Knowledge Sharing among Inventors: Some Historical Perspectives

James Bessen and Alessandro Nuvolari

LEM Papers Series from Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

Abstract: This chapter documents instances from past centuries where inventors freely shared knowledge of their innovations with other inventors. It is widely believed that such knowledge sharing is largely a recent development, as in open source software. Our survey shows, instead, that innovators have long practiced "collective invention", including in such key technologies as steam engines, iron and steel production and textile machinery. Generally, innovators? behavior was substantially richer than the heroic portrayal often found in textbooks and museums. Knowledge sharing sometimes coexisted with patenting, at other times, not, suggesting the importance of public policy that accommodates knowledge sharing to foster cumulative innovation.

Keywords: technological change; knowledge sharing; collective invention; patents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N70 O33 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-his, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~ and nep-knm
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2011/21

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