UN Sustainable Development Goals Wheel
Study  |  02/28/2024

Sustainable Development through Data Governance

Together with Senegalese scholars, researchers from the Institute have investigated how dealing with data can help to achieve sustainable development in emerging economies and have now presented their findings in a report.

Participants of the Dakar workshop, Senegal, 17 March 2022
Participants of the Dakar workshop, Senegal, 17 March 2022. Photo: Begoña Gonzalez Otero
UN Sustainable Development Goals Wheel
UN Sustainable Development Goals

It was based on the results of a workshop that took place in Dakar (Senegal) in March 2022. This was part of the broader international project "Data Governance in Emerging Economies to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)", which examines the opportunities and possibilities offered by data policy to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.


Structured into four distinct parts, the report provides an exhaustive evaluation of Senegal's regulatory landscape concerning data access and sharing (Part I), laying the groundwork for a detailed examination of the alignment of these regulations with SDGs. It then focuses on the agricultural sector's data-sharing practices and their potential contributions to economic growth and sustainable development (Part II), followed by an exploration of the challenges and opportunities in data governance for financial services in the digital era (Part III). Part IV synthesizes the workshop's discussions, offering valuable insights, conclusions, and forward-looking recommendations.


This scholarly endeavor contributes significantly to the ongoing discourse surrounding data governance and its pivotal role in realizing the SDGs. The nuanced analysis and insights presented herein serve as a valuable resource for policymakers, academics, and practitioners operating at the intersection of data governance, development, and sustainability. Moreover, the outlined recommendations and prospective research agenda provide a roadmap for our future endeavors aimed at advancing data governance in emerging economies, aligning with the vision of the UN AI Advisory Board to govern AI for humanity.


Mor Bakhoum, Begoña Gonzalez Otero, Jörg Hoffmann, Minata Sarr
Data Governance in Emerging Economies to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals Senegal Country Report Based on the Workshop Shaping Data Sharing Policies in the Agricultural and the Financial Services Sector (Dakar, March 16-17, 2022)
Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper No. 24-05

European Commission Brussels
Opinion  |  02/07/2024

Position Statement on the Commission’s Proposal for a Regulation on Standard Essential Patents

The Position Statement of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition of 6 February 2024 on the Commission's Proposal for a Regulation on Standard Essential Patents, assesses the proposal in the light of its adequacy to address the challenges of SEP licensing in the context of the Internet of Things and its potential for contributing to a balanced global SEP licensing. Preceding these assessments, the Institute elaborates on the legal and economic foundations of an innovation-oriented standardisation and outlines the context in which major problems addressed by the Commission’s Proposal arise.

European Commission Brussels
European Commission, Brussels Photo: Hella Schuster

On 27 April 2023, the European Commission presented its proposal. The proposed regulation aims at improving the licensing of SEPs by reducing the uncertainty that surrounds licensing negotiations and lowering transaction costs. In order to achieve these objectives, the Commission has considered different policy options. Of these, the Proposal implements (1) the setting up of a mandatory register for SEPs with essentiality checks of selected and representative random samples of SEPs, (2) the establishment of a process for determining a non-binding aggregate royalty rate, and (3) a mandatory pre-litigation conciliation procedure for FRAND royalty determination, combined with (4) voluntary guidance on SEP licensing. Institutionally, a new competence centre within the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) is to be in charge of managing and performing these tasks.

Symbolic image of genome editing. Image: vchalup/Adobe Stock
Opinion  |  08/11/2023

Position Statement on New Genomic Techniques and Intellectual Property Law

A new Position Statement of the Institute addresses concerns related to intellectual property protection for genome-editing technologies and genome-edited plants in the EU. It proposes a set of policy recommendations to facilitate access to and utilisation of IP-protected genome-editing technologies and their products in the plant breeding sector.

Symbolic image of genome editing. Image: vchalup/Adobe Stock
Symbolic image of genome editing. Image: vchalup/Adobe Stock

On 5 July 2023, the European Commission issued a proposal for the regulation that intends to relax the requirements for marketing authorisation of plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs) in the EU. While NGTs are expected to become more appealing to breeders and farmers, the complexity of the intellectual property (IP) landscape surrounding NGTs and resulting products can have a discouraging effect on innovation. In view of numerous concerns related to IP protection for NGTs and NGT-derived plants, a research group at the Institute has developed a set of policy recommendations that can facilitate access to and utilisation of IP-protected NGTs and their products in the plant breeding sector.


To the Position Statement:
Position Statement (8 August 2023) on New Genomic Techniques and Intellectual Property Law: Challenges and Solutions for the Plant Breeding Sector


More on this topic:
CRISPR/Cas Technology and Innovation: Mapping Patent Law Issues

Dr. Valentina Moscon, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute.
Study  |  07/24/2023

Access to Data versus Exclusive Control over Data in European Data Rules

Valentina Moscon, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute, in her recent article identifies a trend in the European data rules. This is moving toward the creation of data exclusivity based on copyright and technical protection measures and contradicts the claim of free access to data.

Dr. Valentina Moscon, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute.
Dr. Valentina Moscon, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute.

