Events

Abstracts
The past two years have seen a very active enforcement of Anti-Monopoly law (AML) in China, especially in the intellectual property rights intensive industries. The enforcement agencies frequently carry out investigations into international companies in Internet and ICT industries. The "Qualcomm" decision made by NDRC (China’s national development and reform commission) in 2015 has drawn great attention not only in China but also worldwide, as some disputed approaches applied and remedies imposed by NDRC showed a relative strict regulation on price-related abusive conduct of practicing IPR. The balance between the protection of intellectual property and effective competition is always a tough ongoing topic. In this context, on the last day of 2015 NDRC invited public comments on its draft "Anti-Monopoly Guideline on Intellectual Property Abuse". Together with this, drafts from other two enforcement agencies and SIPO (State IP office) will be submitted to the Anti-Monopoly Committee under State Council for review in the first half of this year. In the light of the enforcement practices, the guideline intends to clarify and improve already established principles regarding the prohibition of abusive use of IPRs under Chinese AML.

This report will give an overview to the guideline drafts, and particularly comment on the draft of NDRC. The focal points in this draft guideline will be discussed, such as the unfairly high royalties, no-challenge clauses, and injunction relieves of IPR holders, etc. Moreover, the report intends to offer a glance into the public enforcement of AML status quo, and discuss the inconsistencies between the statutory provisions and practice of law, given the broad discretion of the enforcement agencies.
 
About the Speaker
Ms. Yukun Xiao LL.M (LMU), Ph.D candidate of Prof. Ackermann at the LMU. Her research fields include international competition law, innovation and competition policy. Her Ph.D research focuses on the public and private enforcement of the competition law in EU, Germany and China. Since 2014 Yukun Xiao has worked for Fraunhofer Gesellschaft at the department of IP commercialization. In January 2016 Fraunhofer Gesellschaft was invited by Delegation of the European Union and Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Beijing to comment on the NDRC Draft Guideline. Yukun Xiao was responsible for drawing up the first draft of opinions at Fraunhofer Gesellschaft.
 
About the Discussant:
Ms. Xin Zhao, PhD. Candidate of Tongji University Law School, Shanghai, China. She was Fulbright Visiting Scholar in The George Washington University and DAAD Scholarship holder. Her research fields are Anti-Monopoly Law and Patent Law. 

Francisco Beneke will lecture on "Entry Analysis in Latin American Competition Law Enforcement - Why Development Matters". Luc Desaunettes will moderate.

Luc Desaunettes will talk about Justification for a legal protection of trade secrets. Andrea Bauer will moderate.

Dr. Margot Fröhlinger, Principal Director for Patent Law and Multilateral Affairs at EPO and Judge Sam Granata, External member of the UPC Legal Framework Groups “Rules on Procedure” and “Rules on Arbitration”.

Panel discussion with the main speakers and Dr. Armin Dürrschmidt, Partner, International Arbitration, Law Firm CMS Hasche Sigle and Dr. Michael Kock, Head of IP, Syngenta. Moderated by Dr. Peter Picht, LL.M. (Yale), Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich.

Abstract:

Research which explores unchartered waters has a high potential for major impact but also carries a high uncertainty of having minimal impact. Such explorative research is often described as taking a novel approach.

This study examines the complex relationship between pursuing a novel approach and impact. We measure novelty by examining the extent to which a published paper makes first time ever combinations of referenced journals, taking into account the difficulty of making such combinations. We apply this newly developed measure of novelty to a set of one million research articles across all scientific disciplines. We find that highly novel papers, defined to be those that make more (distinct) new combinations, have more than a triple probability of being a top 1% highly cited paper when using a sufficiently long citation time window to assess impact.

Moreover, follow-on papers that cite highly novel research are themselves more likely to be highly cited. However, novel research is also risky as it has a higher variance in the citation performance. These findings are consistent with the “high risk/high gain” characteristic of novel research.

