Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial PowerDuring the first decades of America’s existence as a nation, private citizens, voluntary associations, and government officials encouraged the smuggling of European inventions and artisans to the New World. At the same time, the young republic was developing policies that set new standards for protecting industrial innovations. This book traces the evolution of America’s contradictory approach to intellectual property rights from the colonial period to the age of Jackson. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Britain shared technological innovations selectively with its American colonies. It became less willing to do so once America’s fledgling industries grew more competitive. After the Revolution, the leaders of the republic supported the piracy of European technology in order to promote the economic strength and political independence of the new nation. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the United States became a leader among industrializing nations and a major exporter of technology. It erased from national memory its years of piracy and became the world’s foremost advocate of international laws regulating intellectual property. |
From inside the book
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... immigrants ' homelands wonder how to stop the brain drain and how to persuade their brightest not to opt for research and business opportunities in North America . The same questions that plagued Whitney's generation are still with us ...
... immigrants who would dare to violate restrictions on the dissemination of knowledge and transplant themselves and their skills . Rulers believed that imported technologies could convert their nations ' natural resources into val- uable ...
... immigrants from Britain and Ireland to the colonies was also pronounced " a criminal act . ” 15 Paradoxically , the battery of regulations against the export of machinery and migration of skilled workers stimulated rather than ...
... immigrants and in the latter part of the seventeenth century generated enough homegrown artisans to make the short- age less acute . The colonies of the south , however , failed to attract a significant number of skilled immigrants and ...
... immigrant departed from England to the New World the game was over . No immigrant was ever sent back on account of transferring restricted skills and no enforcement agents were sent to look for illegal immigrants and return them to ...
Contents
1 | |
18 | |
44 | |
The American Seduction of Machines and Artisans | 78 |
Chapter 5 Ocial Orchestration of Technology Smuggling | 104 |
Chapter 6 Constructing the American Understanding of Intellectual Property | 142 |
Chapter 7 The Path to Crystal Palace | 184 |
Notes | 215 |
Index | 269 |
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Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power Doron S. Ben-Atar No preview available - 2004 |