Abstract
This chapter looks at the broader social context in which patenting took place in Spain during the nineteenth century. The 1870s marked a pivotal moment in the organisation of innovative activity in Spain. From then on, a social infrastructure facilitating patenting developed around the patent office. A variety of agents—such as intermediaries, lawyers and consulting engineers—placed themselves at the centre of the Spanish institution that granted intellectual property rights, shaping it and adapting it to the conditions and requirements of a peripheral European economy. Meanwhile, specialised technical publications, including an array of patent journals, became the broader cultural infrastructure supporting patentees, companies and intermediaries that used the Spanish patent system.
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Notes
- 1.
See the contributions to the following volume A. Lafuente et al. (eds.), Maquinismo ibérico (Madrid: Doce Calles, 2007) and the following general overview J. M. Sánchez Ron, Cincel, martillo y piedra: historia de la ciencia en España (Madrid: Taurus, 1999).
- 2.
J. A. Miranda and B. Montano, ‘Technological Innovation in Industrial Districts in Spain during the first third of the 20th Century’, Revista de Historia Industrial 66 (2017): 127–157.
- 3.
C. Freeman and F. Louçã, As Time Goes By: From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
- 4.
I. Inkster, ‘Engineers as Patentees and the Cultures of Invention 1830–1914 and Beyond: The Evidence from the Patent Data’, Quaderns d’Historia de l’Engyneria 6 (2004): 25–50.
- 5.
M. Silva (ed.), Técnica e ingeniería en España (Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2004–2013): Vol. iv–vii.
- 6.
S. Riera, ‘Industrialization and Technical Education in Spain 1850–1914’, in R. Fox and A. Guagnini (eds.), Education, Technology and Industrial Performance in Europe, 1850–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993): 141–70; J. M. Cano Pavón, Estado, enseñanza industrial y capital humano en la España isabelina, 1833–1868 (Málaga: Imprenta Montes, 2001); K. H. O’Rourke and J. G. Williamson, ‘Around the European Periphery 1870–1913: Globalization, Schooling and Growth’, European Review of Economic History 1 (2), (1997): 153–190.
- 7.
R. Teijelo, El Real Conservatorio de Artes, 1824–1887 (Barcelona: unpublished doctoral thesis, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, 2011).
- 8.
Riera (1993), Op. cit.; G. Lusa, ‘La difícil consolidación de las enseñanzas industriales (1855–1873)’, Documentos de la Escuela de Ingenieros Industriales de Barcelona 7 (2007): 15–26.
- 9.
J. M. Cano Pavón, ‘The Royal Industrial Institute of Madrid (1850–1867)’, Quaderns d’Història De l’Enginyeria 5 (2002): 66–73.
- 10.
Royal Order of 7/12/1858 about mandatory texts for the industrial engineering schools.
- 11.
Cano Pavón (2001), Op. cit.
- 12.
For the differences between the high theoretical scientific culture in France and the culture of practical science in Britain see Fox and Guagnini (1999), Op. cit.
- 13.
R. Manjarrés, ‘Enseñanza de artes y oficios’, La Gaceta Industrial Nos. 5, 6 and 7 (1888).
- 14.
J. Alcover, ‘Las dificultades que ofrece España para el empleo de las máquinas’, La Gaceta Industrial No. 30 (1865).
- 15.
A. Viguera, La ingeniería industrial española en el siglo XIX (Madrid: ETSI, 1961): 15–20; J. M. Ortiz-Villajos, Tecnología y desarrollo económico en la historia contemporánea (Madrid: OEPM): 117–8.
- 16.
R. Amengual, Bielas y Alabes, evolución histórica de las primeras máquinas térmicas a través de las patentes españolas, 1826–1914 (Madrid: OEPM, 2008). See also Notes on Sources (appendix).
- 17.
Fox and Guagnini (1999), Op. cit.
- 18.
P. Sáiz, Invención, patentes e innovación en la España contemporánea (Madrid: OEPM): 186–7.
- 19.
US patent N° 866238A.
- 20.
On the notion of elite patenting see Chapter 2 of this book.
- 21.
A. Anduaga: ‘The engineer as a “linking agent” in international technology transfer: the case of Basque engineers trained in Liège’, Engineering Studies, 3 (1), (2011): 45–70.
- 22.
For attempts of periodisation of patenting activity in nineteenth-century Spain, see Ortiz-Villajos (1999), Op. cit, 105–7; and Sáiz (1999), Op. cit., 146–50.
