Events

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

The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of a decision weakening patents in light of the arguments made by stakeholders during the policymaking process. We show that the common belief that weaker patents lead to fewer innovations is wrong, while accounting for the heterogeneous patent-related strategies. Using a unique dataset on the entire population of French firms over 1995-2010 matched with their patents, we propose a cleaner test compared to previous literature using a measure closer to the concept of patenting propensity and a novel empirical approach. The arguments made by the Supreme Court and Amici in court documents show that the policy objectives are partially attained. While large firms in complex products industries reduce preemptive patenting, other firms use patents less as an appropriation mechanisms. Nevertheless, innovative activities remain high overall, due to the availability of alternative appropriation mechanisms and the spillovers allowed by weaker patents.

Contact Person: Dr. Fabian Gaessler

This lecture will cover the intersection of data protection/privacy and trademarks, with a particular focus on the adverse effects that international data transfers have on brands.
Trademarks/brands are symbols that embody goodwill (e.g., the ability to attract and retain customers). As data is wildly labeled as the “new oil”, doubts regarding the security of personal data seem to be on everyone’s minds. Naturally, failures to prevent infringements of the individual’s right to privacy result in immeasurable brand damage and irreparable reputational harm, which lead to the loss of customers’ trust. Accordingly, this lecture will include a discussion on why international trademark/brand owners should be particularly aware of the legal rules governing data transfers outside of the European Economic Area. In particular, we will discuss the recent developments in the substance, proactive information governance strategies for taming “big data”, and the requirement to secure the “crown jewels” of the enterprise.

If you plan on attending, we kindly request that you register with Ms. Rosanna Würf  by Monday, 15 January 2018.

Moderation: Jörg Hoffmann

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

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 101

When preparing a research article, academics engage in informal intellectual collaboration by asking other academics for feedback, which gives rise to a social network. We study whether informal intellectual collaboration with an academic who is more central in this social network results in a research article having higher scientific impact. To identify the effect of centrality changes of the most central commenter acknowledged on an article, we exploit deaths of scholars occurring somewhere in the network. We show that citation count increases by 1 citation if the most central commenter on the average article increases her Bonacich centrality by 2%. The effect is mediated by a decay in importance of more distance connections and robust to different network definitions.
To illustrate our results, we develop a structural model in which a positive externality from intellectual collaboration implies that collaborating with a more central colleague results in larger scientific impact of the research article.

Contact person: Dr. Fabian Gaessler

Moderation: Michael Neumann

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich, Room 101

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

In this paper, we begin with a review of the venture capital (VC) literature. We then briefly present mixed methods research, which combines quantitative and qualitative data and exploratory and confirmatory analysis in one study, and an illustrative study on VC learning. We then suggest mixed methods-related directions for future VC research, addressing gaps in the relational, learning, and related aspects under research stream, and presenting a cross-disciplinary mixed methods-related approach. Lastly, we provide a short critical discussion on both methods and research practices. In doing so, we hope to stimulate entrepreneurship scholars’ interest in these underutilized methods.

Contact Person: Dr. Fabian Gaessler

Zum Thema “Verbraucherschutz und Kartellrecht” sprechen aus der Perspektive des Bundeskartellamtes und der Wissenschaft Professor Dr. Carsten Becker, Bundeskartellamt, Vorsitzender der Beschlussabteilung Verbraucherschutz und Professor Dr. Rupprecht Podszun, Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf.

Die Spruchpraxis des EPA, die Rechtsprechung der Mitgliedsstaaten und das anwendbare Recht

Priorität und Prioritätsrecht gehören seit über einhundert Jahren zu den elementaren Bestandteilen des Patentschutzes. Dennoch bestehen sowohl innerhalb der Spruchpraxis des EPA wie auch der Rechtsprechung der Mitgliedsstaaten divergierende Auffassungen über die rechtliche Einordnung des Prioritätsrechts, aus denen erhebliche Rechtsunsicherheiten für die Praxis resultieren können. Der Vortrag setzt sich kritisch mit diesen Entscheidungen auseinander, fragt nach den Konsequenzen für das anwendbare Recht im grenzüberschreitenden Erfinderverkehr und spricht sich am Beispiel der Übertragung von Prioritätsrechten für eine stärkere Berücksichtigung des Vertragsstatuts aus.

Zur Erleichterung unserer Vorbereitungen bitten wir um Anmeldung bis Mittwoch, den 29. November 2017 per E-Mail an elisabeth.amler(at)ip.mpg.de

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

We explore how firms frame catastrophic innovation failure for external audiences. Failure events may lead external audiences to doubt the firm’s ultimate chances of success. Because it is difficult for those audiences to ascertain whether the failure occurred due to the uncertainty inherent to innovation (experimentation uncertainty) or due to managerial or organizational shortcomings (execution uncertainty), a firm’s own framing of the failure may critically influence external audiences’ interpretations. We analyze three cases of catastrophic innovation failure at two firms in the private space industry - SpaceX and Virgin Galactic—using market-facing communications, including social media, blogs, corporate websites, press releases, and news articles. We find that firms frame catastrophic innovation failure considering

(1) the extent to which they incorporated the notion of failure into their external narrative prior to the failure, and

(2) the nature of the catastrophic event itself. We identify a tension inherent to the crafting of organizational narratives for innovating firms, between promising success (which elicits external audiences’ support) and acknowledging the possibility of failure (which may deter them). Our findings indicate a need for innovating firms to weave a sense of ‘optimal promise’ into their external narratives, balancing the zeal of success with the possibility of failure.

Contact Person: Zhaoxin Pu