Institute News – Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition

Dr. Pedro Henrique D. Batista (left) with Dr. Gert Würtenberger (GRUR) at the presentation of the GRUR Dissertation Award. Photo: Andreas Burkhardt

Award | 10/20/2025

Pedro Batista receives GRUR Dissertation Award and Faculty Prize for his Thesis on Genetic Resources and Patent Law

Pedro Henrique D. Batista, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute, received two awards for his dissertation: The German Association for Intellectual Property Law awarded him the GRUR Dissertation Award 2025. He also received the Faculty Prize from the Faculty of Law at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich.

Dr. Pedro Henrique D. Batista after receiving the faculty award in the main auditorium of LMU Munich.

Legal Framework for Genetic Resources

Genetic resources—such as genes from plants, animals, and microorganisms—play a central role in innovation in biotechnological fields, but access to them is often regulated and subject to requirements for consent from the country of origin and benefit sharing. Although international law—in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol—is intended to ensure compliance with these rules by foreign users, benefit sharing has so far been largely absent. This leads to conflicts, including controversial patent law measures by some countries of origin, which can go as far as denying patent protection.

In his dissertation, The Right to Genetic Resources – Nagoya Protocol, Patent Law, and Other Regulatory Options, Pedro Henrique D. Batista uses a precise methodological analysis to develop concrete regulatory options at the national and international level that enable effective protection of genetic resources without unduly hindering biotechnological innovation. He also considers alternative instruments outside patent law and current international developments such as the new WIPO treaty and the debates on digital sequence information.

Batista's findings provide impetus for international and national regulation of genetic resources. They create a basis for fair participation, promote legal certainty, and combine the protection of biodiversity with the requirements of research and industry.

GRUR Dissertation Award

The GRUR Dissertation Award is presented annually at the annual conference of the German Association for Intellectual Property Law (GRUR). It recognizes outstanding dissertations in four different categories, namely (i) Patent and Utility Model Law, (ii) Copyright and Media Law, (iii) Trademark, Competition, and Design Law, and (iv) Data and Information Law. Batista received the award in the first category.

Faculty Prize of the LMU in Munich

The Faculty of Law at LMU in Munich awards its faculty prize annually to particularly outstanding dissertations. With this award, the faculty recognizes the scientific excellence and social contribution of Batista's work.

The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition sincerely congratulates Pedro Henrique D. Batista on these two awards.

Pedro Henrique D. Batista
Das Recht an genetischen Ressourcen – Nagoya-Protokoll, Patentrecht und weitere regulatorische Optionen
GWR - Schriftenreihe zum gewerblichen Rechtsschutz

Prof. Dr. Heiko Richter, LL.M. (Columbia), Dipl.-Kfm.

People | 10/01/2025

Heiko Richter appointed Chair of Private Law and Regulation of the Digital Economy and Society at the University of Speyer

Heiko Richter, who has been a Research Fellow at the Institute since 2020, has accepted a call from the University of Speyer and has been appointed University Professor at the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer (DUV). Since 1 October 2025, he holds the newly established Chair of Private Law and Regulation of the Digital Economy and Society.

The Chair’s research focuses on private law and digitalization law (including data and platform regulation) as well as regulatory and legal theory at the intersection of state, market, and society.

Heiko Richter worked at the Institute as a Doctoral Researcher and Junior Research Fellow in the Intellectual Property and Competition Law Department from 2014 to 2020. His dissertation, supervised by Heike Schweitzer at Humboldt University in Berlin, is entitled “Information as Infrastructure.” It was awarded the 2020 Humboldt Prize. Since 2020, Heiko Richter has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute in the department headed by Josef Drexl and a lecturer in private law at Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich. He remains closely associated with the Institute as an Affiliated Research Fellow.

