CIPIL Seminar: 'The History of Patents,1600-1850'

Speakers

Prof. Robert Burrell (University of Sheffield) and Dr. Aaron Graham (UCL)

Abstracts

Prof. Robert Burrell on "Patents and the reward system in Britain and her colonies, 1750-1850": In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries there was a system of rewards for inventors that ran in parallel to the patent system. The system of rewards formed an established part of the legal landscape for many decades and spread to at least some of Britain's colonies. At a time of renewed interest in using prizes and rewards to promote innovation, it is important to revisit how this system operated and why it came to an end.

Dr. Aaron Graham (UCL):"'Patents, grants and the mixed economy of colonial innovation in Jamaica, 1660-1850": This paper looks at the options open to inventors in Jamaica during the 'long' eighteenth century. Besides an English patent, inventors could also secure a local colonial patent, or a grant or reward for their invention, both of which might be tailored to the particular needs of the inventor or the circumstances of the invention. As a result, studies of inventing and patenting in this period, not just in Jamaica but also more broadly, need to take account of the 'mixed economy' of innovation open to inventors.

About the speaker

Robert Burrell holds joint appointments as Professor of Law at the University of Sheffield and Melbourne Law School. His previous academic positions include posts at the Australian National University and King’s College London. He has also been a Herbert Smith visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge and a visiting professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. His principal areas of interest are intellectual property and legal history. He is the author (with A. Coleman) of Copyright Exceptions: The Digital Impact (CUP, 2005) and (with M. Handler) of Australian Trade Mark Law (OUP, 2010; 2 nd ed. 2016). His work has been cited by the High Court of Australia, the Federal Court of Australia, the Supreme Court of New Zealand, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and in an Opinion of an Advocate General to the European Court of Justice. Outside of the academy Robert spent several years working as a registered trade marks attorney in Australia, eventually helping to establish a new boutique firm that specialises in intellectual property matters.

Dr Aaron Graham is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Department of History at UCL, and was previously a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford. His work looks at politics, governance and finance in Britain and the British Empire between 1660 and 1850. He is currently working on the politics, economics and laws of banking regulation in the British Empire between 1800 and 1850, and is writing a book for OUP on society, slavery and the state in Jamaica between 1770 and 1840.

For further information please contact CIPIL Administrator, Mr. James Parish jprp2@cam.ac.uk