Strong Steam, Weak Patents, or, the Myth of Watt‟s Innovation-Blocking Monopoly, Exploded George Selgin* Professor of Economics Terry College of Business University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602
[email protected] John Turner Associate Professor of Economics Terry College of Business University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602
[email protected] Revised June 10, 2010 *Corresponding author. The authors are grateful to Michele Boldrine, Joel Mokyr, Alessandro Nuvolari, and participants in the Center for Law, Innovation & Economic Growth conference on “The Economics and Law of Innovation” (Washington University School of Law, April 2-3, 2009) and the 6th Beta-Workshop in Historical Economics, on the “Cliometrics of Creativity” (University of Strasbourg, May 14-15, 2010) for their helpful suggestions. We also owe special thanks to Jim Andrew of the Birmingham Science Museum for his expert advice on matters of steam engineering. Probably more myths and half truths have grown around the subject of Boulton & Watt than around any of their contemporaries. Inaccuracies and overgeneralizations have been compounded through the years… .He who dares to question does so at his peril. Jennifer Tann (1977-8, p. 41) Introduction Whether patent protection promotes or hinders technological progress is one of the great unsettled questions of political economy. But within the greater debate one fact at least appears settled, namely, that if the granting of patent protection has ever been counterproductive, it was so in the case of the British Parliament‟s decision, in 1775, to extend James Watt‟s 1769 steam engine patent for another quarter century. This view has been held even by admirers of Watt, including those holding no brief against patents per se.