Moscon uses case studies – specifically, the text and data mining (TDM) regime in the 2019 EU Copyright Directive and the upcoming EU Data Act laying down rules on access to IoT data – to analyze the ways in which the identified trend is already gaining traction and where it conflicts with both established principles of European and international copyright law and the balanced consideration of stakeholders’ interests.


On the one hand, the case of TDM shows that the scope of copyright is expanding and arguably, private ordering mechanisms such as technological protection measures (TPMs) which allow right holders to wield exclusive rights, are extending this scope even further, beyond the realm of works, to the realm of data. On the other hand, new legislative initiatives regulating data leave intellectual property rights other than the sui generis database right unaffected, with minor limitations, so that there will likely be a clash between data access rules and the exclusive rights of copyright and related rights holders. Also, the Data Act proposal introduces the protection of technological protection measures over data thereby further strengthening the exclusive control over data. Finally, in her paper Moscon formulates some recommendations for action.


Valentina Moscon
Data Access Rules, Copyright and Protection of Technological Protection Measures in the EU. A Wave of Propertisation of Information
Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper No. 23-14

Symbolic image of transparency // Photo: Tom/Pixabay
Study  |  07/17/2023

Improving Transparency and the Right to Open Data

In his current discussion paper, Heiko Richter, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute, examines two goals of the coalition agreement of the German federal government: to further develop the freedom of information laws into a federal transparency law and to introduce a legal entitlement to Open Data.

He asks what exactly these goals mean and to what extent they can be meaningfully combined. Richter goes on to elaborate on specific reform options that would carefully bring about a paradigm shift. Finally, he advocates that the law should grant individual rights to the publication of information and the provision of data, because such rights assume fundamental functions in a free and digital society.


The article begins with an in-depth analysis of existing open data regulations and transparency laws in Germany. The results of the analysis and discussion are then presented in seven theses as practical recommendations for action. In doing so, Richter suggests two possible variants: The enactment of a federal transparency law, referred to as a "small solution," with "open data extension" and corresponding entitlements. In a more comprehensive "big solution", a public interest-related entitlement to Open Data under Section 12a EGovG would be enshrined in law in addition to the small solution.


Heiko Richter
Transparenzgesetz des Bundes und „Rechtsanspruch auf Open Data“ Konzeptionelle Perspektiven jenseits der Neuerfindung des Rades
(Federal Transparency Law and “Right to Open Data”: Conceptual Perspectives Beyond the Reinvention of the Wheel)

Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Discussion Paper No. 22

Collage of the lettering podcast with image of a microphone and portrait photo of the researcher Timm Opitz
Study  |  06/01/2023

Clicking against the Clock – How Time Pressure and Regret Influence Our Behavior in Online Shopping

In a new podcast episode, Timm Opitz explains how time pressure and regret can influence our search behavior in the world of online shopping. He sheds light on his research project titled “Time Pressure and Regret in Sequential Search”, which investigates the impact of urgency and regret on optimal search behavior by conducting experiments in a controlled environment.

Collage of the lettering podcast with image of a microphone and portrait photo of the researcher Timm Opitz
Timm Opitz speaks in the science podcast series Game Changer

In the podcast, he also shares some strategies we can use to overcome the influence of urgency and regret in our shopping behavior.


Timm Opitz is Junior Research Fellow and doctoral student in the economics department Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research of the Institute. His research focuses on entrepreneurship, behavioral market design, and developmental psychology.


Perceived urgency and regret are common in many sequential search processes. Sellers often pressure buyers in search of the best offer, both time-wise and in terms of potential regret of forgoing unique purchasing opportunities. Theoretically, these strategies result in anticipated and experienced regret, which systematically affect search behavior and thereby distort optimal search. In addition, urgency may alter decision-making processes and thereby the salience of regret.


To understand the empirical relevance of these aspects, Timm Opitz and his coauthors study the causal effects of regret, urgency, and their interaction on search behavior in an experiment. Empirically, they find that anticipated regret does not affect search behavior either with or without time pressure, while experienced regret leads to systematic adjustments in search length. Urgency reduces decision times and perceived decision quality, but does not generally alter search length. Only very inexperienced customers buy earlier when pressured. Thus, consumer protection measures against pressure selling tactics can help inexperienced consumers in particular.


Go directly to the Podcast.


Click here to access the full publication:


Klimm, Felix; Kocher, Martin G.; Opitz, Timm; Schudy, Simeon A. (2023).
Time Pressure and Regret in Sequential Search
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 206, 406-424

Opinion  |  05/03/2023

Position Statement on the Implementation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA)

The DMA entered into force on 1 November 2022 and applies from 2 May 2023. It aims to ensuring contestable and fair markets in the digital sector across the EU where gatekeepers are present. In its position statement of 2 May 2023, the Institute acknowledges that uniform rules for core platform services throughout the EU and a centralised enforcement are necessary to prevent internal market fragmentation and welcomes the first Commission Implementing Regulation for the DMA of 14 April 2023. However, it remains concerned by the DMA’s unique institutional design and its interaction with other laws as outlined under Articles 1(5), 1(6) and 1(7).

