Table 2. Mechanisms of private... | Emerald Publishing

Table 2.

Mechanisms of private government in the Marconi case, 1896–1912

Mechanism	Devices	Principal evidence	What the evidence supports	What it does not support
Institutional lock-in	Patent portfolio; refusal to sell rights; equipment leasing with company operator; royalty per device; exclusivity and non-intercommunication clauses	British patent no. 12039 and foreign filings; company formation, 1897; Admiralty contract of 1901 (£100 per device); Law 127 of 5 April 1903 and the agreement on Coltano; agreement of May 1904	That access was granted on terms which raised the cost of adopting a competing system, and that dependency accumulated through installations, training and commitments	That the arrangements were formally exclusive, or that the Italian state was deprived of the capacity to choose otherwise
Public legitimation	The patent system as an instrument of public law; the vocabulary of recompense for invention; public recognition after the Titanic	Parliamentary discussion of 20 February 1903; the abandonment of non-intercommunication at the London Convention of 1912	That legal standing and, later, public recognition made the firm’s position difficult to contest, and that restriction was defended as compensation for the free grant of patents	That the enhanced legitimacy can be quantified, or that the concession of 1912 is documented as having been made from strength rather than under pressure
Geopolitical extension	Non-intercommunication as a condition of interconnection; national dependencies carried into multilateral negotiation	Proceedings of the Berlin conferences of 1903 and 1906; correspondence between Cuthbert Hall and the Italian delegate, as reported by Balbi (2012)	That the firm influenced the Italian negotiating position, and that dependency raised the cost of endorsing a mandatory intercommunication rule	That the positions of Italy and Britain were determined by those dependencies, to the exclusion of their own political and commercial interests

Mechanism	Devices	Principal evidence	What the evidence supports	What it does not support
Institutional lock-in	Patent portfolio; refusal to sell rights; equipment leasing with company operator; royalty per device; exclusivity and non-intercommunication clauses	British patent no. 12039 and foreign filings; company formation, 1897; Admiralty contract of 1901 (£100 per device); Law 127 of 5 April 1903 and the agreement on Coltano; agreement of May 1904	That access was granted on terms which raised the cost of adopting a competing system, and that dependency accumulated through installations, training and commitments	That the arrangements were formally exclusive, or that the Italian state was deprived of the capacity to choose otherwise
Public legitimation	The patent system as an instrument of public law; the vocabulary of recompense for invention; public recognition after the Titanic	Parliamentary discussion of 20 February 1903; the abandonment of non-intercommunication at the London Convention of 1912	That legal standing and, later, public recognition made the firm’s position difficult to contest, and that restriction was defended as compensation for the free grant of patents	That the enhanced legitimacy can be quantified, or that the concession of 1912 is documented as having been made from strength rather than under pressure
Geopolitical extension	Non-intercommunication as a condition of interconnection; national dependencies carried into multilateral negotiation	Proceedings of the Berlin conferences of 1903 and 1906; correspondence between Cuthbert Hall and the Italian delegate, as reported by Balbi (2012)	That the firm influenced the Italian negotiating position, and that dependency raised the cost of endorsing a mandatory intercommunication rule	That the positions of Italy and Britain were determined by those dependencies, to the exclusion of their own political and commercial interests

Source(s): Author own work