In his laudatory speech, Dr. Rudolf Leška, President of the Czech ALAI, emphasized the great importance of Adolf Dietz’s research for the development of copyright law, particularly in what was then Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic. Dietz expressed his gratitude by pointing out that he had described the new Czech copyright law as a “top European product” in a commemorative publication for Rehbinder.
After studying law in Munich and Paris, Adolf Dietz obtained his doctorate in 1966 at the Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität in Munich, where he also passed his second state examination in law in 1967. From 1966, Adolf Dietz worked as a research assistant at the Institute (then the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law). From 1972 to 1978, he was head of the department and then research group leader in the copyright department until his retirement in 2001. As an expert on German, European and international copyright law and on intellectual property in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the People's Republic of China, he published numerous books and journal articles in these fields. After his retirement, he remained associated with the Institute as an Affiliated Research Fellow. In addition to numerous other honors, Adolf Dietz received an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Brussels in 1996 and the Grand Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2002.
With the Jan Löwenbach Award, the ALAI Czech National Group commemorates the founder of the first Czechoslovak ALAI group. The copyright lawyer Jan Löwenbach was himself a music composer and also a creative artist. The group he founded in 1926 was dissolved by the German occupying forces in 1939. The ALAI Czech Republic national group was founded in 2013. The sculpture for the Jan Löwenbach Award was created by Czech designer and glass artist Jakub Berdych.