Institute News

The European Patent Office's Economic and Scientific Advisory Board (ESAB), chaired by Prof. Dietmar Harhoff, Ph.D., third director at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition since March 1st, 2013, with the new research department Munich Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research (MCIER), has issued a statement with recommendations for improving the patent system, based on the main findings of its 2012 activities. Along with this statement, the ESAB has also published the reports of three workshops it conducted in 2012, namely on patent quality, the role of fees, and patent thickets.

In these publications the Board highlights the importance of patent quality in boosting innovation. It points out that improving patent quality will require action at both the pre-and post-grant stages of the patenting process. In the pre-grant phase, specific measures are needed to address the speed and quality of patent examination. At the post-grant stage, opposition or re-examination proceedings require improvement, together with the litigation system. On this latter point, the establishment of Europe's Unified Patent Court is expected to make a major contribution.

In its third study - on patent thickets - the Board clearly states that it does not regard such "thickets" as a root cause of problems in the patent system. It concludes that measures to improve patent quality will help to reduce the complexity of the system and thus deal with patent thickets indirectly.

At its second annual meeting in January 2013, ESAB members also decided on the three specific policy issues to be addressed in 2013: the economic effects of the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court, two questions of particular relevance following the recent decisions taken at the EU level, and the possible impact of a grace period in Europe from an economic perspective.

Further information:

• Empfehlungen zur Verbesserung des Patentsystems (Februar 2013)
• Bericht zum Workshop über Patentdickichte (Leuven, 26. September 2012)

Prof. Dietmar Harhoff, Ph.D., has been appointed Director of the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law in Munich. With effect from March 1st, 2013, the researcher on innovation is head of the newly founded Munich Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research (MCIER). Since 1998 Prof. Harhoff has directed the Institute for Innovation Research, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship (INNO-tec) at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich (LMU). He will remain associated to the LMU as honorary professor in the department of business administration. Dietmar Harhoff is also director of the Entrepreneurship Center of the LMU, as well as the chair of the Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation (EFI) since February 2007. The EFI Commission provides scientific advice to the German government and periodically delivers reports on research, innovation and technological productivity in Germany. The EFI 2013 annual report has been presented most recently by Dietmar Harhoff and the Commission to German Chancellor Merkel on February 27th, 2013.

With the Munich Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research, the Max Planck Institute is further extending its leading role in fundamental research on questions of the protection of intangible goods such as inventions or creative works and the legal regulation of competition mechanisms and competitive behavior. At the MCIER fundamental issues in innovation and entrepreneurship processes will be explored in six fields of research "IPR Systems and Innovation", "Science, Research and Innovation Policies", "Innovation Management", "Culture, Institutions and Innovation", "Entrepreneurship and Innovation" and "Innovation Motives and Behavior".

The new research department at the Max Planck Institute will thus continue to work within a broader framework on subjects that were formerly pursued at INNO- tec under Prof. Harhoff's direction. The Research at MCIER also serves to reinforce the MPI's interdisciplinary approach to research questions at the interface between the disciplines of law and economics.