are three figures—see Fig. 1 here for example—and eight

plates of photographs.

In summary, an interesting and authoritative re-ap-

praisal of one of the pivotal inventions of the 20th Cen-

tury and of its brilliant, charismatic and sometimes

temperamental inventor. Good value.

Michael Blackman

45 Kenwood Drive

Beckenham

Kent, BR3 6QY

United Kingdom

E-mail address: MblackWPI@aol.com

Poems in Steel. Kees Gispen, New York, Oxford:

Berghahn Books, 2002, Hardback, $75/£50, ISBN 1-

57181-242-3; paperback, $27.50/£18.50, ISBN 1-57181-

303-9

Patents are of great interest to those in the IP indus-

try but it must be acknowledged that they seldom im-

pinge on the general political debate. However, Gispen

has written about Germany in the 1860–1960 periodwhere it was sometimes very different.

As background, in the 1850–1875 period in the UK

and elsewhere there were serious high level attempts to

abolish the Patent system and, as part of this, there

was continuous debate on the role of inventors. Were

they merely cogs in the inevitable advance of science

and technology or ‘‘heroic inventors’’ deserving of spe-

cial rewards for their unique achievements, i.e. patentmonopolies? Abolition was effectively a dead issue after

1875 (though Holland and Switzerland took a long time

to conform to the general concensus) but this construc-

tion of the ‘‘heroic inventor’’ continues to bedevil dis-

cussion of inventor rights.

This was particularly true in Germany where, after

national unification in 1871, a strong patent law was

passed in 1877 which, under the influence of Wernervon Siemens, was particularly beneficial to corporations

who employed inventors. Indeed it is probably no coin-

cidence that the phenomenon of corporate research

departments first really appeared shortly afterwards in

the highly successful German dyestuffs industry which

acted as a world-wide model for the massive expansion

of corporate research after 1900. Nevertheless there

was a widespread feeling from all parts of the politicalspectrum that inventors were being exploited by the

rapidly expanding corporate giants, especially given

the ‘‘heroic inventor’’ beliefs then current. For example,

Gispen quotes Max Eyth a well known 19th century

engineer poet who portrayed the inventor as:

The genius whose flashes of insight propel human his-tory, as the archetypal Promethean, made in the ‘‘imageof the Creator, a being in which God has placed a sparkof His own creative power’’. 1

Given this background Gispen explores the continu-

ous political struggle from the 1880�s onwards to make

German patent law more favourable to inventors rather

than their employers. This was still a live issue in the

1920�s, despite the Weimar Republic�s multiplicity of

other problems, and culminated in a more inventor

friendly Patent Law in 1936. Despite regime change,

many of these ideas were embodied in the 1957 PatentLaw with its favourable treatment of employee

inventors.

It is very unusual to find a serious book on the history

of patent systems which is not, at the same time, an

excellent cure for insomnia. Gispen is a definite excep-

tion and, apart from its detailed coverage of a serious

historical issue, is also a very good read. Highly

recommended.Editor�s note: The reviewer also mentioned another

review of this book 2 as providing some different per-

spectives which may be of interest to readers.

Brian Spear

36 Forest Approach

Woodford Green

Essex IG8 9BS, UK

E-mail address: brian_spear31@hotmail.com

doi:10.1016/j.wpi.2004.09.003

1Gispen Poems in Steel p. 4.2By Jeffrey Fear, in the Summer 2003 issue of �Business History

Review�.doi:10.1016/j.wpi.2004.10.003

Book reviews / World Patent Information 27 (2005) 63–67 65