The impact of novelty examination on the regional distribution of patenting activity in early 20th century Britain

The late 19th-century reforms to the British patenting system reduced the cost of obtaining a patent from over £100 in 1851 to just £4 by 1883. While increasing accessibility, this cost reduction led to an increase of low-quality patents often replicating previous inventions, raising concerns about the system's effectiveness. As a result, the 1902 policy proposed novelty examination for the first time, increasing the cost by 25%. This paper examines whether the implementation of this policy in 1905 had a differential effect on patenting activity across British regions. Despite the significance of this policy, it has received extremely limited academic attention. This research aims to fill this gap and add to the literature on the regional impacts of patent system reforms in this period. This study employs panel regressions using data on every geocoded patent sealed between 1895-1915 in the PatentCity database with regional employment in 28 industries as controls. Results indicate no change in the regional distribution of patenting activity as a result of the novelty examination. These findings are consistent with those of Nicholas (2011) for the 1883 policy and have important implications for the geography of inventive activity and the distributional impacts of invention policies.