Knowledge Sharing Among Inventors: Some Historical Perspectives
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
3-2016
Editor(s)
Dietmar Harhoff and Karim R. Lakhani
ISBN
978-0262029773
Publisher
The MIT Press
Language
en-US
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 a recent development, as in Open Source Software. Our survey shows, instead, that innovators have long practiced “collective invention” at times, including inventions in such key technologies as steam engines, iron, steel, and textiles. Generally, innovator behavior was substantially richer than the heroic portrayal often found in textbooks and museums. Knowledge sharing promoted innovation, sometimes coexisting with patents, at other times, not, suggesting that policy should foster both knowledge sharing and invention incentives.
Recommended Citation
James Bessen & Alessandro Nuvolari,
Knowledge Sharing Among Inventors: Some Historical Perspectives
,
in
Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Open Innovation
135
(Dietmar Harhoff and Karim R. Lakhani ed.,
2016).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3180
Working paper version.
Please note the file available on SSRN may not be the final published version of this work.
