300 years of British patents
Enrico Berkes, Matthew Lee Chen, Matteo Tranchero
Research Policy · 2026 · Volume 55 · Issue 1
DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2025.105347
Abstract
The study of innovation depends heavily on high-quality patent data. Yet, datasets containing complete patent documents focus only on recent decades, while historical patent datasets with broader temporal coverage typically lack detailed information. Therefore, our ability to leverage advances in textual analyses to study long-run innovation dynamics remains limited. To this end, we introduce a large-scale dataset of the universe of technical specifications of British patents granted between 1617–1899. Our data consists of the full specification texts alongside linked information about inventors, including their disambiguated names, occupations, and addresses. We use our data to document changes over time in total inventive activity, the geography of innovation, inventor occupations, and patent novelty and impact. Finally, we discuss use cases and avenues for subsequent research. Resources : Dataset ; GitHub
Keywords
British patent system, Industrial revolution, Innovation, Patent data, Patent reform
Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.