Abstract
The patent law of the 19th century is well known to have undergone significant change. The links between the statutory, and common law, changes and the contemporary economic thought are, however, less well known. The patents themselves came to be seen as exchangeable sites of value—with the emphasis being on the commercialisation of useful knowledge, rather than the simple "incentivisation" of new knowledge. Further, the bureaucratic systems developed in such a way as to facilitate, or make more efficient, the exchange of the grants—with exchange, value and efficiency being central issues of concern for the political economists of the time.