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.