Independent invention in Italy during the Liberal Age, 1861–1913

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. ABSTRACT: In this paper we examine the phenomenon of independent invention in Italy during the liberal age .We make use of a new dataset comprising all patents granted in Italy in five benchmark years: 1864-65, 1881, 1891, 1902 and 1911. We carry out the following exercises. First we examine the relative shares of independent, corporate and foreign inventions and their evolution over time and across industries. Second, by exploiting the peculiarities of Italian patent legislation which established a maximum patent length of fifteen years and a flexible renewal scheme which allowed inventors to maintain a patent "alive" for almost any specific duration, we assess the relative quality of independent and corporate patents. Our results indicate that in Italy independent inventors provided an important contribution to technological change but the quality of their patents was significantly lower than that of firms and of foreign patentees. Terms of use: Documents inJEL codes: N73, O31We would like to thank Sara Pecchioli for outstanding research assistance and Michele Mannucci for granting us access to their historical library of Ufficio Tecnico Ing. A. Mannucci s.r.l (Firenze). Giovanni Federico and Tom Nicholas have generously shared data with us. We are also grateful to

Exhibitions, patents, and innovation in the early twentieth century: evidence from the Turin 1911 International Exhibition

“…It confirms that the Turin 1911 exhibition was an important opportunity for Italian producers and innovators to demonstrate their achievements on an international scale, and for their foreign equivalents to promote their items in the expanding Italian market. Sources: for exhibits, Table 3 and Table B; for patents, own elaboration on data by Nuvolari and Vasta (2015a); for FDI, Colli (2010,…”

“…8. 19 Own calculation based on data by Nuvolari and Vasta (2015a). 20 Notice that Moser herself adopts a conservative approach, when matching exhibits and patents: "To capture as many patents as possible, patents are counted as a match as long as they are related to the exhibit" (Moser 2012, p. 50).…”

“…Notably, almost 70% of the former are firms, while more than 80% of the latter are individuals. 24 These large shares make no surprise: on one side, as pointed out above, exhibitions were important means of advertisement and reputation-building for firms; on the other, the relevance of the contribution to patenting by individual inventors, in the decades between the nineteenth and the twentieth century, is well known in the literature (Hughes 1989;Lamoreaux and Sokoloff 1999;Nicholas 2010;Nuvolari and Vasta 2015a). Furthermore, the cost of exhibiting could represent a barrier for participation in the exhibition by individuals, whereas patenting was more accessible: indeed, an estimate of the costs of exhibiting and patenting, the details of which are presented in Appendix B, reveals that the former was two or three times more expensive than the latter.…”

“…On the side of Italian patents, the number of renewals can be used as a proxy for quality (Nuvolari and Vasta 2015a). In particular, patents requested for the maximum length (15 years), accounting for the top 10% of total patents, are considered as high-quality.…”

“…Nuvolari and Vasta (2015a) digitalized information from Italian patents in five benchmark years over the Italian "Liberal age" (1861-1913), including 1911. I am grateful to them for disclosing their data.10 The purpose of the exhibition, as per art.…”