Research News

Geographical Indications are designations for products from certain geographical areas that owe their quality or reputation to their geographical origin. Because they indicate specific products’ qualities, they tend to receive more attention in the market and command higher prices. Thus, Geographical Indications are important tools to promote economic development, especially in rural areas.

Despite increased attention to GIs from politics as well as from the economy, there has been little legal research on the topic so far. The Institute, which has been researching the subject for many years, in 2018 launched a research agenda that is dedicated to exploring Geographical Indications in-depth. The initiative looks in two directions: the overall functioning of the GI system in the European Union and the potential of GI systems in Latin America.

Overall EU System Assessment

A unitary protection scheme for Geographical Indications for agricultural products and foodstuffs has existed in the European Union since 1992. Two types of Geographical Indications are distinguished: So-called Protected Geographical Indications (PGIs) and Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs). Both types of designations enjoy the same scope of protection, but have different registration and maintenance requirements.

Although the European GI system has proven itself in practice, there is a need to better understand its overall functioning during the last three decades. For that purpose, a Research Team consisting of five scholars undertook a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of available data.

First, the team conducted a statistical analysis of all PGIs and PDOs registered between 1996 and 2019 under the EU protection scheme for agricultural products and foodstuffs. The data source for this analysis was the so-called “Single Document”. As the core of every protection application it includes, inter alia, a description of the definition of the geographical area, a description of the method of production and details on the so-called origin link - that is the causal link between the product and the geographical area. Further research on bakery products and potatoes from selected countries also dealt with the full specification. The research revealed a significant improvement in the quality and accuracy of information provided in these documents, in particular about the link between the geographical region and the product.

Though the requirements for obtaining GI protection and the main procedural rules are unified within the EU, the national authorities are also involved in the registration process. Further investigation on selected countries’ national rules and related procedures revealed that national approaches and idiosyncrasies could impair the functioning of a uniform protection system.

In  2018  the  European  Commission  announced  its  intention  to  extend  the  current  EU GI protection system to non-agricultural products. However, for the time being, protection for those products is only granted at the national level. In anticipation of an EU proposal, the researchers looked into some of the national protection schemes, in order to investigate whether the current EU system with its distinction of PGIs and PDOs would also be a good fit for the non-agri sector. The findings indicate that an expansion of the current system - with some procedural adaptations - might work.

As the next step of the Research Project, it is planned - in cooperation with the University of Alicante and the EUIPO - to investigate the interface between the GI system and the trademark system, including collective and certification marks.

Survey on GI Systems in Latin America

Because of their potential to promote economic and social development, quality differentiation systems are particularly important for Latin American countries. Origin-based production, including manufacturing, handicraft, and especially food production is essential to their economies, in particular, to small producers, craftspeople, and family farmers. In this regard, though many products from Latin America are well-suited for GI protection, integration of local needs, cultural tradition, and social aspects require further research. To identify other available distinctive signs, and to investigate the interface, strengths and weaknesses of each one would help to better understand the overall system.

Moreover, the fact that the protection of GIs has been increasingly the subject of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) involving Latin American countries may restrict their leeway for the determination of national and regional policies. Thus, further investigation on FTA commitments may reveal implementation challenges at the national level.

The Institute’s “Smart IP for Latin America” (SIPLA) Initiative, launched in 2018, defined GIs as an area in need of investigation. Therefore, the first step within the SIPLA research project on “Collective Distinctive Signs” was an investigation of GIs in a comparative legal assessment of the systems of nine selected countries in the region. Because of the amount of information the team was interested in, a comprehensive questionnaire was designed by the SIPLA team and was answered by representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. The questionnaire was focused mainly on the GI protection systems and other distinctive signs available. It included a request for information regarding national, regional and local legislation if applicable, and case law.

A comprehensive “General Comparative Report” has been built on the information obtained via the questionnaire and the analysis of the FTAs signed by the selected countries. Finally, common elements have been identified in the different national and regional systems. From those elements, at least two possible areas of research emerge to be developed in the future. The first one refers to distinctive signs different from GIs - especially signs for collective use that can benefit family farmers and small producers. The second one considers further research on GIs’ level of protection focusing on the incorporation of TRIPS standards and FTAs commitments at the national and the regional level.

More information on the Research Initiative can be found in the ePaper of the actual Activity Report.