Postcard with photos of the Max Planck Foundation building and surroundings at Lake Tegernsee

Award | 09/22/2025

Writing Scholarship for Liza Herrmann

Living and working like Max Planck in the physicist’s summer house on Lake Tegernsee: what could be better than going into writing retreat during the final phase of your dissertation? Liza Herrmann, a doctoral researcher at the Institute, has successfully applied for a writing scholarship from the Max Planck Foundation and is working on completing her doctoral thesis in rural seclusion in September.

Liza Herrmann in the sunny pre-Alpine landscape — Doctoral Researcher Liza Herrmann. Photo: private

Liza Herrmanns’s research focuses on whether bots should be considered a competitive threat and how they should be regulated by lawmakers.

Thanks to the Max Planck Foundation and its sponsors, Max Planck scientists can apply for a writing scholarship at this beautifully located site almost directly on the lake. And where better to write a scientific paper such as a dissertation than at the “Grundner,” where the quantum physicist and Nobel Prize winner spent his holidays every year from 1885 to 1943?

With a little luck, scholarship holders may also meet Gabriele Taylor, Max Planck's great-granddaughter, who lives in the attic of the former farmhouse on Lake Tegernsee and rents the lower rooms to the foundation. The house, which has no immediate neighbors, belongs to the municipality of Bad Wiessee and is suitable for peaceful scientific work in any season: located about 50 km south of Munich, it offers enough space for up to three scholarship holders at a time, with a total of 150 square meters, three workrooms, three bedrooms, common rooms, a terrace, and a kitchen.

Information about the writing scholarship is available at the webseite of the Max Planck Foundation.

Miscellaneous | 09/01/2025

Two Junior Researchers at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Economics

This year, not one but two of our young scientists were invited to the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Economics, which took place from 26 to 30 August 2025 at Lake Constance – a special privilege and a unique experience for Elisabeth Hofmeister and Ulrike Morgalla.

Elisabeth Hofmeister and Ulrike Morgalla with Simon H. Johnson, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics. (Photo: Ulrike Morgalla)

A young female scientist and an older man with name tags standing at a harbor during the Lindau Meetings. The man wears a light blue shirt, a dark gray sweater draped over his shoulders, and beige pants. The young woman wears a black jacket and a name tag. Boats, water, and trees are visible in the background. — Ulrike Morgalla at the Science Walk with Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. (Photo: Torben Nuding)

Elisabeth Hofmeister in a video about the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. (Image: Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings)

Since their foundation in 1951, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings have developed into a unique international scientific forum. Every year, around 30 – 40 Nobel Laureates convene in Lindau to an exchange with the next generation of leading scientists across different generations, cultures, and disciplines.

The theme of the Lindau Meetings alternates between the three Nobel Prize scientific disciplines, Physics, Chemistry, or Physiology/Medicine. Every five years an interdisciplinary Meeting takes place, while the Lindau Nobel Meeting in Economic Sciences is held every three years. The varied formats of the scientific programme – lectures, discussions and more – are designed based on the principle of dialogue and to activate the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and experience between and among Nobel Laureates and young scientists..

In summer 2025, the 74^th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting and the 8^th Lindau Nobel Meeting in Economic Science took place.

Ulrike Morgalla has been a Doctoral Candidate and Junior Research Fellow in the department Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research under the supervision of Dietmar Harhoff since October 2023. Since May 2024, she has been working with Benedict Probst at the Net Zero Lab, investigating the economic costs of climate change with a particular focus on CO₂ pricing. Her personal highlight of the Lindau Meeting was the Science Walk with Joseph E. Stiglitz, who received the Nobel Prize in Economics (Swedish Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences) in 2001. Together with George Akerlof and Michael Spence, he was honored for his fundamental contributions to the theory of markets with asymmetric information.

Ulrike Morgalla emphasizes that his works, such as “Globalization and Its Discontents” and “People, Power, and Profits”, had already influenced her during her bachelor’s studies and motivated her to want to better understand the mechanisms and developments of modern economies. Through his work, she also learned to critically question what is taught in economics studies. It was particularly exciting to talk to him in person about which of his works he considers most influential, how he deals with setbacks, and how he assesses the development of environmental economics in the strongly neoclassical teaching of economics.

