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Green Innovation from the Global South: Renewable Energy Patents in Chile, 1877–1910

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2019

Bernardita Escobar Andrae  and
Nelson Arellano Escudero
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Abstract

This research note uses the case of nineteenth-century Chile to argue that the phenomenon of early green entrepreneurship was not confined to the United States and Europe. It focuses on Chile-based inventors who pursued intellectual-property protection in solar, tidal, wave motion, water flow, and wind power. The backgrounds and careers of these inventors are examined. The case contests the popular assumption that knowledge always originated in the developed North and flowed southward. Instead, at least in the case of renewable energy, knowledge emerged endogenously in Chile and sometimes even flowed northward. This research note argues that the circulation of knowledge was strongly linked to the mobility of individuals rather than to the mobility of patents between North and South.

Keywords

patentsChilenineteenth centuryrenewable energy sources
Type
Research Note
Information
Business History Review , Volume 93 , Issue 2 , Summer 2019 , pp. 379 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2019 

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26 The Official Gazette is the paper that communicates content of a legal nature to the public and by doing so fulfills the publicity requirements that govern the action of the public administration. It normally contains new legislation and petitions of private parties made to the government that may affect third parties’ interests, such as trademark and patent applications. At the time, it also contained third-party oppositions to the latter applications. During the period of study, the gazette published various decisions made by the government regarding these types of procedures. Nonetheless, the plans and designs regarding the subject matter were not published in the gazette.

27 The database singles out patent applications, some decisions made by the government regarding each of them, and any opposition by third parties to applications. However, the gazette does not normally contain information regarding the appointment of patent examiners.

28 We did not include force of gravity, because it was deemed too difficult to separate the cases we were seeking from those that used the term “gravity” in a different manner or with a different meaning.

29 For example, technologies related to underwater devices were common in the period, but they are of no interest for this study. To exclude these cases from the applications that we sought to select, we explicitly excluded applications using nouns related to means of transportation, such as ships, vessels, and boats.

30 Montero, Rejistro Jeneral. An analysis of such data reveals that 1,826 patents were granted between 1873 and 1908. Escobar Andrae, “An Early Patent System”.

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