Institute News

As of January 2014 the institute will be called "Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition". The renaming is due to the establishment of the new economic department of the institute. Prof. Dietmar Harhoff, Ph.D. , has recently founded a new economic department exploring and analyzing the determinants, outcomes and the management of innovation and entrepreneurship processes with empirical and theoretical economic research approaches. In close cooperation with the already existing departments directed by Prof. Dr. Josef Drexl and Prof. Dr. Reto M. Hilty interdisciplinary contributions to research on innovation and competition will be provided.

 PD Dr. Rupprecht Podszun hat den Ruf auf eine W3-Professur für Bürgerliches Recht, Immaterialgüterrecht und Wirtschaftsrecht an der Universität Bayreuth angenommen. Dort wird der Wissenschaftliche Referent am Münchner Max-Planck-Institut für Immaterialgüter- und Wettbewerbsrecht (MPI) im Wintersemester 2013/14 Nachfolger von Prof. Dr. Ansgar Ohly. Dieser ist an die Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) gewechselt. Podszun vertrat bereits seit dem Wintersemester 2012 / 2013 einen Lehrstuhl für Bürgerliches Recht, Patent-, Urheber- und Wettbewerbsrecht in Bayreuth und lehrte zuvor an der LMU, dem Munich Intellectual Property Law Center (MIPLC) und der International Max Planck Research School for Competition and Innovation (IMPRS-CI).

Podszun arbeitete von 2007 bis 2012 am MPI und gehörte dort zum Team des Geschäftsführenden Direktors Prof. Dr. Josef Drexl. Dieser betreute auch seine Habilitationsschrift "Wirtschaftsordnung durch Zivilgerichte"; von der LMU war Podszun 2012 habilitiert worden. Am MPI hatte sich Podszun insbesondere mit kartell- und lauterkeitsrechtlichen Fragen befasst: So war er unter anderem an einer Reihe von Stellungnahmen für die EU-Kommission sowie der Organisation der Konferenz und als Herausgeber des Buches Competition Policy and the Economic Approach: Foundations and Limitations mit beteiligt und kommentierte die §§ 1 und 3 im von Prof. Dr. Henning Harte-Bavendamm und Prof. Dr. Frauke Henning-Bodewig herausgegebenen UWG-Kommentar. Ferner ist Podszun Mitbegründer des Münchner Kartellrechtsforums, Vorstandsmitglied der Academic Society for Competition Law (Ascola) und etablierte das Forum "Asia Round Table" am MPI. Zuletzt hatte Podszun gemeinsam mit Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fikentscher und Philipp Hacker das BuchFairEconomy - Crises, Culture, Competition and the Role of Law veröffentlicht.

Dem MPI soll Podszun unter anderem durch die Mitwirkung an Forschungsprojekten eng verbunden bleiben.

The European Patent Office's Economic and Scientific Advisory Board (ESAB), chaired by Prof. Dietmar Harhoff, Ph.D., third director at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition since March 1st, 2013, with the new research department Munich Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research (MCIER), has issued a statement with recommendations for improving the patent system, based on the main findings of its 2012 activities. Along with this statement, the ESAB has also published the reports of three workshops it conducted in 2012, namely on patent quality, the role of fees, and patent thickets.

In these publications the Board highlights the importance of patent quality in boosting innovation. It points out that improving patent quality will require action at both the pre-and post-grant stages of the patenting process. In the pre-grant phase, specific measures are needed to address the speed and quality of patent examination. At the post-grant stage, opposition or re-examination proceedings require improvement, together with the litigation system. On this latter point, the establishment of Europe's Unified Patent Court is expected to make a major contribution.

In its third study - on patent thickets - the Board clearly states that it does not regard such "thickets" as a root cause of problems in the patent system. It concludes that measures to improve patent quality will help to reduce the complexity of the system and thus deal with patent thickets indirectly.

At its second annual meeting in January 2013, ESAB members also decided on the three specific policy issues to be addressed in 2013: the economic effects of the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court, two questions of particular relevance following the recent decisions taken at the EU level, and the possible impact of a grace period in Europe from an economic perspective.

Further information:

• Empfehlungen zur Verbesserung des Patentsystems (Februar 2013)
• Bericht zum Workshop über Patentdickichte (Leuven, 26. September 2012)