Elisabeth Hofmeister has been a Doctoral Candidate and Junior Research Fellow in the Institute’s economics department since October 2021. She examines the determinants of R&D productivity in research-intensive industries, particularly the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

Using econometric methods, she investigates questions concerning different stages of the innovation process, from decision-making about initial R&D investments to translating an invention to market. She often examines these questions from the perspective of firms, but she also takes into account the role of individual scientists. She had the special opportunity to present her research in a Next Gen Science Session, where she spoke about “Strategic Reserves – Shelved Innovation as a Real Option”.

She was selected to share her journey, motivation, and future plans in an inspiring interview on the Lindau Meeting’s blog “Women in Research #LINOecon”: Interview with Elisabeth Hofmeister. Moreover, in a brief video for the LinkedIn channel of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, she discusses the very specific insights she gained during the conference that will benefit her future work: Short video with Elisabeth Hofmeister.

The two young researchers were particularly impressed by how approachable the 20 Nobel Prize winners and one female Nobel Prize winner, who were all present at the same time, were. During meals and breaks, informal conversations with them arose time and again. These opportunities for personal exchange greatly enriched the young scientists.

Miscellaneous | 07/01/2025

Call for Contributions: National Innovation Systems in Central Asia – A Cross-Disciplinary Edited Volume

We invite chapter proposals for a forthcoming book exploring the evolution and future of National Innovation Systems across Central Asia. The overall objective of this project is to develop a rich, contextualised understanding of where Central Asian states stand in terms of their vision and strategies for innovation, through a reflective sense-making and solution-oriented exercise.

While the region has implemented substantial social, economic, and legal reforms in recent decades, there remains a lack of critical appraisal grounded in a systematic analysis, especially in English-language literature.

To address this gap, the collection will solicit and present diverse, in-depth perspectives, offering:

Interpretative analyses of the evolution of National Innovation Systems in Central Asia, examining particular phenomena and shaping factors (‘How have we come to where we are’)
Normative assessments of how National Innovation Systems in the region should be further developed (‘What’s next?’)

Please find all details and suggested themes in the concept note.

The deadline for abstracts (300–500 words) is 10 August 2025.
Please submit proposals and brief bio to: Dr Daria Kim (editor) daria.kim(at)ip.mpg.de
Notification: 25 August 2025
Full chapters (6,000–8,000 words): 31 October 2025
Expected publication: 2026

Construction site entrance to the new institute building with signs pointing to the event

Event Report | 06/02/2025

Munich Summer Institute 2025

The first event to be held at the Instituteʼs new venue was the Munich Summer Institute (MSI), now in its ninth year. Since its premiere in 2016, the MSI 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.

New event space at the Munich Summer Institute 2025. — Baptism of fire for the auditorium in the new Institute building. Photo: Myriam Rion

The MSI 2025 took place from 26 to 28 May 2025 with around 85 participants in the Institute’s new premises – a successful and also instructive baptism of fire in terms of technical and procedural aspects. This year’s event offered an inspiring synthesis of academic exchange and networking in the research fields of digitalization, artificial intelligence, innovation, intellectual property, organizational design and digital governance.

The main conference was preceded by the fourth MSI Ph.D. Workshop on 21 May 2025 at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich. This one-day event brought together early career researchers from across Europe and beyond. The program included five sessions that focused on digitalization, platform competition, entrepreneurship and eco-innovation, and innovation and learning. Projects ranged from empirical studies on copyright enforcement and algorithmic influence to research on carbon markets and intergenerational knowledge transfer.

The program of this year's main conference included two keynote speeches, 16 presentations to the plenary and two poster sessions, again preceded by very engaging poster slams. The program of the first day started with a guided city tour from the LMU through the historic old town of Munich to the new Institute building. The scientific part was dedicated to three lectures on the topic of organization. The day ended with the official reception.

