Institute News – Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition

Award | 01/16/2025

Special Award of the Deutsche Bundesbank for Outstanding Theses Goes to Dominik Asam

On 16 January 2024, Dominik Asam was honored with a special award from the Deutsche Bundesbank Regional Office in Bavaria for his thesis, which examines the effects of technological shocks on early-stage startup funding dynamics using the example of Generative AI (GenAI).

Reinhold Vollbracht, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank Regional Office in Bavaria with awardee Dominik Asam — Reinhold Vollbracht, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank Regional Office in Bavaria, and Dominik Asam

Since October 2024, Dominik Asam has been a Junior Research Fellow and doctoral candidate in the Economics Department of the Institute. He completed his award-winning master’s thesis at the Chair for Economics of Innovation at the Technical University of Munich under the supervision of Professor Hanna Hottenrott. He continues his research on this topic at the Institute in a joint project with David Heller, Assistant Professor at Politecnico di Milano and Affiliated Research Fellow at the Institute.

Asam and Heller provide novel insights into how technological change impacts firm-level productivity. They highlight the potential of new general-purpose technologies to fundamentally change the dynamics of entrepreneurial firms. Their study focuses on the impact of Generative AI (GenAI) on startup funding dynamics, finding that GenAI significantly increases startup productivity. This is evidenced by a 20% reduction in the average time to funding compared to startups not benefiting from the new technology.

The authors argue that valuable but non-exclusive technological innovations can serve as a source of competitive advantage when entrepreneurs strategically leverage them as complementary assets to their existing skill sets. The effects are particularly pronounced in startups led by founders with greater technological or managerial experience. This underscores the importance of complementary human resources in fully harnessing the value of Generative AI.

The special award from the Deutsche Bundesbank Regional Office in Bavaria recognizes outstanding theses from selected Bavarian universities in areas such as monetary policy, banking regulation, cash and non-cash payment systems, and financial stability. The award ceremony took place at the premises of the Deutsche Bundesbank in Munich and was presented by Reinhold Vollbracht, President of the Regional Office in Bavaria.

More at SSRN:

Asam, Dominik; Heller, David (2024). Generative AI and Firm-level Productivity: Evidence from Startup Funding Dynamics. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4877505

Miscellaneous | 01/14/2025

Call for Papers – Munich Summer Institute 2025

The 9^th Munich Summer Institute, jointly organized with ETH Zurich, Cornell University, LMU, TUM, and the University of Lausanne, will take place from 26 to 28 May 2025. Researchers who would like to present a paper are invited to submit it online until 15 February. A workshop for Ph.D. students will be held again this year, on 26 May.

The Munich Summer Institute 2025 will take place as an in-person event in Munich. The Summer Institute will be preceded by the fourth MSI Ph.D. Workshop on 26 May 2025. A best Ph.D. student paper award will be awarded during the MSI conference dinner.

The Summer Institute will focus on three areas:

Digitalization, Strategy and Organization
(chairs: Tobias Kretschmer and Christian Peukert),
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
(chairs: Dietmar Harhoff, Joachim Henkel and Hanna Hottenrott), and
Law & Economics of Intellectual Property, Innovation & Digitalization
(chair: Stefan Bechtold and Imke Reimers).

The goal of the Munich Summer Institute is to stimulate a rigorous in-depth discussion of a select number of research papers and to strengthen the interdisciplinary international research community in these areas. Researchers in economics, law, management and related fields at all stages of their career (from Ph.D. students to full professors) may attend the Munich Summer Institute as presenters in a plenary or a poster session, as discussants or as attendees. The Munich Summer Institute will feature two keynote lectures, several plenary presentations, as well as poster sessions (including poster slams).

The Munich Summer Institute will be held at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in the heart of Munich. There is no registration fee, but participants are expected to fund their own travel and accommodation. The Munich Summer Institute may provide limited travel scholarships in case of financial hardship.

Keynote Speakers

Michela Giorcelli (University of California – Los Angeles)
Fiona Scott-Morton (Yale University)

Paper submission procedure

Researchers who would like to present a paper are invited to submit their paper online by 15 February 2025. The Munich Summer Institute only considers papers which have not been published or accepted for publication at the date of submission. Paper selections will be announced in late March 2025. The program of the Munich Summer Institute will be available in April 2025. All accepted papers will be made available to all participants in mid-May 2025. Researchers who would like to attend the Munich Summer Institute without giving a presentation should contact one of the organizers by 15 April 2025.

