Content area
Full text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
We are very grateful for many helpful comments from Harald Degner, Timothy W. Guinnane, Zorina Khan, Alessandro Nuvolari, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, José Patricio Sáiz, Ross Thomson, the organizers and participants of the workshop, "Towards a Global History of Production I: Machine Tools and the International Transfer of Industrial Technology,â[euro] at Cambridge in March 2009, the session, "Innovation Systems and Economic Performance: Past Leaders, Catch-Up Countries and New Latecomers (20th-21st centuries),â[euro] at the XVth World Economic History Congress at Utrecht in August 2009, the Economic History Association Annual Meeting at Evanston in September 2010, and three anonymous referees.
In March 2008 the Association of German Machine Builders (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbauer) complained of the notorious Chinese product piracy: "More than half of German machine builders discover illegal replicas at exhibitions. Three-quarters of these replicas come from China. Unfortunately, China's entry into the WTO in 2001 has not improved the legal protection of intellectual property rights of foreign firms.1 The resulting loss to German mechanical engineering is about seven billions euros per year (or about 4 percent of total sales).â[euro]2 The Association of German Machine Builders did not mention that, a century ago, many of its members relied on counterfeiting strategies to catch up to their British and American competitors. As early as 1897, the periodical American Machinist observed: "In going through the shops of a prominent German machine-tool builder who has been in the United States and got a good many ideas there from, as well bought a good line of the best standard machines from which to copy or vary, in the production of its own line, I notice that every solitary American machine, whether from Providence, New Haven, or Cincinnati, had had the name chipped off and the place painted over.â[euro]3 Thirty years later, in 1927, the French periodical La Machine Moderne reported: "Information coming from Germany indicates that a number of American machine-tools are being copied now by German manufacturers, some of which are made without the slightest alteration. Most of these machines are actually sold as originals, the name of the American constructor of the original machine being mentioned in the advertising notices, and often even appearing stamped on the...