Alexander Hamilton's Alternative: Technology Piracy and the Report on Manufactures

Abstract

O N March 24, 1791, an announcement appeared in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette. One George Parkinson, of that city, advertised that he had recently obtained a United States patent for spinning flax, hemp, and combed wool by methods that represented improvements upon the mill or machinery of Kendrew and Porthouse of the town of Darlington in Great Britain. Why had Parkinson, an English weaver who later worked for the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (SEUM) in Paterson, New Jersey, been granted a patent monopoly even though his version of Richard Arkwright's flax-spinning machine only marginally improved on the original? Parkinson's announcement provided the answer. It was because this machinery, with the original mechanism . . . [was] of the utmost value to the United States.' By granting a patent to an introducer of a machine that was protected under Britain's intellectual property laws the United States patent office rewarded technology piracy.2 Prohibitions on the emigration of artisans and the export of machinery from the British empire had been in effect throughout the eighteenth century. In the period following American Independence, growing anxiety in Britain over industrial piracy prompted stronger legislation and stricter enforcement.