Rejected patents in Finland in 1864-1884: Industrial policy, copies or impossible ideas?

Authors

• Matti La Mela Uppsala University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0340-9269

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33355/tw.100575

Abstract

The article studies rejected patent applications in Finland at the end of the nineteenth century. It examines the development of the patent system as part of the nation’s emerging liberal economic institutions. Internationally, patents have been employed to study technological and economic development, however, the rejected patents and the agency of the patent officials have received little attention. The article examines newly collected applications related to patenting from 1864-1884 and asks, whose applications were rejected and why. The article shows how foreigners, and Swedish applications in particular, were typical among the rejected applicants. Most applications were rejected because the officials did not see the invention as novel or assessed the application as incomplete. In their examination, the Finnish patent officials heard experts and used material objects as evidence. The article shows how the Finnish patent officials followed modern practices of patent examination already in the early 1870s—before the actual legislation and more rigorously than in the neighbouring Sweden. Even though the interests of the domestic industries were raised in some cases, the officials managed and guided the national industrial property rights by developing the patenting principles in the state administration.