L'Etat et l'invention. Une comparaison franco-allemande des cadres de la propriété industrielle à la fin du XIXè siècle

The history of patent systems suggests that protecting invention, which was supposed to encourage economic progress, belonged to the realm of sovereignty. Indeed, in the name of the general interest, the State promotes the industry by preserving inventors' rights. This paper compares two patent systems, the French and German ones, in order to analyze two ways of regulation at the end of the nineteenth century. With the United Kingdom and the United States, France developed a modern patent legislation during the Revolution. After being changed in 1844 under the constraint of the first industrial revolution, the French patent legislation remained surprisingly stable for over a century. German law differed in many ways: by adopting a new law in 1877 Germany developed an effective system based on the examination of patents, which did not exist in France. The differences between the two laws reflect different modes of representing industry and inventors' interests. While in Germany big industry – and particularly the chemical one – influenced directly the patent legislation, the involvement of industry was much more restrained in France. In practice, institutions devoted to regulate the patent system differed too. While Germany was developing in Berlin an efficient patent office, France had difficulties in restructuring its patent system despite the creation of the new patent office in 1901. On the eve of World War I, reforms of the French patent system were generally inspired by the German one. These attempts remained unsuccessful insofar as French liberal legacy was still significant.