Abstract
In the second half of the 19th century, Germany developed into one of the most innovative economies in the world and was able to defend this position in the 20th century. In order to investigate the causes of this inventiveness, it is necessary to quantify innovations and assign them to inventors, regions and industries. For this reason, various historical patent databases have been set up over the last two decades, currently covering the period from 1815 to 1990. We present these patent databases and give an overview of the main empirical studies based on these statistics.
Funding source: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
References
Acemoglu, Daron, and Pascual Restrepo. 2019. “Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 33 (2): 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.33.2.3.Search in Google Scholar
Andersson, David E., and Matti La Mela. 2020. “Nordic Networks: Patent Agents and the Business of Technology Intermediation in Sweden and Finland, 1860-1910.” Scandinavian Economic History Review 68 (1): 45–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/03585522.2019.1667425.Search in Google Scholar
Andersson, David E., and Fredrik Tell. 2019. “From Fighting Monopolies to Promoting Industry: Patent Laws and Innovation in Sweden 1819-1914.” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 60 (1): 123–56. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2019-0006.Search in Google Scholar
Baten, Jörg, Anna Spadavecchia, Jochen Streb, and Shuxi Yin. 2007. “What Made Southwest German Firms Innovative Around 1900? Assessing the Importance of Intra- and Inter-industry Externalities.” Oxford Economic Papers 59: i105–26. https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpm032.Search in Google Scholar
Bartels, Charlotte, Simon Jäger, and Natalie Obergruber. 2024. “Long-Term Effects of Equal Sharing: Evidence from Inheritance Rules for Land.” Economic Journal. https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueae040.Search in Google Scholar
Basberg, Bjørn. 2019. “Seeking International Coordination: The Norwegian Patent Law of 1885.” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 60 (1): 157–79. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2019-0007.Search in Google Scholar
Beatty, Edward, Yovanna Pineda, and Patricio Sáiz. 2017. “Technology in Latin America’s Past and Present: New Evidence from the Patent Records.” Latin American Research Review 52 (1): 138–49. https://doi.org/10.25222/larr.46.Search in Google Scholar
Berbée, Paul, Sebastian T. Braun, and Richard Franke. 2024. Reversing Fortunes of German Regions, 1926–2019: Boon and Bane of Early Industrialization. Working Paper.10.1007/s10887-024-09247-xSearch in Google Scholar
Bergeaud, Antonin, and Cyril Verluise. 2024. “A New Dataset to Study a Century of Innovation in Europe and in the US.” Research Policy 53 (1): 104903. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2023.104903.Search in Google Scholar
Bottomley, Sean. 2014. “Patenting in England, Scotland and Ireland during the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1852.” Explorations in Economic History 54: 48–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2014.08.002.Search in Google Scholar
Burhop, Carsten. 2010. “The Transfer of Patents in Imperial Germany.” The Journal of Economic History 70 (4): 921–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/s002205071000077x.Search in Google Scholar
Burhop, Carsten, and N. Nikolaus Wolf. 2013. “The German Market for Patents during the “Second Industrialization”, 1884–1913: A Gravity Approach.” Business History Review 87 (1): 69–93. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007680513000147.Search in Google Scholar
Cinnirella, Francesco, and Jochen Streb. 2017. “The Role of Human Capital and Innovation in Economic Development: Evidence from Post-malthusian Prussia.” Journal of Economic Growth 22 (2): 193–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10887-017-9141-3.Search in Google Scholar
Clark, Greg. 2007. A Farewell to Alms: A Brief History of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400827817Search in Google Scholar
Coates, Benjamin A. 2018. “The Secret Life of Statutes: A Century of the Trading with the Enemy Act.” Modern American History 1 (2): 151–72. https://doi.org/10.1017/mah.2018.12.Search in Google Scholar
Degner, Harald. 2009. “Schumpeterian German Firms Before and After World War I: The Innovative Few and the Non-innovative Many.” Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 54 (1): 50–72. https://doi.org/10.17104/0342-2852_2009_1_50.Search in Google Scholar
Degner, Harald. 2011. “Do Technological Booms Matter? New Evidence on the Relationship between Firm Size and Innovativeness.” Cliometrica 5: 121–44. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-010-0054-z.Search in Google Scholar
