Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/315205 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
QUCEH Working Paper Series No. 25-03
Publisher: 
Queen's University Centre for Economic History (QUCEH), Belfast
Abstract: 
This paper is an institutional study of the patent systems of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and its successor states Belgium and the Netherlands in the nineteenth century. The patent law of 1817 gave the state wide discretion to accept or refuse patents and to customise their duration, fees, and terms on a case-by-case basis. Through an indepth reconstruction of the patent system's administrative process, I demonstrate (1) how this system developed informal rules of procedure in its initial years, and (2) how the law after Belgium's independence from 1830 fared differently in each successor state. While in Belgium the patent system became widely used and increasingly codified, culminating in an 1850s reform, in the Netherlands the neglect of the patent system led in 1869 to its abolition.
Subjects: 
institutions
patents
economic history
nineteenth century
industrial revolution
the Netherlands
Belgium
JEL: 
K22
L43
N43
O31
O34
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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