Stephen H. Haber is the A.A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor of Humanities and Sciences and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In addition, he is a professor of political science, professor of history, and professor of economics (by courtesy), and a
senior fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Naomi R. Lamoreaux is Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics and History at Yale University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is the author of The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895-1904 and Insider Lending: Banks, Personal Connections, and Economic Development in Industrial New England, and published numerous articles on business, economic, and financial history.

• Preface Stephen Haber and Naomi R. Lamoreaux


• Introduction Stephen Haber and Naomi R. Lamoreaux


• Chapter 1. Patents in the History of the Semiconductor Industry: The Ricardian Hypothesis


• Alexander Galetovic


• Chapter 2. Do Patents Foster International Technology Transfer? Evidence from Spanish Steelmaking, 1850-1930


• Victor Menaldo


• Chapter 3. Did James Watt's Patent(s) Really Delay the Industrial Revolution?


• Sean Bottomley


• Chapter 4. Dousing the Fires of Patent Litigation


• Christopher Beauchamp


• Chapter 5. Ninth Circuit Nursery: Patent Litigation and Industrial Development on the Pacific Coast, 1891-1925


• Steven W. Usselman


• Chapter 6. The Great Patent Grab


• Jonathan M. Barnett


• Chapter 7. The Long History of Software Patenting in the United States


• Gerardo Con Diaz


• Chapter 8. History Matters: National Innovation Systems and Innovation Policies in Nations


• B. Zorina Khan


• Index

The Battle over Patents traces the long and contentious history of patents, examining how they have worked in practice. The essays in this volume, written by leading social scientists, historians, and legal academics, explore the shortcomings of imperfect patent systems and explain why, despite all the debate, historically US-style patent systems still dominate all other methods of encouraging inventive activity.