The Role of Theoretical Debate in the Evolution of National and International Patent Protection

This volume offers a detailed account of the development of national patent systems, and then moving on to the international sphere to discuss the factors which provided the impetus for the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883).

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This volume offers new insight into key developments in the history of protection for patent rights during the period 1791-1883. The author presents a detailed examination of the underlying theoretical bases advanced for the protection of patents in various key European countries, and including new material focusing on the political rhetoric of protagonists and opponents of the patent system during the course of the patent abolitionist debates of the 1860s and 1870s. Finally, the book examines in detail the factors which prompted the movement towards international protection of patents, culminating in the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 1883.