Patent Abolition: A Real-Life Historical Case Study

Over time, patent abolition has been the subject of fierce academic debate. However, no country in the world has ever abolished patents, except for one. Between 1869 and 1912, the Netherlands officially abandoned patents. This unique case is often mentioned in the literature on patent abolition, but the accounts drawn up so far present an incomplete and somewhat obscure image of the motives behind the decision of the Dutch government to eliminate patents. This paper fills this gap by conducting a full analysis of the various – legal, economic, practical, and political – arguments that have inspired the Dutch to abolish patents. By so doing, it sketches a striking picture of the circumstances that gave rise to the exceptional Dutch case. Translating this to today’s reality, which is so entirely different, it seems unlikely that we will soon witness another case where all the necessary ingredients will so neatly coincide as they did in the Netherlands in the late 1860s. Therefore, another real-life example of a developed country abolishing patents appears far away.