Degner, Harald, and Jochen Streb. 2014. “Foreign Patenting in Germany, 1877-1932.” In Organizing Global Technology Flows, edited by Pierre-Yves Donzé, and Shigehiro Nishimura, 17–38. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Domini, Giacomo. 2020. “Exhibitions, Patents, and Innovation in the Early Twentieth Century. Evidence from the Turin 1911 International Exhibition.” European Review of Economic History 24 (3): 578–600. https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez004.Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, and Felix Selgert. 2019a. “Do Legal Differences Matter? A Comparison of German Patent Law Regimes before 1877.” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 60 (1): 57–92. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2019-0004.Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, and Felix Selgert. 2019b. “Technology Transfer via Foreign Patents in Germany, 1843–1877.” The Economic History Review 72 (1): 182–208. https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12703.Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, and Felix Selgert. 2021. “The Social Background of Prussian Inventors and Entrepreneurs during the First Industrial Revolution.” Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 66 (1): 1–41. https://doi.org/10.1515/zug-2019-0030.Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, and Felix Selgert. 2022. The Consequences of Radical Patent-Regime Change. Working Paper.Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, and Felix Selgert. 2023. Patente und Innovationen in der Industrialisierung. Wie Institutionen den technologischen Wandel in den deutschen Staaten beeinflussten, 1815–1877. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler.10.1007/978-3-658-41785-7Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, and Jochen Streb. 2023a. “Patent Law and Technical Progress.” In An Economic History of the First German Unification: State Formation and Economic Development in a European Perspective, edited by Ulrich Pfister, and Nikolaus Wolf, 160–80. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781003283430-12Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, and Jochen Streb. 2023b. How the West Was Settled. The Location Choice of East German Companies Migrating to West Germany after World War II. Working Paper.10.2139/ssrn.4538079Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, Jean-Marie Meier, and Rui Silva. 2023. “The Impact of Institutions on Innovation.” Management Science 69 (4): 1951–74, https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4403.Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, Felix Selgert, and Jochen Streb. 2023. Patent Litigation in the German Empire. Working Paper.10.2139/ssrn.4622736Search in Google Scholar
Donges, Alexander, Finni Jo Erdmann, Sophia Rishyna, and Jochen Streb. 2024. Female Inventorship in Authoritarian Regimes: The Cases of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic. Mannheim: Mimeo.Search in Google Scholar
Feldenkirchen, Wilfried. 1997. Siemens: Von der Werkstatt zum Weltunternehmen. Munich: Piper.Search in Google Scholar
Frey, Carl Benedikt. 2019. The Technology Trap. Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9780691191959Search in Google Scholar
Fritsch, Michael, Maria Greve, and Michael Wyrwich. 2024. Historisches Erbe regionaler Innovationstätigkeit - der Fall Ost- und Westdeutschland. Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik. https://doi.org/10.1515/pwp-2023-0025.Search in Google Scholar
Galor, Oded. 2011. Unified Growth Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400838868Search in Google Scholar
Galvez-Behar, Gabriel. 2008. La République des Inventeurs: Propriété et Organisation de l’Innovation en France (1791-1922). Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.Search in Google Scholar
Galvez-Behar, Gabriel. 2019. “The Patent System during the French Industrial Revolution: Institutional Change and Economic Effects.” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 60 (1): 31–56. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2019-0003.Search in Google Scholar
Gleitsmann, Rolf-Jürgen. 1985. “„Wir Wissen Aber, Gott Lob, Was Wir Thuen“: Erfinderprivilegien und technologischer Wandel im 16. Jahrhundert.” Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte/Journal of Business History 30 (2): 69–95. https://doi.org/10.1515/zug-1985-0202.Search in Google Scholar
Glitz, Albrecht, and Erik Meyersson. 2020. “Industrial Espionage and Productivity.” The American Economic Review 110 (4): 1055–103. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20171732.Search in Google Scholar
Griliches, Zvi. 1990. “Patent Statistics as Economic Indicators. A Survey.” Journal of Economic Literature 28 (4): 1661–707.10.3386/w3301Search in Google Scholar
Heggen, Alfred. 1975. Erfindungsschutz und Industrialisierung in Preußen 1793–1877. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.Search in Google Scholar
Hipp, Ann, Michael Fritsch, Maria Greve, Jutta Günther, Marcel Lange, Christian Liutik, Beate Pfeifer, Mariia Shkolnykova and Michael Wyrwich. 2024. “Comprehensive Patent Data of the German Democratic Republic 1949-1990.” Jahrbucher für Nationalokonomie und Statistik 244 (1–2): 149–58. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2022-0058.Search in Google Scholar
Inoue, Hiroyasu, Tetsuji Okazaki, and Yukiko Umeno Saito. 2020. Innovation Activities in Prewar Japan: Patent Bibliographic Information Database. RIETI Policy Discussion Papers 20012.Search in Google Scholar
