Events

Contact: Shraddha Kulhari

Different kinds of literature have suggested inconsistent answers to motivations behind a firm’s disclosure strategy. Unlike patents, publications do not afford property rights but rather increases the chances of expropriation. A key unanswered question in the literature is: under which condition firms use publications as an instrument to recruit scientists?  Drawing on the innovation literature, I argue that when a tight labor market affords scientists higher bargaining power, firms tend to disclose more internal research via publications. To test this hypothesis, I use a novel dataset of 200 million job posts and 1.1 million firm-level publications from AI firms which have been experiencing a tight labor market. By linking firm-level labor demand with firm-level publications, I demonstrate how scientists’ bargaining power increases firm-level research disclosure. Specifically, I document that labor demand increases the number of AI publications, but only in the same fields of increased demands. This relationship is particularly salient when firms need highly skilled scientists (e.g., PhD holders, more skilled individuals). For identification strategy, I exploit the variation in AI exposure at the firm level, which influences firm-level demand for AI talents but not AI publications. Finally, using a novel methodology, I document that the shortage of scientists did not increase the number of patent-paper pairs or simultaneous disclosure of the same research projects in both patents and papers.

Contact: Michael E. Rose

Seminar jointly organized with TUM, TUM Main Campus, seminar room 0505.2544 (entrance from Luisenstraße/Theresienstraße, 2nd floor)

Knowledge spillovers drive a wedge between private and social returns to R&D. Efficient innovation policy assigns subsidies to fields where spillovers are relatively important. We develop new measures for the private and spillover value of patented innovations and embed these in a structural microeconomic model to estimate field-specific marginal returns to R&D support. We find that expected returns to subsidy vary strongly by field and country, suggesting that targeted innovation policy has large potential to increase welfare. Because spillovers cross country borders unevenly, supranational coordination of innovation policy offers large potential efficiency gains, especially for smaller countries.

Contact: Fabian Gaessler

Intellectual Property as Loan Collateral

Presenter: David Heller (Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition)

Discussant: Annabelle Haché Harter (TUM)

Technology Governance as Selection Criterion: The Case of Smart Cities

Presenter: Lucia Baur (TUM)

Discussant: Safia Bouacha (ISTO)

Using novel and large-scale data, we reassess two claims on the effect of a connection to the editorial board of an economics journal and propose a new mechanism. Rather than editors helping departmental colleagues, the connection is particularly beneficial for the joining board members themselves; the impact on departmental colleagues who are not coauthors of the editor is comparatively small. Rather than a marked increase in quality thanks to connections, we find no such increase, if any, there is evidence of favouritism among journals with little editorial board rotation.

Contact: Michael E. Rose

As access to the internet is essential for digital business models and applications, sound regulation of the internet is crucial for promoting digital innovation and fully reaping the social benefits of digitalization. Regulation of the internet has to take account of the dynamic evaluation of communication technologies, business models and the markets. Against this backdrop, the Institute organizes a workshop to bring together different stakeholders and experts to develop a better understanding of the internet in view of guiding future regulation.

Recent research and popular debate suggest that there can be a positive relationship between diversity, or differences in team member characteristics, and performance in novel problem-solving. In this study, we take steps to disambiguate the causal effects of knowledge diversity versus demographic diversity (gender, race, age) on innovation performance. We report on a field experiment in which 834 adults engaged in an inherently multi-disciplinary product development problem. Team composition was randomly assigned, as was the degree to which teams were primed to engage in a collaborative orientation and work style. We find that performance effects of knowledge and demographic diversity are—to a striking degree—statistically separate, independent, and qualitatively distinct. Consistent with prior literature, the results indicate largely distinct implications of diversity on knowledge integration versus group problem-solving processes. Apart from this main goal of disambiguating diversity effects most broadly, the study contributes a series of results on causal effects of knowledge, gender, race, and age diversity in a field experimental context.

Contact: Svenja Friess

The Digital Services Act (DSA) sets out numerous “due diligence” obligations for intermediaries concerning any type of illegal information. Copyright infringing content arguably is illegal content under the DSA, and accounts empirically for most take-down decisions by intermediaries. New rules on notice-and-action (Art. 14), statement of reasons (Art. 15), trusted flaggers (Art. 19), and measures and protection against misuse (Art. 20) add a level of specificity not found in the e-Commerce Directive (ECD), nor in the lex specialis of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (Art. 17, CDSM). The UK chose not to implement the CDSM Directive, nor is the infringement of intellectual property rights a relevant offence that triggers new “duty of care” obligations under the Online Safety Bill published on 17 March 2022 (section 52(8)). However, the Bill also abandons the (Art. 15, ECD) prohibition of “general monitoring”, endorsing “proactive technology” and instituting a new regulatory system based on “codes of practice”. Codes of practice are essentially terms of service negotiated between “high-risk, high-reach” platforms and the regulator Ofcom, with significant executive powers for the Secretary of State. In contrast the proposed EU Digital Services Act only includes vague references to such self- and co-regulatory agreements under Art. 35 (“The Commission and the Board shall encourage and facilitate the drawing up of codes of conduct at Union level to contribute to the proper application of this Regulation”, with a focus on tackling “different types of illegal content and systemic risks”) and under Art. 36 (relating to online advertising). This talk will discuss opportunities and potential pitfalls for Copyright policy from these emerging Codes. Codes of practice and Codes of conduct imply ongoing revision and flexibility, which makes them a potentially attractive regulatory tool for fast developing industries and markets. Unlike statutes, Codes do not involve a complex legislative procedure. They can be more responsive to changing circumstances. On the other hand, a Code’s legal standing and enforcement conditions are often uncertain. State functions may be delegated to private firms without democratic scrutiny and appropriate procedural safeguards.

Contact: Marina Chugunova

Monday, 13 June 2022
Chairs: Hanns Ullrich and Ansgar Ohly

Welcome
Dietmar Harhoff

Grand Challenges, Technology and IP: The Case of Global Food Security
Axel Metzger (Humboldt University Berlin)

Intellectual Property in the Circular Economy
Maria Lillà Montagnani (Bocconi University Milan)

IP and Transparency in an Algorithmic Society
Tanya Aplin (King’s College London)

Value Pluralism in Intellectual Property Law: Participation Rights in the Innovation and Information Ecosystem
Martin Senftleben (University of Amsterdam)

Tuesday, 14 June 2022
Chairs: Annette Kur and Josef Drexl

Radical Changes, Trends, and Constants: The Calibration of Intellectual Property Law
Marketa Trimble (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

Why the Structure and Direction of Innovation Matters – ‘Another View of the Cathedral’
Matthias Leistner (University of Munich)

Back to Square One: Intellectual Property for the Common Good
Katharina de la Durantaye (Free University Berlin)

(Re-)Constructing IP Rights in Unsettled Times: The Multilateral Task of IP Scholarship
Michael Grünberger (University of Bayreuth)

Conclusion and Farewell
Josef Drexl

The Munich Summer Institute (MSI) is hosted by the Center for Law & Economics at ETH Zurich, the Chair for Technology and Innovation Management at TUM, the Chair for Economics of Innovation at TUM, the Institute for Strategy, Technology and Organization at the LMU Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition.

Please find further information at the website of the MSI.