Online Paper Submission

Further information

More information is available at the MSI website. Any questions concerning the Munich Summer Institute should be directed to Stefan Bechtold, Dietmar Harhoff, Joachim Henkel, Hanna Hottenrott, Tobias Kretschmer, Christian Peukert, or Imke Reimers.

Call for Papers and Call for Participants

Niccolò Galli during his acceptance speech on 9 November 2024 at the annual conference of the LIDC in London.

Award | 11/29/2024

Niccolò Galli Receives the Jacques Lassier Prize 2024

On 9 November, Niccolò Galli was awarded the prestigious Jacques Lassier Prize 2024 for his dissertation Patent Aggregation, Innovation and EU Competition Law at the annual conference of the International League of Competition Law (LIDC) in London.

Niccolò Galli worked on his doctoral thesis at the Institute between 2017 and 2020 as part of the EIPIN Joint Doctorate Program , under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Josef Drexl and Dr. Beatriz Conde Gallego. Seine Dissertation wurde im April 2023 gemeinsam an den Universitäten Augsburg und Maastricht verteidigt. A detailed description of the doctoral thesis can be found in the Activity Report 2018–2020. Currently, Niccolò Galli is a postdoctoral researcher at the European University Institute and a lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Florence.

Jacques Lassier Prize

Established in 1982, the Jacques Lassier Prize is dedicated to the legacy of the former chairman of the LIDC and honors outstanding dissertations in the field of competition law. The 2024 jury was composed of distinguished scholars and practitioners, including Jules Stuyck, Florian Bien, Muriel Chagny, Pinar Akman, and Pranvera Këllezi.

Founded in 1930, the LIDC is a worldwide association with 18 national sections and over 800 members working in academia and the legal profession. It is dedicated to promoting research in the areas of competition law, intellectual property law and unfair competition law.

For more information about the Jacques Lassier Prize and the LIDC's activities, please visit the official website: LIDC Jacques-Lassier-Preis.

Go directly to the doctoral thesis:

Galli, N. (2023). Patent aggregation, innovation and eu competition law. [Doctoral Thesis, Maastricht University, University of Augsburg]. Maastricht University / University of Ausburg.
https://doi.org/10.26481/dis.20230420ng

Miscellaneous | 11/13/2024

The Program Is Available Now! − RISE7 Workshop

On 17 and 18 December 2024, the Institute will host the seventh “Research in Innovation, Science and Entrepreneurship Workshop” from young researchers for young researchers. Participants can expect exciting topics and a stimulating exchange of ideas. Alexander Oettl, Professor at the Scheller College of Business, Georgia Tech, will give the keynote speech on “Building Tomorrow's Science: The Interplay of Talent, Geography, an AI”.

The workshop was first organized by Junior Researchers in 2018, and is aimed at Ph.D. students and Junior Postdocs worldwide. RISE offers them an opportunity to present their work, receive feedback from experienced researchers and connect with peers from other research institutions.

See the Program RISE7 (PDF).

More information on the workshop website RISE7 Workshop.

Portrait of Hanns Ullrich in the style of an ink drawing

People | 10/16/2024

Hanns Ullrich Celebrates His 85th Birthday

On 16 October 2024, Professor Hanns Ullrich turns 85 years old. The work of the highly esteemed legal scholar, whose contributions to intellectual property and competition law have had a lasting impact on legal science and policy, continues to inspire and influence researchers and experts around the world.

Hanns Ullrich’s career has been characterised by a relentless pursuit of excellence and a deep commitment to understanding the complexities of intellectual property law. In his academic work, he has addressed critical issues of patent law, competition law and the intersection of technology and innovation. His findings have not only advanced academic discourse, but have also influenced the legal framework and jurisprudence worldwide.

Already during his time as a Senior Research Fellow at the then Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law in the 1970s and 1980s, Hanns Ullrich stood out because of his critical view of intellectual property law at a time when this did not correspond to the scientific mainstream at the Institute, much less outside it. And yet, thanks to this very trait, he can be regarded as a trailblazer and important pioneer of modern intellectual property law.

Beyond his academic achievements, Hanns Ullrich is celebrated for his mentoring role and his commitment to supporting the next generation of legal scholars. His ability to inspire young researchers and his willingness to initiate critical dialogue at all times have made him a challenging and therefore highly esteemed figure in the academic community.