The presentations on the second day of the conference dealt with topics from the areas of platforms and consumer computing technologies, AI and innovation as well as collaborative research and development. In her keynote entitled “Innovation in Digital Platforms: How Can Regulation and Antitrust Help?”, Fiona Scott Morton, Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics at Yale University School of Management and Adjunct Professor at Yale Law School, presented her latest research on antitrust policy and platform regulation.

In keeping with good MSI tradition, the second day ended with a hearty dinner in a typical Bavarian tavern. Here, Khwan Kim (INSEAD) received this year’s Best Paper Award for his paper“Kindle’s Shadow: How Digitization Dims Novelty in Creative Industries”, co-authored with Manav Raj, which provides new insights into the unintended consequences of digital transformation..

The last day of the conference featured presentations on the topics of patents, data protection and security. Michela Giorcelli, Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, provided a historical perspective on the diffusion of innovations in post-war economies in her keynote speech on“The Diffusion of Soft Technologies During and After World War II”, presenting compelling reflections on long-term growth and technological change.

All those involved in the organization would like to thank the speakers, discussants and the participants for an exciting Munich Summer Institute 2025. We are already looking forward to the Munich Summer Institute 2026, then the tenth MSI!

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

Miscellaneous | 05/23/2025

TransforM Receives Funding as a Cluster of Excellence

On 22 May 2025, it was announced that the Munich Center for Transformative Technologies and Societal Changes (TransforM) will be funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) over the next seven years as one of 70 Clusters of Excellence as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments. The Institute is a part of the Cluster of Excellence, Dietmar Harhoff was a co-applicant.

Logo of the cluster of excellence TransforM, showing an abstracted butterfly.

TransforM aims to advance social science for highly technologized societies to better understand and shape the transformative power of technology. The goal is to better understand why, when, and how technologies become socially transformative, and to critically assess and inform transformation pathways ‘all the way through’ – from the early stages of their emergence to their wider socio-economic impact.

The application was submitted by the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Other participating institutions are the ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, and at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, the Institute for Leadership and Organization with Prof. Martin Högl and the ifo Center for the Economics of Innovation and Digital Transformation with Prof. Oliver Falk. Cooperation partners are Bayern Innovativ, the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation - bidt, DEEP Ecosystems, the Deutsches Museum, the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and UnternehmerTUM.

TransforM tackles the dual challenge of advancing fundamental social science for technologized societies and rethinking technology development through a social science lens head on. As an interdisciplinary social science cluster with a principal focus on technology, it is to augment current theories and methods to comprehensively understand and help shape transformative technology to better serve diverse societal needs..

More information: https://transform-cluster.de/

Miscellaneous | 05/15/2025

On the Passing of Paul Katzenberger

On 24 April 2025, shortly before his 88^th birthday, our long-standing colleague and friend Dr. Paul Katzenberger passed away. He was one of the Institute's first employees: Paul Katzenberger joined the Institute for Industrial Property at the University of Munich in 1956 and was involved in every stage of the Institute's history.

In 1967, he obtained his doctorate under Eugen Ulmer with a thesis on corporate law, which was one of the first to appear in the Green Series on Industrial Property Rights. He later turned his attention to copyright law and private international law and became a renowned expert in these fields as a Senior Research Fellow. Among his many publications, the editing of the Quellen des Urheberrechts (Sources of Copyright) and his contribution to the Schricker Commentary on Copyright are particularly noteworthy. Early on, he meticulously built up the Institute's documentation, which was a unique and indispensable source for research in industrial property law and copyright law in the pre-digital age.

As head of the Institute's Germany Department, Paul Katzenberger accompanied and supported generations of doctoral candidates during the difficult phase of their doctoral studies and often remained a reliable advisor to them. Even after retiring in 2002, he continued to work for the Institute, initially as a Senior Research Fellow and then as an Affiliated Research Fellow. He only gave up his work as a lawyer specializing in copyright law a few years ago.

With Paul Katzenberger's passing, we have lost a highly esteemed colleague who played a key role in shaping the Institute's public image and promoting its reputation during his active career. For many of us, he was also a reliable source of expert advice and a good friend. We will miss him and cherish his memory.

