Institute News

The prize, endowed with EUR 1,000, is conferred annually by a scientific committee composed of five prominent Italian antitrust professionals, three officers and two lawyers, for the best dissertation in the area of competition and consumer law.

The award is just one of the initiatives of the association, all of which are devoted to promoting excellence in antitrust education and practice in the memory of Elena Messina. Messina, a young and promising lawyer who graduated summa cum laude from LUISS University with a dissertation on efficiency and consumer welfare in EU and US anti-monopoly laws, died in 2012 in a road accident. She was working for the Italian Antitrust Authority at the time.

Galli was presented with the prize by the Vice President of the Association, Filippo Alberti, on 28 September 2017 at the seat of the Antitrust Authority in Rome during the conference “Competition issues related to the freedom to connect”.

The Max Planck Society awards the prize, endowed with EUR 7,500, with the intention to motivate talented junior scientists and researchers to pursue a future research career.

Fabian Gaessler’s thesis is dedicated to the empirical study of the enforcement and trade of patent rights in Europe. The means available to an inventor to enforce his exclusive right against others and/or to sell his protected idea represent fundamental preconditions for a functioning patent system, and ultimately for incentivizing innovation. Fabian Gaessler uses quantitative methods to address inter alia the question as to what extent the current institutional design in Germany is conducive to patent enforcement and whether it qualifies as a blueprint for a European unified system.

Since 1978, the Max Planck Society honors up to 30 young scientists and researchers every year with the Otto Hahn Medal for outstanding scientific achievement - to date, more than 940 scientists and researchers.

The paper examines the impact and signaling effects of crowdfinancing on subsequent venture capital funding rounds. Drawing on a choice experimental research design the author finds causal evidence that crowdfunding – relative to other prefunding sources – is often a negative signal for professional venture investors, but that the “crowd” can nonetheless and under certain circumstances send positive signals increasing the likelihood of subsequent financing rounds.

The prize, endowed with 500 Euro, is granted by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology together with the Leuphana Research Center for Entrepreneurship.

The paper examines the impact and signaling effects of crowdfinancing on subsequent venture capital funding rounds. Drawing on a choice experimental research design the author finds causal evidence that crowdfunding – relative to other prefunding sources – is often interpreted as a negative signal by professional venture investors, but that the “crowd” can nonetheless and under certain circumstances send positive signals increasing the likelihood of subsequent financing rounds.

The prize is awarded annually under the auspices of the President of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert for the most important dissertation of the year in each of three areas: Humanities, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences and Technology. The prize recognizes excellent dissertations that are also of great current relevance to society.

In the absence of Norbert Lammert, legal scholar Dr. Fischmann was awarded the prize by Vice-President of the Bundestag Edelgard Bulmahn on 8 November 2016 at the Marie-Elisabeth Lüders Building in Berlin.

The prize, endowed with EUR 2,000, is awarded by the Karl Schlecht Foundation. The non-profit foundation aims at improving leadership in business, society and politics by humanistic values and encourages and supports impact oriented projects and institutions in the funding areas leadership, ethics, education, culture and technology.

The paper examines the impact and signaling effects of crowdfinancing on subsequent venture capital funding rounds. Drawing on a choice experimental research design the author finds causal evidence that crowdfunding – relative to other prefunding sources – is often a negative signal for professional venture investors, but that the “crowd” can nonetheless and under certain circumstances send positive signals increasing the likelihood of subsequent financing rounds.

As early as August, the team of authors consisting of Matthias Dorner, Dietmar Harhoff, Tina Hinz, Karin Hoisl and Stefan Bender was awarded the AoM TIM Best Paper Award for the paper “Social Ties and Quality Signals – Lessons from the Migration of East German Inventors” at the Academy of Management Meeting 2016 in Anaheim, California.

The paper dealt with the impact of social ties and publicly observable performance signals on the migration of knowledge workers. The fall of the Iron Curtain and German reunification were used as a natural experiment for the migration decision of East German inventors.

Results showed that regions with more pronounced social ties across the border prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain attracted more inventors as of 1990. Furthermore, mobility decisions made by inventors with visible performance signals were substantially less impacted by social ties than those of inventors who lacked these signals. The project was conducted with researchers from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg.

In honor of Beverly W. Pattishall, this award recognizes teaching professionals in the business and legal fields for outstanding instruction in the trademark and trade identity field. Beverly W. Pattishall was a long-time partner in the firm of Pattishall, McAuliffe, Newbury, Hilliard & Geraldson LLP. This award is presented every four years to a university or graduate school academic nominated by peers and students, and who best exemplifies the qualities of excellence and innovation in teaching subjects related to trademarks and trade identity.

Dr. Kur received an outstanding 18 nominations for this award. In one of the nominations, a former student described Dr. Kur as, “not only instrumental in triggering [her] interest in intellectual property law and its international context, she has also profoundly influenced [her] outlook on trademark and design law by favoring a critical approach, rooted in legal principles, and promoting awareness and consistency of the international context in an area as internationalized as trademark law.”

“It is evident in the numerous nominations that Dr. Kur embodies the qualities of a world-class teaching professional and Pattishall Medal Award recipient. Dr. Kur’s dedication and commitment to education is exemplary and our Association is pleased to have this opportunity to recognize her achievements in the classroom,” said 2016 INTA President Ronald van Tuijl. “We are honored to present Dr. Kur with this award.”

Dr. Kur will receive US $2,500 along with an invitation to attend INTA’s Leadership Meeting in Florida in November, where she will be formally presented with the award.

The International Trademark Association (INTA) is the global association of trademark owners and professionals dedicated to supporting trademarks and related intellectual property in order to protect consumers and to promote fair and effective commerce. Members include more than 6,700 trademark owners, professionals and academics from more than 190 countries, who benefit from the Association’s global trademark resources, policy development, education and training, and international network. Founded in 1878, INTA is headquartered in New York City, with offices in Brussels, Shanghai and Washington, D.C., and representatives in Geneva and Mumbai.

Henri de Belsunce, former scholarship holder at the Munich-based Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, was awarded the "Brenno Galli Award" at the "SIDE (Italian Society of Law and Economics) 2014 Rome Conference" in December 2014 for his paper "Do more patents mean less entry? Patenting strategies in cumulative innovation under the threat of litigation".

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Senior Research Fellow and Head of Unit at the Munich-based Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Annette Kur, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki (Finnland),, "for her major contributions to European intellectual property law, especially within the fields of trade mark and design law" at the end of November.

The honorary doctorate is conferred every five years on persons who "based on scientific, cultural or social activities of great merit can be considered worthy of this distinction". Together with a group of experts at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Kur has greatly influenced industrial design legislation in the European Union, for instance by co-writing the report on the "Overall Evaluation of the Functioning of the European Trade Mark System", which has formed the basis of the pending Commission proposal for the reform of European trade mark law.

Alongside Kur, Edward Freeman, Professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business (USA), and Oz Shy, PhD, Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (USA), were awarded the honorary doctorate for their academic achievements.

Hanken School of Economics, founded in 1909, is a leading, internationally accredited (Equis and AMBA) university in the field of economics and business administration. It is one of the oldest business schools in the Nordic countries and maintains close and intensive links with the business world. At its two campuses in Helsinki and Vaasa it offers academic programs on all levels (BSc, MSc and PhD).