Symbolic image: Digital Markets, photo: geralt/Pixabay

In particular, the Institute raises awareness about possible overly broad blocking effects of the DMA on national rules, which may have the unintended consequences of privileging gatekeepers by jeopardizing future national legislative initiatives. This ultimately obstructs the achievement of contestability and fairness in digital markets. A complementary application of the competition rules and an effective enforcement of the DMA is, against this backdrop, crucial. Yet there is uncertainty over administrative enforcement mechanisms, and it is unclear what role private enforcement plays in the current legal design of the DMA. The position statement identifies and examines challenges in the implementation of the DMA, along with recommendations for meeting them.


Position Statement of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition of 2 May 2023 on the Implementation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA)

Digital Markets Act (DMA)

Commission Implementing Regulation for the DMA of 14 April 2023

Miscellaneous  |  04/21/2023

What Contribution Can Patent Law Make to Combating the Climate Crisis?

To meet the challenges we face from the climate crisis, new sustainable technologies are urgently needed. However, different causes can lead to market failure, which may inhibit investments in such innovations.

Photo: Leopictures/Pixabay

In their recent article Reto M. Hilty and Pedro Henrique D. Batista raise the question which role patent law plays in correcting the different types of market failure. Specifically, the authors examine the extent to which adjustments to patent law are possible and appropriate, but also show when patent law fails to achieve its effects. In addition, they analyze possible effects of other regulatory interventions, in particular whether technological specifications counteract possible market failure or whether they entail the risk of state failure.


Reto M. Hilty, Pedro Henrique D. Batista
Potential and Limits of Patent Law to Address Climate Change
Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper No. 23-10

European Commission: Intellectual Property – Revised Framework for Compulsory Licensing of Patents
Opinion  |  03/13/2023

Revisiting the Framework for Compulsory Licensing of Patents in the EU

In the context of the European Commission's public consultation on “Compulsory licensing of patents in the EU”, the Institute has published a position statement. The authors around Reto M. Hilty welcome that the Commission wants to reinvigorate the public discourse on this important topic. However, according to the authors, the Commission’s reform proposal does not take things far enough.

Logic Mill Logo
Miscellaneous  |  01/31/2023

Logic Mill – A Knowledge Navigation System

The ever-growing number of patents, scientific publications, and other text corpora is becoming a burden for many researchers. At the same time, new opportunities for scientific analysis arise. The scalable open-source software system Logic Mill applies machine learning to very large document sets, enabling researchers to quickly identify similar texts in a wide variety of fields. This opens up new perspectives in areas such as prior art searches for patent examination, the as­sess­ment of the novelty of patents and publications, and the likelihood of patent litigation.

Logic Mill Logo
Logic Mill-Logo – inspired by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz’ pinwheel from a drawing of a calculator.
Visualization of the implementation of Logic Mill
Visualization of the implementation of Logic Mill

Researchers are faced with an increasing volume of relevant documents from a wide variety of fields. Thus, there is a growing need for tools that allow researchers to quickly identify related texts in different domains. Existing solutions do not allow linking documents from text corpora that originate from different domains. Moreover, they are not scalable, or use proprietary algorithms.


Logic Mill – A New Software System and Research Tool


Logic Mill is a new software system and research tool designed by a research group from the Economics Department and led by Dietmar Harhoff to identify documents that are similar to a given text in other text corpora. It consists of a set of open source software components and has a public application-programming interface (API) that the scientific community may use.


The Solution


The Logic Mill software analyzes large parts of texts, which consist not only of words, but also of structure and context, with the help of state-of-the-art machine learning techniques. Unlike previous attempts to estimate text similarity, Logic Mill accounts for semantic structure as an additional dimension of similarity. Logic Mill does not only look for the occurrence of the same words, but also in what context (that is, relative to the sentence and paragraph) these occur. Specialized machine learning models encode the text numerically and allow the computation of various similarity measures.


Previous attempts of comparing text documents were mostly limited to texts of the same category, such as patents to patents or publications to publications. Now, it is possible to compare documents across these and other domains.


Currently indexed datasets include data from Semantic Scholar, EPO, USTPO und WIPO. An integration of Wikipedia is in preparation.


The Research Applications


Logic Mill allows to explore literature quickly. It permits to find semantically similar patent documents, which is important for prior art search in patent examination or to assess the propensity of patent litigation. Moreover, it can link patents to related scientific publications. Logic Mill can recommend citations for new documents and readings from just published papers. It also allows assessing the novelty of patents and publications. In addition, knowledge flows can be traced across different domains. New trends and the diffusion of new concepts can be detected.


The name of the project Logic Mill is inspired by the novels of the “The Baroque Cycle” by British writer Neal Stephenson. In it, German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz conceptualizes a machine to organize all human knowledge based on a retrieval system using prime numbers. While this machine is fictitious, Leibniz’s thoughts echo into modern computing, in particular into the problem of representing any kind of data numerically.


Further information:


If you would like to be notified of Logic Mill progress or participate in the trial program, you can register on the Logic Mill Website.


Directly to the publication Logic Mill – A Knowledge Navigation System.