Inventive Activities, Patents and Early Industrialization. A Synthesis of Research Issues

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of recent research on the role of patent systems in the early phases of industrialization. Perhaps surprisingly, no consensus has been reached yet as to whether the emergence of modern patent systems exerted a favourable impact on inventive activities. However, the recent literature has shed light on a number of fundamental factors which affect the links between inventive activities and the patent system. The concluding section of the paper outlines some "history lessons" for the current debate on the role of Intellectual Property Rights in economic development.