Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/32192 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods No. 2009,26
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn
Abstract: 
We describe the transfer of patents in late 19th- and early 20th- century Germany using a new and comprehensive database containing information on about 20,000 transactions. The number of transactions shows an upward trend, in total numbers and as a share of patents in force. In total, about eight percent of patents were transferred at least once during their existence. Many transactions involved the transfer of patents with an above-average quality from individual inventors to firms and to newly-created - entrepreneurial - firms. In addition, valuable patents were transferred between firms. About two-thirds of all transfers occurred during the first three years of a patents' existence, giving the new owner potentially a long period of patent protection.
Subjects: 
Economic History
Germany
pre-1913
Patents
Technology transfer
JEL: 
N73
O34
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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