Administrative culture
Contextual Introduction:
This has profoundly to do with internationally variable semantics, formalized, whether consistently or not, within the administrative protocols of the antique national systems we are accessing. This affects our apprehension of all “data”, and, in so far as any fraction of inventors did thorough research into pre-existing patents, there may have been an effect upon ongoing innovation itself.
The phrase “administrative culture” was generated, on our end, in response to growing indications that there is a relation, though an imperfect one, between innovation and more per se quantifiable data such as patents filed, by nation and by tech field and so forth. So this latter sort of data is pertinent, and relatively “hard”, and ascertainable, over time and in the process of integrating a wide variety of online and offline resources. The relation of this data to the more abstract “innovation”, and even relative to technology itself, is something to be characterized, “determined”, at least relatively speaking.
This “culture” varies from nation to nation, and evolves, somewhat in response to one nation's challenges at interfacing with the international context. Why France, for instance, uniquely it seems, has the Certificat d'addition as a nominally distinct document type, why other nations have “addition” patents, to varying degrees, and the consistency with which any of these or other protocols are employed, why one nation would legislate that its patent classification system should be based upon the German, regardless of how deeply or superficially this is actually applied, and why another nation may lean in a similar direction, without the legislation, the nature of patent classification systems ; these are all phenomena of “administrative culture”.
Any number of antique or retrospective (and largely digital) factors of administrative culture will have a complicated interplay and will affect our acquisition of and aggregation of the international data itself.
The principle and theory of “administrative culture”, beyond our own specific and partially responsive needs, has been further elaborated by others.
Internationally variable phenomena of these “cultures” which specifically affect our data:
To the French, this was not a “brevet”, though it is legally equal to a “patent”, for almost all purposes and in terms of international law. National systems other than the French have cases in which one patent is an “addition” to another. In terms of administrative phraseology, the perfectionnement, in Belgium, differs slightly.
This is an instance in which internationally variable protocols have a fairly serious effect on our gathering of data. A multitude of nations, for instance, became signatories to the Convention de Paris pour la protection de la propriété industrielle. This makes recognition of the international “priority date” legally binding, upon those nations. How prominently said date is displayed, if it is displayed at all, varies greatly between the nations. More precise and consistent display suits our needs greatly, of course, in terms gathering bulk data and in terms of establishing relations between data points. There are some minor wildcards. As per our observations on patent dates, on German patents, the "Patentirt im Deutschen Reiche vom", often the earliest date found on the patent, will be one day, possibly one business day, after the filing date. Therefore, when approaching the patent via priority date references made on non-German patents, we will catch this slight differential.
That is, priority date phenomena are among the most quintessentially and officially international phenomena we observe, though they become internationally variable in their implementation.
American phenomena
- Patent assignment ; this is the partial or complete bequeathing of patent proprietary rights, by the inventor, to another individual, or to several individuals, or to a company.
- Witnesses ; these sporadically shed led light of international patterns, with a French patent agent, for instance, having served as such when an inventor filed in France, serving among witnesses when the inventor filed in the United States.
- Serial number ; inter-patent relations are often spelled out, on original documents, by way of these, rather than by way of patent number. Patents renewal may also also involved the issuance of a new serial number. Serial numbers, as such, seem to be a largely American phenomenon, though we are looking into analogous protocols within other national systems. See serial number.
- Corporations associated with particular American States ; this corporate status is almost always associated with the State in which the company is corporation is located. We do have one case in which a company, located in and named after Dayton (Ohio), is a Corporation of Delaware.[1]
British phenomena
- Other things are matters of protocol and usage specific to one nation, getting into “semantics”. We have long since noticed the British recycling of patent numbers. Though this isn't especially convenient to anyone approaching patent number data from an international perspective, the patents are made distinct by way of the year for which they were applied. This is “semantic” in that no one says that the application year is “part of the patent number” - it is nevertheless crucial in distinguishing the identity of one patent relative to another. Hence the prominent “A.D. ____”, such as that seen in the “No. 6029 ... A.D. 1910” in Patent GB-1910-6029. Nations which do not re-use patent numbers list the full application date, in general, including the year, but not with any such prominence.
- Provisional Specification ; this is British-specific and British-prompted phraseology, not necessarily having specific analogues within other national systems.
- Complete Specification ; this is British-specific and British-prompted phraseology, not necessarily having specific analogues within other national systems. This British phraseological emphasis, on the “provisional” building towards the “complete”, stands in contrast to the French, with the “addition” following the “principal”.
Broader material, also internationally variable:
We cannot be exhaustive in any summation of this. See Category:Patent offices for another breakdown, both of the offices themselves and of particular phenomena.
Some grasp on these things develops of necessity from our own collation of specific data. From time to time, a publication may cover analyses which are pertinent to innovation, and to patenting, in the sociological and historical context. As an example, see Swanson, 2017 for Rubbing Elbows and Blowing Smoke: Gender, Class, and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Patent Office. Isis, 108: 40-60.
Other sources on administrative culture as such:
- Administrative Culture as defined by Oxford Research Encyclopedias
- Administrative Culture - Public Administration