After a long and impressive career, first as full professor at the University of the Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces) in Munich and from 2003 to 2006 also as a full professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Hanns Ullrich returned to the Institute as an Affiliated Research Fellow. We extend our hearfelt thanks to him for his contributions to numerous research projects since then. To this day, he can regularly be found in his office and he continues to speak out on current topics - most recently in the research paper Die Schattenseite des Einheitspatents (The Dark Side of the Unitary Patent) in the Institute’s SSRN series.

Hanns Ullrich has received many honours. In 2009, for his 70^th birthday, he was presented with the commemorative publication Technology and Competition/Technologie et Concurrence, which was followed up in the volume A Critical Mind, published in 2020. In 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Law at the University of Zurich.

Even in his advanced age, Professor Ullrich’s influence remains undiminished. His publications continue to be essential reading for anyone interested in the dynamics of intellectual property and competition law. Even his earlier works are still cited by academics today, a testament to their enduring relevance and impact.

The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition congratulates Hanns Ullrich most sincerely on his 85^th birthday. We celebrate not only his remarkable career, but also his contributions to our community and the research fields of our Institute. His thinking is defined by intellectual rigour, integrity and his unwavering commitment to the pursuit of knowledge.

Event Report | 10/07/2024

Florence Conference on IP, Competition and Innovation

On 3 and 4 October, the Conference on Intellectual Property, Competition and Innovation was held in Florence. The conference, jointly organized by the European University Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, presented a selection of previously unpublished papers by lawyers and economists on a wide range of topics at the intersection of intellectual property and competition law.

Prof. Herbert Hovenkamp's keynote speech opened the conference and set the scene by offering valuable insights into the latest intellectual property and antitrust issues. Distributed in several parallel sessions, the papers covered both horizontal, crosscutting issues as well as specific aspects related to standard essential patents, AI, patenting strategies in the pharmaceutical sector or press publishers’ rights, among others. A roundtable with industry representatives and legal practitioners helped to link the academic perspective to market realities, while the final debate with Hanna Anttilainen from the DG Competition at the European Commission offered an excellent opportunity to learn about and discuss current and future developments on innovation-related competition policy.

People | 09/28/2024

Celebrating Rudolf Kraßer's 90th Birthday

On 28 September 2024, Prof. Dr. Rudolf Kraßer, External Scientific Member of the Institute and Professor Emeritus of Private Law and Patent Law at the Technical University of Munich, will reach the age of 90. On this occasion, we would like to pay tribute to the outstanding achievements and life's work of this extraordinary scholar.

Rudolf Kraßer was born in Fürth and attended the Oberrealschule there. After graduating from high school in 1952, he decided to study law at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich on a scholarship from the Maximilianeum Foundation. After passing his law exams, he obtained his doctorate in 1960 under Eugen Ulmer, the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law - as the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition was then known - with a comparative law dissertation on the legal status of various national patent offices. In his subsequent time as a research assistant at the Institute, he was a key pillar of the project on unfair competition in Europe. He wrote the volume on French unfair competition law in 1967. In 1970, Rudolf Kraßer also completed his habilitation with Eugen Ulmer with a comparative law thesis on the protection of contractual rights against interference by third parties under tort and unfair competition law.

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) appointed Rudolf Kraßer as a full professor in 1973, where he devoted himself primarily to the legal training of industrial engineering graduates at the former Faculty of General Sciences. His academic work comprises around 100 publications on the protection of intellectual property rights alone, a considerable number of which resulted from projects at the Institute. Particularly noteworthy is his work on patent law, now continued by Christoph Ann, which is regarded as a leading textbook and handbook and has earned Rudolf Kraßer a reputation as the doyen of patent law in the German-speaking world.

Rudolf Kraßer was appointed to the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law as an External Scientific Member in 1974. To this day, he attends meetings of the Institute in an advisory capacity, most recently on 17 June 2024 at the meeting of the Board of Trustees.

He was involved in many committees and organizations and received numerous awards and honours. These reflect his outstanding achievements and his high standing in the scientific community. He is regarded as a shining example of true scientific excellence. This is combined in a very likeable way with his reserved manner, which never pushes his own person to the fore. His written and spoken word is convincing.

The Institute would like to thank Rudolf Kraßer for his many years of support and active involvement in many of the Institute's research projects, which did not begin with his appointment as a Foreign Scientific Member 50 years ago. We wish him all the best on his 90th birthday!