Jaffe, Adam, and Manuel Trajtenberg. 2002. Patents, Citations, and Innovations. A Window on the Knowledge Economy. Cambridge: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/5263.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Juhász, Réka, Nathan Lane, and Dani Rodrik. 2024. “The New Economy of Industrial Policy.” Annual Review of Economics 16: 213–42.10.1146/annurev-economics-081023-024638Search in Google Scholar
La Mela, Matti, Olli Turunen, and Jari Eloranta. 2022. The Emergence of a Peripheral Patent System: Finland between Sweden and Russia, c. 1840-1940. Uppsala University: Mimeo.Search in Google Scholar
Lamoreaux, Naomi R., and Kenneth L. Sokoloff. 2001. “Market Trade in Patents and the Rise of a Class of Specialized Inventors in the Nineteenth-Century United States.” The American Economic Review 91 (2): 39–44. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.91.2.39.Search in Google Scholar
Lampe, Ryan, and Petra Moser. 2016. “Patent Pools, Competition, and Innovation. Evidence from 20 US Industries under the New Deal.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 32 (1): 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1093/jleo/ewv014.Search in Google Scholar
Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle, and Jochen Streb. 2016. “The Berlin Stock Exchange in Imperial Germany: A Market for New Technology?” The American Economic Review 106 (11): 3558–76. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20150626.Search in Google Scholar
Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle, and Jochen Streb. 2020. “Discrimination against Foreigners: The Wuerttemberg Patent Law in Administrative Practice.” The Journal of Economic History 80 (4): 1071–100. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050720000479.Search in Google Scholar
Magazzini, Laura, Alessandro Nuvolari, and Michelangelo Vasta. 2024. “Uncertainty and Innovation: New Perspectives from 19th Century Patenting Behaviour.” In The Routledge Handbook of Economic Expectations in Historical Perspective, edited by Ingo Köhler, Laetitia Lenel, Alexander Nützenadel, and Jochen Streb. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Mokyr, Joel. 2002. The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Moser, Petra. 2012. “Innovation without Patents. Evidence from World’s Fairs.” The Journal of Law and Economics 55 (1): 43–74. https://doi.org/10.1086/663631.Search in Google Scholar
Moser, Petra, and Alessandra Voena. 2012. “Compulsory Licensing: Evidence from the Trading with the Enemy Act.” The American Economic Review 102 (1): 396–427. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.102.1.396.Search in Google Scholar
Murmann, Johann Peter. 2003. Knowledge and Competitive Advantage: The Coevolution of Firms, Technology, and National Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511510953Search in Google Scholar
Nicholas, Tom. 2011. “Independent Invention during the Rise of the Corporate Economy in Britain and Japan.” The Economic History Review 64 (3): 995–1023. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2010.00586.x.Search in Google Scholar
Nuvolari, Alessandro, and Michelangelo Vasta. 2015. “Independent Innovation in Italy during the Liberal Age, 1861-1913.” The Economic History Review 68 (3): 858–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12087.Search in Google Scholar
Nuvolari, Alessandro, and Michelangelo Vasta. 2017. “The Geography of Innovation in Italy, 1861-1913. Evidence from Patent Data.” European Review of Economic History 21 (3): 326–56. https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hex006.Search in Google Scholar
Nuvolari, Alessandro, and Michelangelo Vasta. 2019. “Patenting the Risorgimento. Economic Integration and the Formation of the Italian Patent System (1855-1872).” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 60 (1): 93–122. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2019-0005.Search in Google Scholar
Nuvolari, Alessandro, Valentina Tartari, and Matteo Tranchero. 2021. “Patterns of Innovation during the Industrial Revolution: A Reappraisal Using a Composite Indicator of Patent Quality.” Explorations in Economic History 82: 101419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2021.101419.Search in Google Scholar
Nuvolari, Alessandro, Gaspare Tortorici, and Michelangelo Vasta. 2023. “British-French Technology Transfer from the Revolution to Louis Phillipe (1791-1844): Evidence from Patent Data.” The Journal of Economic History 83 (3): 833–73. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050723000232.Search in Google Scholar
Patentamt, Kaiserliches. 1890. Verzeichnis der von dem Kaiserlichen Patentamt im Jahre 1889 ertheilten Patente. Berlin: Carl Heymanns Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Petralia, Sergio, Pierre-Alexandre Balland, and David L. Rigby. 2016. “Unveiling the Geography of Historical Patents in the United States from 1836 to 1975.” Scientific Data 3: 160074. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.74.Search in Google Scholar
Pfister, Ulrich. 2020. “The Crafts–Harley View of German Industrialization: An Independent Estimate of the Income Side of Net National Product, 1851–1913.” European Review of Economic History 24 (3): 502–21. https://doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hez009.Search in Google Scholar
