Knowledge flows and catching-up industrialization in the Nordic countries: the roles of patent systems

Abstract

This chapter discusses the catch-up experience of Nordic countries — Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland — which stretches back at least to the late eighteenth century, gathered force in the mid-nineteenth century, and extended into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The patent system began relatively early, which facilitated inward technology transfer in two ways: first, via foreign patenting in the Nordic region and, second, via patent systems (“imported patents”) that permitted Nordic citizens to appropriate foreign-developed inventions. However, there were many methods of acquiring and developing intellectual property, including societies, foreign work experience, immigration, exhibitions, and industrial espionage, and many ways to protect it. The chapter thus emphasizes the broader dimensions of learning and the creation of knowledge assets, and therefore the need to set IPRs within a wide context of knowledge creation