Veranstaltungen

From May 29 to 31, 2017, the Center for Law & Economics at ETH Zurich, the Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition will jointly organize the second Munich Summer Institute.

The Summer Institute 2017 will focus on three areas:

• Digitization, Strategy and Organization (chairs: Jörg Claussen and Tobias Kretschmer),
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship (chair: Dietmar Harhoff), and
• Law & Economics of Intellectual Property and Innovation (chair: Stefan Bechtold).

The goal of the Munich Summer Institute is to stimulate a rigorous in-depth discussion of a select number of research papers and to strengthen the interdisciplinary international research community in these areas.

Researchers in economics, law, management and related fields at all stages of their career (from Ph.D. students to full professors) may attend the Munich Summer Institute as presenters in a plenary or a poster session, as discussants or as attendants.

The Munich Summer Institute will feature three keynote lecturers, 18 plenary presentations and a daily poster session (including a poster slam). Paper presentations will be grouped by topics, not discipline or method.

The Munich Summer Institute will be held at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in the heart of Munich. Partizipation is by invitation only. The organizers will fund travel and hotel expenses for all plenary speakers and hotel expenses for all poster presenters and invited discussants.

Key speakers are:

• Michael Frakes (Duke University),
• Ajia Leiponen (Cornell University), and
• Mirjam van Praag (Copenhagen Business School).

Paper selections will be announced at the beginning of March. The program of the Munich Summer Institute will be available on April 1, 2017. Final papers are due for circulation among conference participants on May 1, 2017. Accepted papers will be made available to conference participants on a protected website. Researchers who would like to attend the Munich Summer Institute without giving a presentation should contact one of the organizers by May 1, 2017.

More information is available at http://munich-summer-institute.org. Any questions concerning the Munich Summer Institute should be directed to Stefan Bechtold, Jörg Claussen, Dietmar Harhoff or Tobias Kretschmer.

Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb, München, Raum E10

Eine klare Trennung von exekutiver und judikativer Gewalt ist ein Kernmerkmal des modernen Rechtsstaates und grundlegende Voraussetzung für einen fairen und effektiven Rechtsschutz. Dass eine solche Trennung im Rahmen des auf dem EPÜ basierenden Verfahrens zur Erteilung Europäischer Patente hinreichend verwirklicht ist, wird zuweilen bezweifelt. Auch das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat sich mit der Thematik bereits auseinandergesetzt (vgl. Az. 2 BvR 2368/99). Im vergangenen Jahr hat das Europäische Patentamt (EPA) nun eine Reform umgesetzt, wonach die Beschwerdekammern einschließlich ihrer Geschäftsstellen und Unterstützungsdienste als gesonderte Einheit organisiert und vom Präsidenten der Beschwerdekammern geleitet werden. Parallel dazu steht das Einheitliche Patentgericht (EPG) in den Startlöchern, welches ebenfalls als völkerrechtlich verselbständigtes Rechtssubjekt konzipiert ist. Auch dessen Entscheidungen erzeugen gegenüber den Grundrechtsberechtigten in der innerstaatlichen Rechtsordnung Rechtswirkungen und müssen sich folglich an den wesentlichen grundgesetzlichen Gewährleistungen messen lassen.
Der Vortrag wird die jüngste Reform der Beschwerdekammern des EPA vor dem Hintergrund der für internationale Organisationen geltenden rechtsstaatlichen Anforderungen beleuchten. Dabei werden zugleich Bezüge zum Verfahren vor dem EPG hergestellt. Insbesondere die im Grundsatz vorgesehene Parallelität von Einspruchs- und Nichtigkeitsverfahren zeigt neue prozessuale Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten aber auch Herausforderungen auf.

Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb, München, Raum 313

US doctrine on international trademark disputes is founded on a precedent from 1952. Steele v. Bulova Watch Co. is the first and only Supreme Court decision on the question of how far US trademark law should be extended beyond the US’s national borders when an international infringement is at issue. Even though cases have drastically multiplied there has been no comprehensive account of the actual state of the law. Courts and commentators continue to rely on a small set of leading cases, Steele and a few appellate court decisions, neglecting the landscape of lower courts’ decision-making. An empirical study of the field’s complete case law from 1952 until 2016 helps to address this blind spot. The results show that much of the conventional wisdom is questionable, if not incorrect. The analysis not only provides new and unexpected insights into the actual extension of US trademark law but also explains which factors drive the outcome in practice, how these factors interact with one another, and how each factor has been micro-shaped over time. Based on these findings, several crucial corrections to existing doctrine can be suggested. Most succinctly put, one can say that, in the interest of aligning judicial practice with the realities of socioeconomic globalization, the current overextension of the Lanham Act must be curbed. The doctrine of trademark extraterritoriality that has evolved in the wake of Steele v. Bulova is an anticompetitive detriment rather than a right-owner panacea.

Ansprechpartner: Dr. Fabian Gaessler

Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb, München, Raum E10

Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb, München, Raum 313

We study the impact of a new nationally advertised six-month intensive training program to encourage leadership in social entrepreneurship among youth. Program costs were on the order of 12,000 euros per participant. We conduct a randomized field experiment where 50 applicants were randomly allocated to the program and 50 similar applicants were rejected. Despite large training efforts we find no robust treatment effects on leadership motivation, leadership style, social entrepreneurial aspirations and intentions, skills, sustainable behaviour, entrepreneurial actions and venture progression. Those that had made more progress on their venture prior to the start of the program were more likely to make progress afterwards, irrespective of treatment. There were also large Hawthorne effects. Those having the highest expectations before selection to treatment, as measured by their self-ratings on a battery of scores, experienced the biggest drop across all scores after selection, irrespective of treatment. Training people to become entrepreneurs seems to be difficult and costly (co-authored with Florian Hoos).

Ansprechpartner: Dr. Fabian Gaessler

Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb, München, Raum 313

How is law structured? How does it change over time? These questions lie at the heart of legal scholarship, but they are mostly answered in narratives. Network science opens an alternative avenue, leveraging concepts from graph theory to quantify, visualize, and model legal structures and legal change. This talk draws on an original dataset of Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) decisions to illustrate how the network science perspective can enhance our understanding of German constitutional jurisprudence and to carve out more generally the promises and perils of measuring the law.

Ansprechpartner: Dr. Fabian Gaessler

Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb, München, Raum E10

Technical interoperability and standards will play a key role for the functioning and the further development of the digital economy in times of the Internet of Things (IoT). Standardization is placed at the interface of technology, economics and the law. While the IoT is currently emerging as a technology paradigm, economists and lawyers will gradually grasp its regulatory implications. The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition will hold a series of workshops that pursues a dual goals:

• to discuss with experts in which direction the IoT will develop with regard to specific areas where the Institute sees a need for standardization; and
• to identify and discuss the economic and regulatory implications of these changes.

Each workshop will address the different kinds of standards which in the Institute’s view are relevant for the IoT. The focus of the first workshop will be the IoT connectivity standards.

Without devices being able to connect and communicate to each other, the IoT will not succeed. Yet, the increased need for connectivity and interoperability creates numerous challenges. The workshop seeks to advance the discussion on these challenges by focusing on three areas:

• Technology and Market Landscape
• Standardization Landscape
• IPRs Landscape

The workshop will be held at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition on April 25, 2017. Participation is by invitation only.

See Program

Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb, München, Raum E10

European Patent Office, Isar Building, Bob-van-Benthem-Platz 1, 80469 Munich,
Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Marstallplatz 1, 80539 Munich

Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb, München, Raum E10