Poege, Felix. 2022. Competition and Innovation. The Breakup of IG Farben. Boston University School of Law Research Paper 22–24.10.5465/AMBPP.2022.12806abstractSearch in Google Scholar
Richter, Ralf, and Jochen Streb. 2011. “Catching-Up and Falling behind: Knowledge Spillover from American to German Machine Toolmakers.” The Journal of Economic History 71 (4): 1006–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050711002221.Search in Google Scholar
Romer, Paul M. 1990. “Endogenous Technological Change.” Journal of Political Economy 98 (5): 71–102. https://doi.org/10.1086/261725.Search in Google Scholar
Sáiz, Patricio. 2014. “Did Patents of Introduction Encourage Technology Transfer? Long-Term Evidence from the Spanish Innovation System.” Cliometrica 8 (1): 49–78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-013-0094-2.Search in Google Scholar
Sáiz, Patricio, and Ruben Amengual. 2018. “Do Patents Enable Disclosure? Strategic Innovation Management of the Four-Stroke Engine.” Industrial and Corporate Change 27 (6): 975–97. https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/dty018.Search in Google Scholar
Schmookler, Jacob. 1954. “The Level of Inventive Actvitiy.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 36 (2): 183–90. https://doi.org/10.2307/1924669.Search in Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph Alois. 1949. The Theory of Economic Development, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Seckelmann, Margrit. 2006. Industrialisierung, Internationalisierung und Patentrecht im Deutschen Reich. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann.Search in Google Scholar
Sokoloff, Kenneth L. 1988. “Inventive Activity in Early Industrial America: Evidence from Patent Records, 1790-1846.” The Journal of Economic History 48 (4): 813–50. https://doi.org/10.1017/s002205070000663x.Search in Google Scholar
Sokoloff, Kenneth L., and B. Zorina Khan. 1990. “The Democratization of Invention during Early Industrialization: Evidence from the United States, 1790-1846.” The Journal of Economic History 50 (2): 363–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050700036494.Search in Google Scholar
Solow, Robert M. 1956. “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 70 (1): 65–94. https://doi.org/10.2307/1884513.Search in Google Scholar
Streb, Jochen. 2019. “Persistenz im Schumpeterschen Wettbewerb.” In Ordnung und Chaos – Trends und Brüche in der Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, edited by Günther Schulz, 135–52. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Streb, Jochen. 2023. “Patent Law and Economic Performance.” Rivista di Storia Economica 39 (1): 3–26.Search in Google Scholar
Streb, Jochen. 2024. “The Cliometric Study of Innovations.” In Handbook of Cliometrics. 3rd ed, edited by Claude Diebolt, and Michael Haupert, 2225–45. Heidelberg: Springer.10.1007/978-3-031-35583-7_18Search in Google Scholar
Streb, Jochen, Jörg Baten, and Shuxi Yin. 2006. “Technological and Geographical Knowledge Spillover in the German Empire.” The Economic History Review 59 (2): 347–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2006.00347.x.Search in Google Scholar
Streb, Jochen, Jacek Wallusch, and Shuxi Yin. 2007. “Knowledge Spill-Over from New to Old Industries: The Case of German Synthetic Dyes and Textiles (1878–1913).” Explorations in Economic History 44: 203–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2005.11.002.Search in Google Scholar
Sullivan, Richard J. 1994. “Estimates of the Value of Patent Rights in Great Britain and Ireland, 1852-1976.” Economica 61 (1): 37–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/2555048.Search in Google Scholar
Wagenaar, Homer. 2021. The Road to Abolition: The Dutch Patent System 1817-1869. Diss., Queen’s University Belfast.Search in Google Scholar
Wießner, Matthias. 2015. “Das Patentgesetz der DDR.” In Geschichte des deutschen Patentrechts, edited by Martin Otto, and Diethelm Klippel, 239–88. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.Search in Google Scholar
© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- The 25th Anniversary of the German Economic Review 2.0
- Special Issue Articles
- New Data Frontiers in German Economic History
- Demographic Data for the Pre-Statistical Age (Late Sixteenth Century to 1870)
- Measuring Historical Inequality in Germany
- Causes of German Inventiveness, 1815–1990. What We Can Learn from Patent Statistics
- The Universe of Germany’s Foreign Trade Prior to World War I
- Data Sources on the 19th and Early 20th Century German Capital Market: Challenges and Opportunities
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- The 25th Anniversary of the German Economic Review 2.0
- Special Issue Articles
- New Data Frontiers in German Economic History
- Demographic Data for the Pre-Statistical Age (Late Sixteenth Century to 1870)
- Measuring Historical Inequality in Germany
- Causes of German Inventiveness, 1815–1990. What We Can Learn from Patent Statistics
- The Universe of Germany’s Foreign Trade Prior to World War I
- Data Sources on the 19th and Early 20th Century German Capital Market: Challenges and Opportunities