New location at Karlstor/Stachus in Munich. Photo: Myriam Rion

Miscellaneous | 09/11/2024

Relocation of the Institute and New Building Site

Due to space constraints, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition has to move to a new building. The transfer to the new location is planned for the second quarter of 2025.

The Institute is currently housed in three locally dispersed buildings, with a significant space deficit. A new building had to be found in order to eliminate this space problem and to bring the scientific and service departments together under one roof. After a comprehensive search, a suitable solution was found in a property at Herzog-Max-Straße/corner of Neuhauser Straße.

The central location will continue to ensure good and fast accessibility to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the Technical University of Munich, which is of crucial importance for scientific cooperation, teaching as well as joint doctoral training and supervision.

Read full report

Prof. Dr. Rupprecht Podszun (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)

People | 07/10/2024

Rupprecht Podszun appointed to the German Monopolies Commission

Rupprecht Podszun was appointed to the Monopolies Commission by the German government on 1 July. Podszun started his career at the Institute as a doctoral student and later as a research assistant. His dissertation and habilitation were supervised by Josef Drexl. Podszun was associated with the Institute as an Affiliated Research Fellow until 2022.

Prof. Dr. Rupprecht Podszun teaches at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, where he holds a chair in civil law, German and European competition law. After completing his doctorate in international antitrust law, Podszun initially worked as a legal consultant at the German Federal Cartel Office before returning to the institute and completing his habilitation at the LMU Munich under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Josef Drexl. From 2013 to 2016, he held a chair for intellectual property law at the University of Bayreuth.

Podszun’s research focuses on antitrust and competition law, digital regulation and sustainability issues. He has written several expert reports for the German Bundestag, federal ministries, the EU Commission and the European Parliament. Together with Prof. Dr. Justus Haucap, former Chairman of the Monopolies Commission, he clarifies competition law issues in the podcast „Bei Anruf Wettbewerb“.

The Monopolies Commission is an independent advisory body that supports the German government and legislative bodies in the areas of competition policy, competition law and regulation. Its reports are publicly available. The Monopolies Commission also advises the Federal Court of Justice on request.

Event Report | 06/03/2024

Munich Summer Institute 2024

Since its premiere in 2016, the Munich Summer Institute, which has now been held for the eighth time, has aimed to foster networking within an international and interdisciplinary research community. It is jointly organized by the Center for Law & Economics at ETH Zurich, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, the Technical University of Munich, the ISTO at LMU Munich, HEC Lausanne, and Cornell University.

The MSI 2024 took place from 22 to 24 May 2024 with around 100 participants on the premises of the Munich Residence. It was preceded by the third MSI Ph.D. Workshop on 21 May 2024.

This year’s program of the main conference comprised two keynote lectures, 17 plenary presentations and a daily poster session, including a poster slam. The first conference day, which as co-organized by Tobias Kretschmer (LMU), Christian Peukert (HEC Lausanne), and Imke Reimers (Cornell University), focused on Platforms, AI Adoption and Personalization.

Chaired by Dietmar Harhoff, Joachim Henkel (TUM), and Hanna Hottenrott (TUM), the presentations of the second conference day related to Patents, Gender, Talent & Geography. Tim Simcoe, Professor at the Boston University Questrom School of Business, gave a keynote lecture on “Long Con or Righteous Claim? A Policy Debate over Patent Prosecution”. As a cherished MSI tradition, the second day was concluded with a hearty dinner in a typically Bavarian restaurant.

The third and final conference day – chaired by Stefan Bechtold (ETH Zurich), Christian Peukert (HEC Lausanne), and Imke Reimers (Cornell University) – covered a broad range of topics related to intellectual property, in particular Patents, Copyright, and Franchising Contracts. Christopher Buccafusco, Edward & Ellen Schwarzman Distinguished Professor of Law at Duke University, gave a keynote presentation on “Beyond Supply-Side Innovation Incentives”, arguing to look at incentive mechanisms that affect the demand for products, rather than the supply of products. Lennert Peede (IAB) was awarded the MSI Ph.D. Workshop’s Best Paper Award for his paper on “Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Skills Demand and Employment: Evidence from Linked Job Ads Data”.

All organizing parties involved thank the speakers, discussants, and attendants for a fascinating Munich Summer Institute 2024. We are already looking forward to the Munich Summer Institute 2025, which will take place from 26 to 28 Mai 2025!

More information: http://munich-summer-institute.org