- 23.
D. Pretel, ‘The global rise of patent expertise in the late nineteenth century’, Cambridge Working Papers in Economic and Social History 31 (2017).
- 24.
D. Pretel and P. Sáiz, ‘Patent Agents in the European Periphery, Spain (1826–1902)’, History of Technology 31 (2012).
- 25.
For contemporary accounts of patent agents’ activity to commercially exploit inventions see G. Bolibar, ‘Misión de los agentes de negocios’, Industria e Invenciones, No. 7 (14/081908): 61–62; F. Walker, ‘Patent Agents and Patent Brokers’, Journal of the Society of Patent Agents 3 (27), (March 1902): 39–41.
- 26.
For a contemporary account on the high cost and time-consuming nature of the Spanish patent trials see G. Vicuña ‘Complemento de la ley de patentes’, La Semana Industrial year V Vol. V (January 1886): 7 and “Sindicato de inventores”, Industria e Invenciones, no.139 (28/08/1886): 93.
- 27.
International Directory of Patent Agents (London: William Reeves, 1893, 1897 and 1901).
- 28.
Patent applications and assignment contracts for the year 1900 (AHOEPM). See Notes on Sources (appendix).
- 29.
On the concept of professional ‘jurisdiction’ see A. Abbott: The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
- 30.
See, for instance, A. Ungría, ‘Representantes y representaciones comerciales’, El Fomento Industrial y Mercantil No. 355 (10/02/1901): 559–600; No. 356 (20/02/1901): 608–9; and No. 357 (28/02/1901): 615–616.
- 31.
G. Bolibar, ‘Publicación de las patentes de invención’, Industria e Invenciones, No. 156 (25/12/1886): 297–8; G. Bolibar, ‘Las asociaciones de agentes de patentes’ No. 20 (16/10/1901): 176; G. Bolibar, ‘Proyecto de ley sobre propiedad industrial’, Industria e Invenciones, No. 10 (7/09/1901): 84.
- 32.
G. Bolibar, ‘Review of Pedro Estasen, Derecho industrial en España’, Industria e Invenciones, No. 17 (22/10/1901): 142–3.
- 33.
For the regulation of the patent profession in the United States see K. Swanson, ‘The Emergence of the Professional Patent Practitioner’, Technology and Culture 50 (3), (2009): 519–548; For France see G. Gálvez-Behar, La République des Inventeurs: Propriété et Organisation de l’Innovation en France, 1791–1922 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008): 171–7; For Britain see H. I. Dutton, The Patent System and Inventive Activity: During the Industrial Revolution 1750–1852 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984): chapter 5 and A. Guagnini: ‘Patent Agents in Britain at the turn of the 20th Century’, History of Technology, Vol. 31 (2012).
- 34.
Royal Decree of 12/06/1903 (cle, Nueva Serie, t. xv). Section V on industrial property agents and the register of industrial property agents. Published in BOPI No. 452 (1/07/1902): 1052–4 and in the Gazeta de Madrid of 14/06/1903. A translation furnished by Francisco Elzaburu was also published in London by the Journal of the Society of Patent Agents, Vol. iv, no. 47–48 (1903): 162–66.
- 35.
Gerónimo Bolibar, ‘Observaciones al proyecto de ley de propiedad industrial’, Industria e Invenciones No.18 (02/11/1901): 158–64.
- 36.
See, for instance, the series of articles by Agustín Ungría celebrating the new regulation and the compulsory requirement to be registered as business agent: Agustín Ungría, ‘Los agentes de negocios y la propiedad industrial’, El Fomento Industrial y Mercantil No. 404 (20/06/1902): 991–2 and No. 407 (20/07/1902): 1016.
- 37.
The remarks of the Royal Order of 22/05/1905 on this issue are eloquent; bopi, No.453 (July 1905): 837–8.
- 38.
bopi, No. 461 (November 1905): 72.
- 39.
In March 1906 there were 32 individuals registered (bopi, No. 470: pp. 423–4); in April 1907, 36 (bopi 4, No. 96: p. 616) and in June 1908, 37 (bopi, No. 523, pp. 810–1). See also J. B. Sánchez, La Propiedad industrial en España: bosquejo histórico y legislación (Madrid: Instituto Editorial Reus, 1945): 219.
- 40.
Roeb & Co., Breve resumen de la propiedad industrial (Madrid: Roeb y Compañía, 1930).
- 41.
