Institute News

The Legal Scholar Daria Kim

The legal scholar Daria Kim receives the award for her work on “Access to Non-Summary Clinical Trial Data for Research Purposes Under EU Law”, a study on the regulation of access to data collected during clinical trials in order to improve future drug research.

Daria Kim provides in her dissertation an in-depth study on the regulation of access to patient-level data generated in the context of clinical trials. As an interdisciplinary study, it integrates the insights from medical research, economics and public policy into normative legal analysis. The author elaborates a proposal of how the rules on access to data can be designed on the EU level to reconcile the policy objectives of leveraging the knowledge potential of data through exploratory analysis in the interest of society at large while protecting innovation incentives of research-based drug companies. She thereby substantially contributes to the further development of the legal system designed to promote innovation against the backdrop of the current development of digitization.

Daria Kim is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute.

The Economist Felix Pöge

The economist Felix Pöge is awarded for his dissertation on “Corporate Innovation – The Role of Scientific Discoveries, Taxation and Antitrust” which makes important contributions to the analysis of innovation processes, in particular the impact of competition on innovation outcomes.

In four essays, Felix Pöge answers pressing research questions and examines how the quality of scientific contributions, corporate taxation, corporate participation in scientific conferences, and industry structure affect innovation outcomes. In his most comprehensive essay, he looks at the breakup of IG Farben after World War II and its impact on competition and innovation in the chemical sector. Pöge concludes that the politically motivated breakup led to a substantial increase in competition, which was reflected in lower prices for a large number of chemical products and in an increase in patenting activities by the companies affected by the breakup. For the current debate on the effects of mergers on competition and innovation, this historical study provides important evidence and implies that mergers can harm both competition and innovation.

Felix Pöge is now a Postdoctoral Associate at the Technology & Policy Research Initiative at Boston University. 

The Max Planck Society has been awarding the prize for outstanding scientific achievements, named after the „father of nuclear chemistry” Otto Emil Hahn (1879–1968), since 1978. The prize is endowed with 7,500 euros and is intended to motivate young talented scientists to pursue a research career.

The Otto Hahn Medal for Young Scientists will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Max Planck Society on 22 June 2022 in Berlin.

We congratulate the award winners!

Access to Non-Summary Clinical Trial Data for Research Purposes Under EU Law (pdf and epub)

Corporate Innovation – The Role of Scientific Discoveries, Taxation and Antitrust (pdf)

For many people in the digital age it has become a matter of course to be able to use applications such as weather apps, digital city maps or interactive maps of infection spread at any time. These offers are based on data provided by the public sector. Public sector information is thus omnipresent in everyday life – often unnoticed by the users themselves. For the stability and the prosperity of an open information society, it is crucial that this information is in principle accessible to everyone. This raises the question of how rules should be designed to achieve the best possible use of public sector information.

Heiko Richter pursues this question in his dissertation entitled “Information as Infrastructure – Towards a Competition- and Innovation-Oriented Framework for Public Sector Information”. In this context, he brings together the public law regulations on the access to and dissemination of information, EU competition law and intellectual property law in a comprehensive infrastructure approach. Based on this approach, specific regulatory frameworks for public sector information can be further developed in a competition- and innovation-oriented manner. The study thus creates a new level of knowledge and reflection on the role of information for the economy, society and state.

Finally, the dissertation provides concrete recommendations for action on how the EU and its member states can adapt existing law in order to create and secure the functional conditions of a liberal society in the midst of the digital transformation. The study thus bridges the gap between legal-interdisciplinary fundamental research and the setting of rules. Accordingly, its results are just as relevant for academics in the applicable fields of law, as they are for decision-makers in legal policy.

With the Humboldt Prize, the Humboldt University of Berlin annually honors outstanding scientific work at university level at the opening of the academic year. So far, jurisprudential studies have been awarded the Prize relatively rarely. The dissertation will be published in 2021 by Mohr Siebeck Verlag.

All winners of the Humboldt Prize 2020 can be found here.

