Faire germer le progrès : déterminants techniques, sociologiques et culturels de l'inventivité brevetée agricole en Belgique (1830-1913)
(2011)
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- Authors
- Supervisors
- Dorban, Michel
- Abstract
- (en) The young Belgium, weakened by its international status, expanded greatly in the 19th century both industrially and agriculturally. Which roles had the patenting activity in this context? What was the influence of patent in this industrial Belgium where invention was linked with progress and where technical ideas circulated with people? This question is all the more justified as this country had the highest number of patents per habitant between 1830 and 1880. At this time, many inventors were going to elaborate new systems facilitating the practice of agriculture as they were fascinated by the development potential that this industrialisation movement generated. Influenced by the demographic growth and inspired by the dominating principles of this first industrial revolution, they hoped to provide the farmer with ways of improving the productivity of his land. There are numerous issues in this doctoral thesis. Namely, defining technical progress between 1830-1913, describing its evolution from the official creation of an invention (approved by a patent) to its actual economic exploitation, observing the different factors internal or external to the system that favored this patenting activity, understanding its evolution, theoretically explaining it and understanding its importance in the society. This analysis tries thus to outline the Belgian patenting system thanks to a legal, quantitative, technical and sociological study of a nearly neglected source up to now. This doctoral thesis is meant to be a tool, aimed to facilitate the use of the patent as a source of analysis of inventivity but also tries to assure the relevance of this method of analysis. In concrete terms, the goal of this doctoral thesis is to set a multiple portrait of the Belgian patenting activity in agriculture between 1830 and 1913 thanks to an analysis of the use of the patent in this particular sector, of the way it was welcomed by the society and the reasons that pushed the inventors into taking a patent.
- Affiliations
Citations
de Favereau de Jeneret, C. (2011). Faire germer le progrès : déterminants techniques, sociologiques et culturels de l’inventivité brevetée agricole en Belgique (1830-1913). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/88577