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The accepted wisdom is that the patent system originated in Europe and that China did not have such an indigenous system throughout its history. The reasons for the lack of such a system are not often explored among legal scholars although, for decades, historians have debated on a related matter of why the Industrial Revolution did not start in China after its centuries' lead in science and technology. It appears that legal scholars generally accept that Confucian philosophy precluded an intellectual property system in China including a patent system. The article aims to dispute this belief by showing that socioeconomic and geographical factors underscored the main reasons for the lack of a patent system in ancient China.
