Facilitating and restricting a challenger: Patents and standards in the development of the Bull-Knutsen punched card system, 1919–1938
Lars Heide · Business History · 2009
This paper discusses the various ways that patents and standards framed a challenger's opportunities. It recounts the history of the Bull punched card system, both in Norway in the 1920s and France in the 1930s, as it developed and became a challenger to IBM's monopoly. Bull faced the first mover's patents and standards differently. Standards paved the way for the challenger's actions, while patents hampered certain facilities for their duration.