Events

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

The increasing ability to organize information and transmit it to the market is ushering in an era where economic actors are highly responsive to the market. These shifts are particularly pronounced in the emerging technology space of the Internet of Things. Central to these disruptive innovations is a change in business operations, which has altered the architecture and conceptualization in how interactions occur; a transformation, which the patent system has not necessarily caught up with yet. Against this background this study investigates what patent governance regimes are needed in a European Union context so to assure that the Internet of Things enables the success of Small- and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). It does so, by means of a survey among SMEs active in the IOT space. In light of the evidence gathered, the study then identifies key components of 'good governance' for patent law and provide recommendations for policy makers that will allow to set the baseline for an 'Internet of Things for All.'

Contact person: Dr. Fabian Gaessler

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

We study the impact of the dual trademark system that was established in the European Union in 1996. Using a novel data set, we document that the new EU Trademark (EUTM) is a success story: the majority of new marks in EU Member States are now protected by the EUTM. The EUTM reduced the demand for national trademarks: on average, it crowded out 25% of national filings; this effect was much stronger for small countries and for foreign applicants. The EUTM also led to an overall increase in the number of marks protected in the EU, indicating easier market access. Finally, using a back-of-the-envelope calculation, we document that the EUTM generates substantial savings for the business sector. (Co-Author: Benedikt Herz)

Contact person: Dr. Fabian Gaessler

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

Why do some people become entrepreneurs when it is not optimal? We explore this question by disentangling two mechanisms that may have been confounded: overconfidence and attitude toward uncertainty. Following Frank Knight (1921), we further distinguish between two types of uncertainty: risk and ambiguity. In a laboratory experiment, we shock individuals’ level of confidence in their skills to causally identify the effect of overconfidence on entry into competitive markets. Moreover, we highlight the critical role of attitude toward ambiguity on entry: independent of their level of confidence, individuals exhibit ambiguity-seeking behavior when the result of the competition depends on their skills, which in turn leads to a higher level of entry. This preference for ambiguity can explain results that have previously been attributed to overconfidence. Finally, we observe that excess entry does not always occur but, rather, depends on the intensity of competition and whether the result of the competition depends on individuals’ skills (co-authored with Thomas Åstebro).

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room E10

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

Research and product or process development are two distinct, yet complementary innovation activities. Making use of a specific grant-based policy design that explicitly distinguishes between research projects, development projects, and mixed R&D projects, this study estimates the direct and cross scheme effects on both research and development investments of recipient firms. Positive cross scheme effects can be expected when research and development activities are complementary and financing constraints are more binding for research than for development projects. The results show that while research grants yield positive direct effects on net research spending as well as positive cross effects on development, development grants are less effective for stimulating development expenditures. The positive effect of development grants on overall R&D stems from cross effects of development grants on research expenditures. These results suggest a higher priority for subsidies targeting research projects.

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

A probabilistic patent, that is, a patent with significant invalidation possibility, can significantly hamper the innovation enhancing role of a patent system. It may allow a patentee-licensor to command a disproportionately strong power over licensees. A probabilistic patent may also fail to effectively promote the investment by a patentee-manufacturer for developing the invention. A third party may be able to substantially contribute to reducing the problems of probabilistic patent through information submissions and post-grant oppositions.

This study examines such possibilities based on Japanese experiences which have extensively used an information submission system. More specifically we ask the following three questions.

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(1) Which patent application is more likely to be challenged by information submissions?

(2) How effective are such challenges?

(3) How do third party contributions affect the quality of patent examination?

Contact person: Dr. Fabian Gaessler

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

Can authorities foster entrepreneurship by means of education and training? If so, what type of education or training is most beneficial? We investigate a large government-initiated reform to provide entrepreneurship education and training for university students and examine the program’s effects on entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial intentions, and new venture creation. While results suggest a positive effect of limited training interventions (workshops, inspirational lectures, and the like) on each of these three outcomes, no similar effect can be discerned for the program’s more all-encompassing university courses. We interpret these results to mean that less may be more when it comes to government-sponsored entrepreneurship education: small interventions can be as beneficial, if not more, as large interventions, when it comes to promoting entrepreneurial efficacy, entrepreneurial intentions and venture creation. Implications for theory, education, and policy are discussed. (Co-Authors: Niklas Elert and Karolin Sjö)

Contact person: Dr. Laura Rosendahl Huber

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, room E10

Abstract
In the course of the ongoing shift in the online market from ownership to access-based models, platform services that provide access to content uploaded by their users play a major role in online content distribution. However, legal uncertainty regarding the liability of such platform services affects both rights holders, in their ability to negotiate appropriate remunerations, and content provider services, in their competition with platform services for users and revenues. Legal proceedings against platform services have not yet led to a sufficient clarification of the legal situation.

It remains unclear to which extent platform services engage in acts of communication to the public and making available and whether they can benefit from the liability exemption for hosts provided for in the E-Commerce Directive. On 14th September 2016 the EU Commission presented a proposal for a directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market taking up the current “transfer of value”-discussion, especially with the provisions in Article 13 and recital 38.

Against this background and irrespective of different legal positions on the issue of whether platform services are responsible for the licensing of musical works GEMA and YouTube recently signed an agreement enabling GEMA members to participate in the exploitation of their works and ending the legal proceedings between the parties.

About the author
Tobias Holzmüller, born 1975, studied history and law at the Universities of Glasgow, Montpellier, Heidelberg and New York (NYU, LL.M. 2007). He holds a PhD from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and served as a research scholar at the Max-Planck-Institute for Intellectual Property law and Competition from 2004 to 2006. After being admitted as lawyer in 2007 he worked for the law firm Gleiss Lutz until 2012 in their Munich and Brussels offices. In this time Tobias focused on German and European antitrust law, copyright law and EU law.

Tobias joined GEMA in January 2013 as Director for Legal Affairs & General Counsel. Since 2016 he is also in charge of the German Society for Private Copying Collections in Germany (ZPÜ). He is a member of the Association of German Antitrust Lawyers and the German Society for Intellectual Property Rights (GRUR). He has published extensively on various topics of competition and copyright law and teaches Copyright Law at the University of Regensburg.

Speaker: Fabian Gaessler/Zhaoxin Pu
Taking the Crowd by the Hand - The Intermediary Role of Crowdfunding Platforms

Speaker: Matthias Schmitt
Does A Local Bias Exist in Equity Crowdfunding?

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 313

This paper seeks to investigate to what extent European patent litigation has been harmonized across the Member States of the European Patent Convention. We introduce a divergent expectation model for patent infringement disputes, where both litigation and settlement are driven by patent quality, a function of both broadness and definiteness of the patent, with the technology-specific factor determining the relative weights. Under our model, patent holders and patent infringers decide whether to settle or litigate based on differences in perception of the patent's quality whereas at the trial stage it is the assessment of the absolute patent quality by the judge which decides the outcome of the case. We evaluate 1117 patent infringement and counterclaim decisions rendered by courts in the three largest patent-granting European countries - Germany, France, and the United Kingdom - between 2008 and 2012 to empirically test the hypotheses flowing from our model at the trial stage. Our preliminary findings point to significant differences in patent litigation outcomes by technology, industry, and jurisdiction. We particularly find evidence that patent litigation is technology-specific within and between countries. We seek to explain our results through an assessment of the value-specific patterns of the patent conflicts and thereby, find that the patent quality proxy we use significantly predicts the litigation outcome. (Authors: Raphael Zingg/Erasmus Elsner)

Contact person: Dr. Fabian Gaessler