SEPs have become a key element of technical coordination in standard-setting organizations. Yet, it remains unclear whether a declared SEP is truly standard-essential. Strategic incentives may influence patent holders in their decision to claim standard essentiality. This may cause legal and contractual frictions during standard-setting and subsequent licensing negotiations. The new study by Lorenz Brachtendorf, Fabian Gaessler and Dietmar Harhoff addresses this issue and introduces an automated semantics-based method to approximate the standard essentiality of patents.

Manual assessments of SEPs typically require substantial technical knowledge and effort. In contrast, the introduced method is simple and inexpensive in use. The scalable, objective, and replicable approach allows for various practical applications. The authors illustrate its usefulness in estimating the share of true SEPs in firm patent portfolios for several mobile telecommunication standards. The results reveal firm-level differences that are statistically significant and economically substantial.

Beyond practical applications, the method may also provide insights of policy relevance. For instance, it can be used to examine whether certain policies achieve their goal of mitigating patent-related frictions in the standard-setting and implementation process.

This study makes an important contribution towards facilitating the ex ante coordination between technology contributors and implementers of technical standards. This is of particular relevance as standardized solutions for the information and communications technologies have become an important aspect of technological innovation and are ubiquitous in many industries of our economy. The study will be presented soon at the USPTO 14th Annual Conference on Innovation Economics and at EPIP 2021.

See the project poster.

See the detailed project description in the Activity Report 2018 - 2020.

Hear the EPO Podcast – Talk Innovation “Research into Patents – Drilling Deeper on the Standard Essentiality of Patents” with Dietmar Harhoff.

Publications

Brachtendorf, Lorenz; Gaessler, Fabian; Harhoff, Dietmar (2020). Approximating the Standard Essentiality of Patents – A Semantics-Based Analysis. Final Report for the European Patent Office Academic Research Programme.

Brachtendorf, Lorenz; Gaessler, Fabian; Harhoff, Dietmar (2020). Truly Standard-Essential Patents? A Semantics-Based Analysis. CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP14726 and CRC Discussion Paper No. 265.

Nearly half a year after the first Covid‑19 vaccines became available on the market, they remain in short supply. In October 2020, India and South Africa submitted a proposal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to temporarily waive intellectual property rights related to the prevention, containment or treatment of Covid‑19 during the pandemic. The application proposes that the waiver should continue until the majority of the world’s population has been immunized against the virus. A decision in the WTO Council would have to be unanimous. In the meantime, the US has announced its support for the initiative; nevertheless, there are also powerful dissenting voices.

With their proposal, India and South Africa are undoubtedly pursuing objectives that deserve support as such. An effective response to the pandemic indeed requires “rapid access to affordable medical products” and global cooperation. Yet a waiver of all intellectual property rights regulated within the framework of the TRIPS Agreement is unlikely to be a necessary or a suitable measure towards the pursued objectives.

“Requiring patents on Covid‑19 vaccines to be suspended would not only fail to provide relief from the current vaccine shortage, it would even be a highly dangerous experiment”, says Reto M. Hilty, Director of the Institute and Lead of a Research Group that has examined among other things how intellectual property rights affect the production and distribution of vaccines and medicines against Covid‑19 and what impact these rights can have on their prices.

In a Position Statement, the group summarized ten arguments why intellectual property rights so far have played an enabling rather than hindering role in overcoming the pandemic and why the international community will not benefit from a waiver either during or after the pandemic.

The full text of the Position Statement is available here.

A brief summary of the arguments can be found here.

A YouTube video of the discussion “Vaccine for all! What can be done?”, which took place on July 1 for the Max Planck Forum with the participation of Reto M. Hilty, can be found here (in German).

List of Supporters

The more Artificial Intelligence (AI) shapes the digital economy, the more insistently questions arise on the interplay of AI and intellectual property rights. To fully realize its potential for fostering innovation and welfare, AI needs an appropriate legal framework, which also includes property rights.

So far, the political and legal discussion has focused primarily on the output; more precisely, what is generated by the use of, or at least with the support of, Artificial Intelligence. To evaluate whether the existing IP system can still fulfill its function within the parameters of this fast-moving technology, a more holistic view is necessary. Particular consideration must be given to the individual steps of an AI-driven innovation cycle in which IP rights may play a role.

Comprehensive analysis

Against this backdrop, the Research Group “Regulation of the Digital Economy” of the Institute’s legal departments led by the two Directors Josef Drexl and Reto M. Hilty has developed a comprehensive analysis. The paper identifies potential issues that could arise at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and IP rights and introduces different directions in which solutions can be found.