Royal Resolution of 17/03/1847. Revised with Royal Order of 25/04/1877. See also P. Madoz: Diccionario geografico-estadistico-historico de Espana (Madrid, 1847): 797–8.
- 42.
Information about business agents’ activities can be found in the publications Boletín de los Agentes de Negocios (from 1881) and El Fomento Industrial y Mercantil (from 1891).
- 43.
For information about the setup of the Asociación de Agentes de Propiedad Industrial see La Industria Nacional N° 14 (28/02/1909).
- 44.
Royal Order of 12/05/1909.
- 45.
‘Spain. Industrial Property. Proposed Changes in the Law’, Patent and Trade Mark Review, V. 12–13 (1913–15): 293–294.
- 46.
RO of 13/12/192, Gaceta de Madrid, No. 85 (04/02/1917): 35; No. 88 (07/02/1917): 811; and No. 125 (06/05/1917): 346.
- 47.
‘Rich and Poor Inventors’, Scientific American, No. 9 (13 May 1854), 277. Cited in R. Thomson, Structures of Change in the Mechanical Age: Technological Innovation in the United States, 1790–1865 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009): 201.
- 48.
A. Algaba, ‘La difusión de la innovación. Las revistas científicas en España 1760–1936’, Scripta Nova 69 (17), (2000); E. Fernández-Clemente, ‘La recepción en España de la Segunda Revolución Industrial: las revistas de ingenieros (1900–1936)’, in P. Aubert and J. M. Desvois (eds.), Les Élites et la Presse en Espagne et en Amérique Latine: des Lumières à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2001): 171–188.
- 49.
Some pointers on contemporary Spanish monographs focusing on patent issues are: T. Merly, Legislación industrial española (1879); F. Lastres, La propiedad industrial y las marcas de fábrica (1886); J. Vila, Manual de patentes de invención (1902) and P. Estasén, Derecho industrial de España (1900).
- 50.
G. Gironi, ‘Los privilegios de invención’, La Semana Industrial (22/01/1886).
- 51.
J. Alcover, La máquina moderna (Madrid: Imp. de M. Tello, 1882).
- 52.
For José Alcover and the Industrial Gazette see D. Pretel, ‘Invención, nacionalismo tecnológico y progreso’, Empiria 18 (2009): 59–83.
- 53.
A fine literary description of Agustín Ungría’s business agency activities in the 1920s in the ‘hundreds of official departments’ and the origins of this firm in the late nineteenth century can be found in A. Barea, The Forging of a Rebel (London: Davis-Poynter, 1972): 390–3.
- 54.
See for example ‘Estudios sobre propiedad industrial: Las patentes de invención’, El Fomento Industrial y Mercantil (20/08/1900).
- 55.
G. Bolibar, Lo que debe saber el inventor: datos y consejos de utilidad para los inventores o propietarios de patentes and Lo que debe saber el que usa marcas: datos y consejos de utilidad práctica. See also F. A. Lázaro, Patentes de invención. Instrucciones prácticas (Madrid, 1895).
- 56.
For a conceptualization and social location of science popularisation in the European periphery see F. Papanelopoulou et al. (eds.), Popularizing Science and Technology in the European Periphery, 1800–2000 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009).
- 57.
Viguera (1961), Op. cit., 61; Amengual (2008), Op. cit., 54.
- 58.
See for example P. Carpentier, La Loi Espagnole sur la Propriété Industrielle du 16 Mai 1902 (Paris: A. Chevalier-Maresco, 1904); Ley de propiedad industrial de mayo de 1902 (Barcelona: Administración de Industria e Invenciones, 1902).
- 59.
W. P. Thompson, Handbook of Patent Law of All Countries (London: Stevens & Sons, 1882).
- 60.
J. Alcover, ‘Convenio internacional para la protección de la propiedad industrial’, La Gaceta Industrial, No.18 (25/09/1884).
- 61.
G. Bolibar, ‘Los derechos del inventor’, Industria e Invenciones No.102 (2/2/1885): 249–50.
Acknowledgements
Certain parts of this chapter appeared previously as an article in a 2012 edition of History of Technology (Vol. 31). This material, which initially had appeared in my doctoral thesis, has been substantially revised for the present chapter. I am grateful to Bloomsbury Academic (an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc) for the permission to reintroduce it here.
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Pretel, D. (2018). Organising the System. In: Institutionalising Patents in Nineteenth-Century Spain. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96298-6_3
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