Département
The département français is now included within the région française, though this latter, as such, rarely comes up within our historic data. these administrative units being ruled by Title XII of France's 1958 Constitution and fourth part of the Code général des collectivités territoriales.[1] See region for disambiguation. Communes, which are more or less equivalent to cities or towns, are included within départements.
The département is the key French geographically administrative unit featured on original French patent documents. It is often the only location data given, for inventors located in France. Nations are usually all the data given for inventors located outside of France while filing with the French patent office. Hungarian data, when available, is quite reliable in terms of giving us the city. British data, when available, will almost always give us the most precise address data. It is rare to have the “département” mentioned on non-French patents, though Britain does this from time to time. These data are cross-referenced depending on the order in which we find the variously national patents filed by the inventors in question.
The départemental and any other locational situation of any particular inventor may change over time, and no particular key city should replace départemental data, but be added, and tracked, in its variance from patent to patent. These départemental data, like American county data, have the value of what could be called “imperfect indicators”. That is, we understand that inventors occasionally file as if they are residing with other inventors with whom they are engaged in collaboration and so forth. So location data, tracked relative to each patent, ultimately goes along with other location data which becomes available, and is all to which we can viably attest, in terms of patent-referencing, which indicate locational and other patterned changes, with this sort of mid-level locational data playing a particular role in terms of our responsiveness to unsought data, that is, to our observation of patterned and nuanced developments which arise from the data itself.
“Département”, as applied to French colonial possessions, may lead to some ambiguity in terms of the administrative protocols.
- Alger, Algeria ; Patent FR-1907-383514 gives “Algérie (Alger)”
- Ain
- Aisne
- Alpes-Maritimes
- Ardennes
- Aube
- Aude
- Aveyron
- Basses-Alpes, this becoming Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in 1970
- Basse-Pyrénées, this being defunct since 10 October 1969, and now being Pyrénées-Atlantiques
- Bouches-du-Rhône, Marseille (or Marseilles) being a key city
- Calvados
- Cantal
- Charente
- Charente-Inférieure, this being Charente-Maritime since 4 September 1941
- Cher
- Constantine, our data treating it specifically as a département, within Algeria[2]
- Corse, 1790–1793, 1811–1976 ; there is now an Haute-Corse and a Corse-du-Sud.[3] As always, when digging into locational data, via sources which are oriented to our historic focus, we have to bear in mind these changes in administrative designation.
- Côte-d'Or
- Côtes-du-Nord, which has been “Côtes-d'Armor” since 1990, known in Breton "Côtes d'Ahaot"[4]
- Deux-Sèvres
- Dordogne
- Doubs
- Drôme
- Eure
- Eure-et-Loir
- Finistère
- Gard
- Gironde
- Haute-Garonne
- Haute-Loire
- Haute-Marne, L'aéronautique et la Haute-Marne : essai chronologique, particularly an entry of 2010, giving a neat aeronautical chronology specific to this département
- Haute-Saône
- Haute-Savoie
- Haute-Vienne
- Hautes-Pyrénées
- Haut-Rhin
- Hauts-de-Seine, this being new, to the west of Paris, created in 1968 in the application of a law of 1964, during the divisions of Seine and Seine-et-Oise[5]
- Hérault
- Ille-et-Vilaine
- Indre
- Indre-et-Loire
- Isère
- Jura, Lons-le-Saunier being the key commune
- Landes
- Loir-et-Cher
- Loire
- Loire-Atlantique
- Loire-Inférieure
- Loiret
- Lot-et-Garonne
- Manche
- Maine-et-Loire
- Marne
- Mayenne
- Meurthe-et-Moselle
- Meuse
- Morbihan
- Nièvre
- Nord
- Oise
- Orne
- Pas-de-Calais
- Puy-de-Dôme
- Pyrénées-Orientales
- Rhône, Lyons being a key city
- Saône-et-Loire
- Sarthe
- Savoie
- Seine - This is key to our data. Though it is no longer an official French département, in this administrative sense, it was during the period on which we are focused, and in particular it was the département which included Paris. Largely for this reason it is often the initial location data we have on a majority or at least an overwhelming plurality of French inventors. Val-de-Marne, to the southeast of Paris, was created 1 January 1968, from communes of former Seine and former Seine-et-Oise.[6]
- Seine-et-Marne
- Seine-et-Oise - This surrounded département Seine, with the bulk being to the west of said département ; decided in 1964 and put in force in 1968, Seine-et-Oise was divided into new départements including YvelinesYvelines and Val-d'Oise ; a commune such as Saint-Gratien, for instance, is now located within Val-d'Oise, but was situated within Seine-et-Oise during the period we are studying.
- Seine-Inférieure, this later becoming Seine-Maritime in 1955
- Seine-Saint-Denis, this being new, largely to the northeast of Paris, created in 1968, during the divisions of Seine and Seine-et-Oise[7]
- Somme
- Tarn
- Tarn-et-Garonne
- Territoire de Belfort, created in 1922[8]
- Val-d'Oise, this being new, but factoring into our data
- Var
- Vaucluse
- Vendée - This is quite rare in our data, but already in existence during the period on which we are focused, Boulogne, now a FORMER commune française, was a key city ; variants on Boulogne are still in existence, with no connexion to this département. La Roche-sur-Yon and Sables-d’Olonne are inventor-pertinent municipalities we have on hand which are located within this département.
- Vienne
- Yvelines, spoken of as les Yvelines, did not exist a such during our period of focus. It results from the dismemberment of Seine-et-Oise legislated 1964 and enforced 1968.[9] So, Vélizy-Villacoublay, for instance, is now situated in what is now département français Yvelines, in the present région française Île-de-France.
There were and are many others of course. These have been entered as they arise from our perusal of original patent documents, with various particulars being verified via French Wikipedia.
References
- ↑ Région française on FrenchWikipedia
- ↑ Patent FR-1916-491738
- ↑ w:fr:Corse (1790–1976)
- ↑ Côtes-d'Armor on French Wikipedia
- ↑ Histoire des Hauts-de-Seine on French Wikipedia
- ↑ Val-de-Marne on French Wikipedia
- ↑ Seine-Saint-Denis on French Wikipedia
- ↑ Territoire de Belfort on French Wikipedia
- ↑ Yvelines on French Wikipedia