleveland, Ohio, 1870-1920
By Naomi R. Lamoreaux, Margaret C. Levenstein, ...
-
The Decline of the Independent Inventor: A Schumpterian Story?
-
Mobilizing Venture Capital During the Second Industrial Revolution: Cleveland, Ohio, 1870 - 1920
By Naomi R. Lamoreaux, Margaret C. Levenstein, ...
-
The Reorganization of Inventive Activity in the United States During the Early Twentieth Century
By Naomi R. Lamoreaux, Kenneth L. Sokoloff, ...
-
A Shop Floor View of Growth in Turn-of-The-Century Cleveland