We also find that novel papers are typically published in journals with a lower than expected Impact Factor and are less cited when using a short time window. Our findings suggest that science policy, in particular funding decisions which are over reliant on traditional bibliometric indicators based on short-term direct citation counts and Journal Impact Factors, may be biased against novelty. (Authors: Jian Wang/Reinhilde Veugelers/Paula Stephan)

Please drop us a line if you plan to attend.

Extended Abstract

Abstract:

Patent offices around the world face massive backlogs of applications, which threatens to slow down the pace of technological progress. However, economists lack analytical tools to address the issue. This paper provides a model of patent backlog inspired from the traffic congestion literature.

Inventors in the cohort are heterogeneous with respect to desired patent pendency duration and react in anticipation of the waiting time resulting from the backlog. They can accelerate or slow down pendency duration by adapting their filing strategy. We find that the backlog impedes patent examination progress by providing incentives to strategically manipulate pendency.

We discuss three policy responses: increasing examination capacity; introducing a penalty fee; and altering the value of pending applications.

The tenth anniversary of the entry into force of Regulation No. 1/2003 and of the Merger Control Regulation No. 139/2004 commemorates the most significant competition policy projects of the last decade: modernisation, decentralisation and the more economic approach. The project of modernisation has led to enforcement procedures and decisions which exhibit novel characteristics. Decentralisa- tion has expanded the role of national competition autho- rities and has also assigned special European responsibility to these authorities. The more economic approach has laid the grounds for novel strands of arguments. In addition, the tenth anniversary of EU enlargement marks a decade of direct application of competition law in the formerly socialist EU Member States.

Against the background of these major upheavals, the lecture series intends to take a forward looking approach by focussing on the future challenges, necessities and developments of EU competition policy. Central actors of EU competition policy, academics and experts from the legal and economic profession are invited to engage in a critical discourse.

Please register until 18/01/2016 delia.zirilli@ip.mpg

About the Speaker
Luc Peeperkorn is Principal Expert in Antitrust Policy at the European Commission. He studied economics and political science at the University of Amsterdam and worked as an assistant professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He was a central figure in various teams which created what is now called the effects-based approach in EU competition policy, in particular by making new rules for supply and distribution agreements, for de minimis agreements and for technology transfer agreements. He also co-authored the Guidance on the Commission’s enforcement priorities in applying Article 102. He teaches at the Brussels School of Competition and was recently a Senior Emile Noël Fellow at NYU.

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Im Bereich der wirtschaftlichen Nutzung von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien findet seit einigen Jahren weltweit eine Art „Patentkrieg“ statt. Die von den Rechtsordnungen äußerst schlagkräftig geschmiedeten Waffen in jenen Auseinandersetzungen um Marktanteile und Umsatzerlöse in Bereichen wie etwa Smartphones, Tablet-PCs und Internettechnologien sind Patente, die Schlachtfelder in zunehmendem Maße gerichtliche Verfahren. Es stellt sich die Frage, ob das geltende deutsche Recht, insbesondere § 139 Abs. 1 PatG wegen der im Wesentlichen einschränkungslosen Zubilligung eines Unterlassungsanspruchs noch den verfassungsrechtlichen Anforderungen an Gesetze entspricht, die den Inhalt und die Schranken des Patenteigentums nach Art. 14 Abs. 1 S. 2 und Abs. 2 GG bestimmen. Es fehlt an einer ausreichenden normativen Vorsorge gegen unverhältnismäßige Beeinträchtigungen grundrechtlicher Belange Dritter bei der Ausübung des eigentumsrechtlichen Primärrechts. Bis zu einer gesetzlichen Neuregelung ist es Aufgabe der allgemein zuständigen Zivilgerichte, im Rahmen patentrechtlicher Verletzungsverfahren und bei der Beurteilung der Unterlassungsbegehren nach § 139 Abs. 1 PatG den verfassungsrechtlichen Anforderungen der gerechten Abwägung nach Maßgabe des Verhältnismäßigkeitsgrundsatzes Rechnung zu tragen.

Einladung zur Veranstaltung