Technology and Culture

This book provides an extensive study of the emergence of the Swiss patent system, from the mid-nineteenth century to the eve of World War I. Because Switzerland was, along with the Netherlands, one of the very few countries where there was no national patent law for a substantial amount of time (until 1888), this is also one of the most interesting national cases for the study of intellectual property and innovation. Switzerland could obviously innovate without patents, and important questions unfold in the book about the competitive advantages developed across the border—with France, for example—and about the difference between sectors that were importers or exporters of industrial property. The story then turns to the struggle toward the vote on the Swiss patent system in 1888 and the ensuing potential influences such a history had on the structure of Swiss innovation and firms.

The array of sources used in the book is particularly impressive. The patents themselves form the core of these sources, with a random sample of 2,000 out of 40,000 patents used to provide empirical analysis that allows for important insights, for example about the longevity and discontinuations [End Page 401] of patents, questions that are particularly salient in the field. In addition, archives at the federal and cantonal levels, as well as private archives, systematically complement the statistical findings and allow for other levels of analysis, such as about the political lobbying for and against the passing of a Swiss patent law.

The book offers numerous insights that allow critical discussions of previous literature in the field, such as the works of Alain Pottage, Petra Moser, and Zorina Khan, to cite but a few. Chachereau indeed compares, whenever relevant, the case of Switzerland with findings from the United States or Germany, for example. The relation with France, especially during the era when Switzerland did not enjoy a patent system, is also evoked, especially from the point of view of the cross-border substitute industries and knowledge transfers. Yet the author remains very attentive to the nuances presented within the Swiss case. It is rare indeed that entrepreneurs, politicians, and the civil society have been in unison about the use—or rejection—of a patent system. Chachereau remains close enough to his sources to show that the sinuous path toward the vote on the Swiss patent law depended on various political ideas, ambitions, and the pursuit of trade growth. The "long march" toward patents is thus not presented as teleological. Significantly, Chachereau shows that the Swiss institutions remained careful to protect a multiplicity of innovators. Large parts of this history are also histories of failures and of mitigated successes. The precise work on the data shows that the electromechanical industries benefited the most from protection, while other sectors, such as fashion, remained much less influenced by and interested in the patentability of their innovations. This in turn seems to confirm the masculinization of innovation, a feature also approached, for example, by Zorina Khan in her works on the United States.

Throughout this history, the author follows the vicissitudes of the vote on the patent law in Switzerland, tied to the specificities of a confederalist regime. Chachereau describes the struggles of politicians trying to rally an indifferent public opinion on the question of patents in local votes at the canton level. Unsurprisingly, the export industries such as watchmaking and embroidery (the world-renowned Saint Gall production, for example) were the most eager to see Switzerland eventually vote on its own patent system, among the last in Europe. What were, then, the consequences for Switzerland being late to that party? The author's analysis remains always nuanced, being careful to not provide too hasty, too broad claims. This obviously never prevented Switzerland from innovating or finding comparative advantages to this situation. Such a lateness had the consequence of promoting incremental innovation rather than monopolistic capitalism. Chachereau neatly ties this...