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Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham --- "Innovation and the Law of Intellectual Property" [2007] ELECD 133; in Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham; Chow, Boey Kit (eds), "Innovation Without Patents" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Innovation Without Patents

Editor(s): Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham; Chow, Boey Kit

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845429591

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Innovation and the Law of Intellectual Property

Author(s): Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham

Number of pages: 5

Extract:

2. Innovation and the law of intellectual
property
Uma Suthersanen and Graham Dutfield

2.1 THE PATENT SYSTEM
The origins of patents for inventions lie in the ancient European state privileges
which granted an exclusive right with the aim of encouraging domestic innova-
tion and exploitation of technology ­ indeed, `inventive activity' was not a
necessary requirement as the value lay in the dissemination of the teachings in-
herent in the patented technology.1 Furthermore, the prevailing mercantilist
ethos of the time accepted the principle that a system of exclusive privileges
would nurture innovative activity which would, in turn, promote the economic
well-being of the country. The mercantilist regarded the state as the appropriate
instrument for promoting the well-being of his country; in his view the country
was regarded as a unit with national interests, irrespective of the interest of
particular sections of individuals. Accordingly, the state harnessed and control-
led resources, skills and products for the purposes and profit of the state. Patent
privileges were merely one species in the genus of privileges, charters, fran-
chises, licences and regulations issued by the Crown or by local governments
within the mercantilist framework.2
By the end of the eighteenth century, the general consensus, encouraged by
Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham,3 was that the existence of the patent regime

1
Early examples of codified patent customs are the 1474 Venetian Decree (the decree
broadly granted exclusive rights to an inventor of a machine or process, including the
right to ...