The new premises of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition at Karlstor/Stachus in Munich

Miscellaneous | 04/30/2025

Science in the City – The Institute at its New Location

The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition has moved to its new location in the center of Munich. Since 1 May 2025, you can find us at Herzog-Max-Straße 4, 80333 Munich – directly at Karlstor/Stachus in the heart of Munich.

The Karlstor gate in Munich — The Karlstor, adjacent to the Institute

The head of library places the first book in the new library

The IT team with the server delivery for the new Institute location

Curved spiral staircase as a special connection between the departments — Special connections between the law and economics departments

The central location continues to guarantee excellent connections to the LMU and the Technical University of Munich. This maintains important prerequisites for scientific cooperation, joint teaching and events, as well as the training and supervision of doctoral students.

Good Accessibility in a Central Location

The new location has excellent public transport accessibility. The subway and S-Bahn station “Karlsplatz (Stachus)” is located directly next to the Institute and is served by the subway lines U4 and U5 as well as almost all S-Bahn lines (including S1 and S8 from/to the airport). The connection to the public transportation network makes the new location quickly and easily accessible from the city as well as from the airport or the main train station.

Our special thanks go to:

the library, which ensured that researchers had continuous access to the collections despite the logistical challenges of the move,
the administration and facilities management, who planned and supported the move with great dedication,
and the IT department, which has created a modern infrastructure on which research at the Institute can continue to thrive.

First Events Starting at the End of May

The first event in the new building from 26 to 28 May 2025 was the Munich Summer Institute 2025, which was organized jointly with the Center for Law & Economics at ETH Zurich, the Technical University of Munich, the ISTO at LMU Munich, HEC Lausanne, and Cornell University. It was a successful and also instructive baptism of fire in terms of technical and procedural aspects. Although some pioneering spirit was still called for from the participants, for example to find access through stairwells that were still under construction, the event ran professionally and smoothly. The MPF Start-up School, a start-up initiative of the Max Planck Foundation, was hosted right afterwards. The regular seminars then got underway.

HERZOG MAX presented to the Public in July

On 8 July 2025, the owner and the project developer presented HERZOG MAX, as the building is named, to the public in the presence of representatives from politics, industry and society. Speakers included the Bavarian Minister of Construction Christian Bernreiter (CSU), City Planning Councillor Elisabeth Merk (non-party) and Munich’s Economic Affairs Officer Christian Scharpf (SPD). The successful contribution to the transformation of Munich’s city center was particularly emphasized. This conversion of a vacant former department store into a mixed-use building, which brings more life and work back into the city center, is exemplary for other German city centers. “Research belongs at the heart of society – exactly where we are now with Herzog Max,” said Josef Drexl, Managing Director at the Institute.

You can watch a television report by Matthias Flasskamp on the opening of the new building from “Abendschau - Der Süden” of Bayerischer Rundfunk on 8 July 2025 in the ARD Media Library:

Television Report

We look forward to welcoming you to the new location soon. An Institute opening event with a scientific symposium is in planning for October – we will be reporting.

Updated on 15 July 2025

Miscellaneous | 04/15/2025

Call for Papers – RISE8 Workshop

Young researchers working in the fields of Economics or Management who would like to present an empirical research paper at the 8^th Research on Innovation, Science and Entrepreneurship Workshop are invited to submit it until 25 July 2025.

For the eighth time now, the two-day event is organized by Ph.D. students and Postdocs of the Department Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research headed by Dietmar Harhoff to give young scholars the opportunity to present their work.

The RISE8 Workshop on 15/16 December 2025 aims at stimulating a rigorous in-depth discussion of a selected number of research papers by Ph.D. students and Junior Post-docs, providing feedback and connecting with peers from other research institutions.

Keynote speaker of the RISE8 Workshop is Matt Marx (Cornell University).

Get the Call for Papers RISE8.

See RISE8 Workshop Website.