“Merchants in Words” and “Rapacious Machines”: The Making of Patent Agents, c. 1870–1950

This paper examines a particular kind of “legal intermediary” whose everyday work and lobbying activities have played, and continue to play, a crucial role in the development and practical operation of patent systems: patent agents. Recent historical scholarship spanning a range of national contexts has shed new light on the role of patent agents in securing patents, mediating between patentees and investors, and establishing the international networks that accompanied the “first globalization.”

Here, I shift the focus somewhat to examine how, between approximately 1850 and 1950, these patent practitioners sought, not without difficulty, to establish themselves as a distinct profession at the intersection of engineering and law. Focusing particularly on Britain and France and drawing on the archives and publications of national patent agent associations, I will show how patent agents navigated jurisdictional conflicts, the construction of a professional identity, efforts at regulation, and market tensions as they sought, but ultimately failed, to secure a monopoly over expertise in patent matters.

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