Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how multinational enterprises have historically managed global patenting and to what extent the localization of patent management has supported the expansion of these enterprises. This study focuses on the electric appliance industry (one of the first industries to see the emergence of global companies) and consider the case of Siemens, a German multinational company, comparing it to General Electric (GE), an American company.

Design/methodology/approach

The work adopts a global business history approach. Taking GE’s global patent-management model, described by Nishimura (2004, 2009, 2016), as the benchmark, this study analyzed Siemens’ worldwide control of its intellectual property rights between 1890 and Second World War, using German, Japanese and American primary sources.

Findings

Patent management is a common means for firms to globalize and transfer technology internationally, but it can take various forms. While GE transferred patent management to its foreign subsidiaries (a process known as localization), Siemens kept worldwide patent management at its headquarters – except in Japan, where in time it transferred this activity to a joint venture. The transfer of production called for localization of patent management while focusing on exporting to other markets made it possible to keep patent management at headquarters.

Originality/value

Patents are usually a source for quantitative surveys. This paper uses them to discuss how multinational companies manage property rights globally. It is the first paper to address this issue by comparing two major actors in a similar industry.

中文翻译：

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专利管理和企业全球化：西门子案例（1890-1945）

目的

本文旨在探讨跨国企业在历史上是如何管理全球专利的，以及专利管理的本土化在多大程度上支持了这些企业的扩张。本研究侧重于电器行业（最早出现全球公司的行业之一），并以德国跨国公司西门子的案例与美国公司通用电气 (GE) 进行比较。

设计/方法/方法

该作品采用全球商业历史方法。本研究以西村 (2004, 2009, 2016) 描述的 GE 全球专利管理模式为基准，分析了西门子在 1890 年至第二次世界大战期间对其知识产权的全球控制，使用德国、日本和美国的主要来源.

发现

专利管理是企业全球化和国际转移技术的常用手段，但它可以采取多种形式。GE 将专利管理转移到其外国子公司（这一过程称为本地化），而西门子则在其总部保留了全球专利管理——除了在日本，它及时将这项活动转移到了一家合资企业。生产转移要求专利管理本地化，同时注重出口其他市场，使专利管理留在总部成为可能。

原创性/价值

专利通常是定量调查的来源。本文使用它们来讨论跨国公司如何在全球范围内管理产权。这是第一篇通过比较类似行业的两个主要参与者来解决这个问题的论文。