The Power of Patents: Global Intellectual Property, 1880-1950

Building international cooperation is a slow, painstaking process, one made more difficult when some people don’t see the need for it. To businesses, however, international cooperation is positively necessary as a means to secure intellectual property rights, market share, and profit opportunities.  

In his dissertation research, Joël Praz, PhD student at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, is uncovering the significance of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, an international patents union today administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Using numerous collections held in the Hagley Library, Praz has found that private businesses in the United States began to value international cooperation around patent law increasingly after the Second World War. 

In support of his work Praz received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library.