Institutions and Agents of Technological Diffusion in 19th Century Spain

UAM Working Papers in Economic History, nº 05/2011, ISSN: 1885-6888

28 Pages Posted: 12 Dec 2019 Last revised: 28 Jun 2021

See all articles by David Pretel

David Pretel

El Colegio de Mexico

Patricio Sáiz

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Date Written: 2011

Abstract

Although some recent studies have provided fresh intellectual insights on the role of patent practitioners during the nineteenth century, they have largely overlooked the activity of these actors in international patenting and peripheral countries. This study will fill a gap in the existing scholarship through an examination of the role and influence of patent agents in Spain from the introduction of the country’s first modern intellectual property law in 1826 to the regulation of agents’ practice in 1902. The study explores the range of activities carried out by those individuals employed by Spanish and foreign patentees to deal with both the patent application process and the commercialisation of property rights. Our argument here is that a focus on patent agents and other forms of agency can provide us with a better understanding of processes of invention, innovation and technology transfer in the European periphery during the nineteenth century. The history of technology in the periphery requires attention not only to the incentives for innovation but also to the social procedure of transmission of knowledge, ideas and information as well as the actors involved in this activity. Our focus cannot be solely on the transfer and communication of knowledge and information from advanced industrial nations to ‘backward’ ones; it must also include the processes of interaction, exchange and appropriation that occurred in both directions.

Keywords: Agency, Agents, Patents, Technology Transfer

JEL Classification: N73, O33, O34

Suggested Citation

Pretel, David and Sáiz, Patricio, Institutions and Agents of Technological Diffusion in 19th Century Spain (2011). UAM Working Papers in Economic History, nº 05/2011, ISSN: 1885-6888, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3495928 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3495928

David Pretel

El Colegio de Mexico ( email )

Mexico DF 01000
United States

Patricio Sáiz (Contact Author)

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid ( email )

Campus Cantoblanco
Madrid, Madrid 28049
Spain

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
21
Abstract Views
336
PlumX Metrics