The three Institute researchers received the award for their publication “Sui Generis Geographical Indications for the Protection of Non-Agricultural Products in the EU: Can the Quality Schemes Fulfil the Task?”, which was published in the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC) at the beginning of the year. The paper analyses the suitability of the extension of the EU quality schemes – Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs) and Protected Geographical Indications (PGIs) – to the protection of non-agricultural products.

For their research the authors built upon a previously unpublished dataset and applied a mixed comparative and empirical methodology. From their research findings they derive recommendations for action that the EU legislature should take into consideration in case of an extension of the EU sui generis GI regime to non-agricultural products.

The European Communities Trade Mark Association (ECTA), founded in 1980, is the oldest European association whose more than 1,500 members are experts, academics and professionals in the fields of trademarks, geographical indications, and other areas of IP Law. The ECTA Award is given as a recognition of top-level research which is deemed of considerable importance for the advancement of European trademark and design law, copyright law or geographical indications law.

The complete publication can be found here

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded Dietmar Harhoff the honor on 2 September 2019 on the suggestion of the Federal Ministry in recognition of Harhoff’s professional work. Since many years, he has offered his expertise to providing independent and scientific advice on research and innovation to the Federal Government. With his commitment, Dietmar Harhoff makes significant contributions to developing innovative ideas, particularly in the realm of digitalization, in order to ensure prosperity and quality of life in Germany.

From 2007 to 2019, Harhoff chaired the Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation (Expertenkommission Forschung und Innovation - EFI) which provides scientific advice to the German Federal Government and annually delivers reports on research, innovation and technological productivity in Germany. Furthermore, he is member of the steering committee of the Innovation Dialogue of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Since 2019, he is chair of the Commission for the establishment of the new German Agency for Disruptive Innovation (SprinD) which is to promote innovations with radically new technologies and a great potential for changing markets with new products, services and value chains.

Furthermore, he chairs the Commission “Lower Saxonia 2030” which is to develop options for action on how the federal state can respond to current major societal and technological challenges.

The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany is the highest tribute the Federal Republic of Germany can pay to individuals for services to the nation and is the only honor that may be awarded in all fields of endeavor. The Order of Merit may be awarded to Germans as well as foreigners for achievements in the political, economic, social or intellectual realm and for all kinds of outstanding services to the nation in the field of social, charitable or philanthropic work. In awarding the Order of Merit the Federal President wishes to draw public attention to achievements that he believes are of particular value to society generally.

The title Doctor honoris causa (h.c.) is the highest award given by the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) in recognition of special merits. "With his clear analyses, Dr. Hilty has influenced the design of public order and helped to organize social and cultural priorities", said Mariano Genovesi, Secretary General of the University, at the award ceremony. Reto M. Hilty subsequently gave a lecture entitled "Potencial de la Propiedad Intelectual en América Latina".

The Swiss legal scholar is one of the leading experts in the field of Intellectual Property Law and an internationally renowned adviser for legislation, especially in young, emerging economies. He has been Director at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich since 2002, as well as Full Professor ad personam at the University of Zurich and Honorary Professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich.

As part of the research initiative "Smart IP for Latin America", an eight-member research team under his leadership is currently investigating which protection standards in Latin America are beneficial for economic development. The aim of the various individual projects is to further develop the protection systems to make sure the historical, cultural, social, economic and political framework conditions of the various countries can be taken into account appropriately.

The Universidad de Buenos Aires with currently 122,000 students, is the largest university in Argentina. In the "QS World University Ranking", it is ranked 73rd worldwide in 2019, making it the leading university in Latin America and the world's leading Spanish-speaking university. 

For the Max Planck Society research cooperation in Latin America is one of the focal points. The relevance of the University of Buenos Aires manifested itself in a framework cooperation agreement between the two institutions. In March 2014, the Max Planck Society opened its own representative office for Latin America based in Buenos Aires. The office's mission is to maintain and develop relationships with partner organizations, research institutes and universities in key countries in the region.