Essays on high-value patenting in Germany in an international perspective 1880 - 1932 [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Kirsten Labuske

Kirsten Bowen-Willer

Informations

• Publié par: eberhard_karls_universitat_tubingen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 23
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Essays on High-Value Patenting in Germany in an
International Perspective 1880-1932









Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades
der Wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät
der Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen







vorgelegt von








Kirsten Labuske


Stuttgart








2007
II













































Dekan: Professor Dr. Joachim Grammig
Erstkorrektor: Professor Dr. Jörg Baten
Zweitkorrektor: Professor Dr. Jochen Streb
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 11. September 2007
III
The German patent office 1905-45 (Gitschiner Straße 97-103, Berlin)






IV
Acknowledgements

My thesis would not have been feasible without the support of several people to whom I
would like to express my deep gratitude.
My advisor Jörg Baten has my deepest respect. His unfailing guidance and
insights provided essential support for my work, of which I am thankful beyond words. I
have been amazingly fortunate to have an advisor and co-author who has been always
available to listen and give advice. He gave me the maximum freedom to gain teaching
experience independently and to explore my own research ideas. I deeply appreciated his
encouragement to present my research to an international audience on various
conferences all over the world.
Jochen Streb was instrumental in sharing ideas and giving advice from the
beginning of my thesis onwards. His outstanding creativity never ceased to inspire me
and his comments were always insightful. My learning experience was indeed enhanced
by his vast historical knowledge. It was a rewarding experience to discuss research and to
write a paper with him.
I also wish to express my deepest gratitude to my colleagues of the DFG research
project: “Technology spill-over in German industrialisation, 1880-1913”. The first steps
of my PhD project were due to the offer of Jörg Baten and Jochen Streb to be a part of
their research team. Without them, this work would not have been possible. I am
especially thankful to Jörg Baten, Jochen Streb, Benjamin Schicker and Shuxi Yin for
their generous offer of the unique high-value patent data sets. The fruits of their
monumental efforts were a vital component in my dissertation.
I greatly appreciate the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for providing
financial support in the beginning of my dissertation project and I am grateful to the
Marie Curie Research Training Network for the Pre-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the
Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.
V
Special thanks goes to the research group in Tübingen. I have greatly benefited
from comments, criticism, and ideas during research seminars and lunch talks. In
particular, I wish to thank Markus Baltzer, Dominic Behle, Aravinda Meera Guntupalli,
Nikola Köpke, Margaryta Korolenko, Kerstin Manzel, Normann Müller, Olena Purtova,
Sonja Rabus, Eva Rosenstock, Daniel Schwekendiek, Mojgan Stegl, and Shuxi Yin. The
discussions with Dorothee Crayen, Kerstin Enflo and Gerhard Kling were extremely
productive. I would like to thank A. Leticia Arroyo Abad, Dorothee Crayen, and Camilla
Josephson for proofreading parts of this thesis. I cannot imagine having gone through this
process without all of them.
The time spent in Barcelona at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, conferences and
workshops in Berlin, Strasbourg, Tahoe City, Istanbul, Reading, Tübingen, Helsinki,
Lindau, Lund, and Ponta Delgada contributed to the writing of my dissertation. There I
have been able to meet many colleagues and friends whose comments have been
extremely valuable. In particular, I would like to thank Robert Allen, Carsten Burhop,
Patrick O’Brian, Stephen Broadberry, Albert Carreras, Greg Clark, Nick Crafts, Claude
Diebolt, Clive W. J. Granger, Pedro Lains, Tim Leuning, Peter Lindert, Jonas Ljungberg,
Peter Meyer, David Mitch, Albrecht Ritschl, Max-Stephan Schulze, Lennart Schön,
Joachim Voth, Tom Weiss, Nikolaus Wolf, and Jan Luiten van Zanden.
A very special thanks goes to my mother for all the encouragement. Her
unwavering faith and the education she gave me has shaped me to be the person I am
today.
Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to Falk Jäger. He always believed in me and
has always been there through all the ups and downs. Without his loving support and
encouragement, the whole thesis would have been impossible. I am also gratefully
indebted to his willingness to take me and my colleagues to distant airports to make our
business trips more comfortable. I cannot thank him enough.
VI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................1
1.1 The aim of this dissertation project ...................................................................1
1.2 The history and relevance of the first German patent law 1877........................2
1.3 How to measure important patents ....................................................................6
1.3.1 Measuring innovative activity................................................................6
1.3.2 Advantages and limitations of patents as a proxy for innovation .........7
1.3.3 Secrecy or patent protection? Alternatives to appropriate returns
from innovation......................................................................................9
1.3.4 How to distinguish between important and unimportant patents........12
1.3.5 The relevance of foreign patents..........................................................13
1.3.6 Further economic relevance of patents in an international context....15
1.4 The high-value patent database .......................................................................16
1.5 Empirical findings and publications due to the high-value patent database....17
1.6 The structure of this dissertation......................................................................18
2 FOREIGN PATENTING IN GERMANY AND ITS DETERMINANTS: A STUDY ON 51
COUNTRIES, 1880-1914 ............................................................................................21
2.1 Abstract............................................................................................................21
2.2 Introduction......................................................................................................22
2.2.1 Hypothesis 1: Patent laws had a positive influence on innovativeness25
2.2.2 Hypothesis 2: Primary schooling had a positive effect on
innovativeness......................................................................................26
2.2.3 Hypothesis 3: Constraints on the executive’s right to expropriate
property had a positive effect on innovativeness.................................26
2.3 Data..................................................................................................................27
2.3.1 Historical overview: The German patent system and the importance
of the patent law 1877..........................................................................27
2.3.2 How can we discriminate unimportant patents? The concept of high-
value patents ........................................................................................28
2.3.3 Measurement strategies: German patents per capita by country of
origin ...................................................................................................32
VII
2.3.4 Comparison with Moser’s sample (2003) ...........................................36
2.4 What determines the number of important patents?........................................39
2.4.1 Control variables: geographical and cultural distance, and
industrial structure ..............................................................................39
2.4.2 Determinants of the technological components of human capital:
schooling, literacy, and patent laws ....................................................42
2.5 Results .............................................................................................................45
2.5.1 What determines patenting abroad?45
2.5.2 Comparison with foreign patenting in the U.S. ...................................57
2.6 Additional tests: endogeneity specification.....................................................59
2.7 Conclusion .......................................................................................................62
A. Appendix to chapter 2......................................................................................64
3 WHAT DROVE FOREIGN INVENTORS TO APPLY FOR PATENTS IN WEIMAR
GERMANY? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY IN COMPARISON TO THE GERMAN EMPIRE ....69
3.1 Abstract................................................................................................