There is a widespread idea that corporations have completely taken over invention and innovation processes throughout the twentieth century, thus becoming the main users of patent systems. However, recent studies suggest that, in spite of corporate expansion, independent invention is still...

From a long-term perspective, technological innovation could have come from local or domestic inventive and research activity, or from the transfer of foreign technology. In reality either option produces similar effects and often it was a combination of both which drove the historical...

In this paper we will explore how international corporations used the Spanish patent system in the late nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century in order to discover what the actual effects of its apparent weakness were. The origins and evolution of corporate patenting...

International capital flows are strongly influenced by country-specific patterns that can be best understood in historical and comparative perspective. A long-term empirical analysis of French and German investment in Spain reveals that the core capabilities of foreign firms and their relations...

We devote this paper to reflecting on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in the long run, particularly analyzing the case of Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although the interactions between IPRs and FDI have attracted significant...