The structure of the analysis is based on the three levels that need to be distinguished with regard to innovation or creation processes. First, issues related to the input required for the development of AI systems are investigated. The second part of the paper examines protection of AI Tools, while the third part focuses on property rights for AI-generated or AI-aided output.

Focus von European IP law

The analysis focuses on substantive European IP law, in particular on copyright, patents and designs, as well as on the sui-generis protection for databases and the protection of trade secrets. The latter can already play a role on the input side, but are especially important with regard to AI as a tool since the traditional IP systems hardly appear to be suitable for the particularities that need to be considered. However, property rights play a role primarily with regard to what is generated using AI; this also includes aspects such as the allocation of rights and, if applicable, the scope of protection.

The paper builds on insights that the Research Group has already gained in previous studies, especially with regard to the technical context. On this basis, it identifies those questions that require further – especially interdisciplinary – research. Overall, the paper emphasizes the need for a more holistic view, especially with regard to the fact that various IP rights play a role and may overlap in IP-driven innovation or creation.

The complete Position Statement “Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Law” can be found here.

Econometric analysis in Economics of Science and Innovation often requires control groups. These control groups need to have similar observable characteristics to a sample of researchers of interest. There are specific methodologies and tools to assist Econometricians in the matching exercise. However, the identification of such a population often constitutes a daunting data effort, which may turn impossible for samples of scientists spanning multiple fields, institutions, or countries. The python package sosia – Italian for Doppelgänger – intends to simplify and automate the search for comparable researchers in the Scopus database.

See the publication by

Michael E. Rose and Stefano H. Baruffaldi
Finding Doppelgängers in Scopus: How to Build Scientists Control Groups Using Sosia
Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper No. 20-20

Despite increasing international and European harmonization, the design of IP protection systems remains subject to the laws of individual states. The internationally accepted principle of territoriality limits the scope of application of the law to the territory of the legislating state. This also applies to cases involving intellectual property issues.

The increasing integration of the global economy and the potentially worldwide dimension of even the simplest acts of communication over the internet, have called into question the existing conflict-of-laws systems for quite some time. Especially at the start of the new millennium, this situation led to several scholarly initiatives aiming at the development of more suitable and internationally aligned principles. Among them were the so-called “CLIP Principles for Conflict of Laws in Intellectual Property”of 2011, initiated by today’s Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, which received worldwide attention. However, all these initiatives were of regional character (USA, Europe, and Asia) and they differ in several regards, such as in particular the conflict rule for initial ownership. Furthermore, they do not provide solutions for all issues that should be addressed.

International research group develops extensive guidelines

To fill these gaps the International Law Association in 2010 established the “Committee on Intellectual Property and Private International Law”. This research group, with its almost 30 experts, among them the Managing Director of the Institute, Josef Drexl, has developed the Kyoto Guidelines. The guidelines, which were adopted during the 79^th Biennial Conference of the ILA in December 2020, comprise 35 model provisions. In addition to questions of applicable law, the guidelines address matters of international jurisdiction of the courts and cross-border enforcement of judgments. The scope of the guidelines is not limited to classical intellectual property rights like copyright, patent and trademark law, but can be applied to related areas such as unfair competition law and the protection of trade secrets. The final text is divided into four sections: General Provisions (Guidelines 1-2), Jurisdiction (3-18), Applicable Law (19-31), and Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments (32-35).

The Kyoto Guidelines aim to propose specific provisions to national legislatures for the design of private international law on intellectual property issues to achieve a substantively balanced and internationally coordinated system in the long term. Judicatures can now begin using the guidelines as interpretive aid if their national system allows for such interpretation. Besides well-established and widely discussed issues at the interface of intellectual property and private international law such as the determination of initial ownership and multi-state infringements, the guidelines address new phenomena like cross-border collective copyright management.

Conflict-of-laws rules for CMOs

Though cross-border activities of collective rights management organizations (CMOs) are increasingly gaining relevance, the question of conflict-of-laws rules for CMOs has hardly been discussed so far. In 2015, in the course of the implementation of the Collective Rights Management Directive of the European Union (Directive 2014/26/EU), the Institute was alone in pointing out unresolved questions of private international law; it developed principles that have now been included in the Kyoto Guidelines.

The Kyoto Guidelines were adopted by the ILA at the end of last year. The Fifth Committee Report, which is already available to the public, contains basic comments for a better understanding of the provisions. The guidelines are scheduled for publication as a book including detailed commentary later this year.

The text of the Kyoto Guidelines can be found here.