Patents, what for? The case of Crossley Brothers and the introduction of the gas engine into Spain, c. 1870–1914

Abstract

This paper aims to assist in a better understanding of the real role of patents by examining how Crossley Brothers – the world’s main producer of gas engines before the First World War – and its partners (as well as the German inventor Nikolaus Otto) used the patent system to introduce the gas engine into Spain. The evidence suggests that patents were for them mainly an instrument to protect the market for their imported products. It is probable that the know-how transferred to the local agents and the engines imported could somehow enhance the domestic industrial abilities, but the supposed aim of the patent system – creating a local industry – was not achieved. Although the Spanish patent system was not well implemented, this was not the main explanation of this failure; rather it was the weak domestic technological abilities.