Institute News

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

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.

In his work, Moritz Sutterer develops a conflict of laws concept for the cross-border activities of performing rights societies. Until now, this has been regulated by a large number of reciprocal agreements between the individual collective management organizations. In its statement, the jury emphasized that the work is innovative and future-oriented. Sutterer’s work is particularly important in view of the increasing internationalization of the activities of collective management organizations.

During his time at the Institute, Moritz Sutterer’s research focused on copyright law, antitrust law and private international law. He contributed his knowledge of conflict of laws to the drafting of the International Law Association’s “Kyoto Guidelines” on private international law in the field of intellectual property law. He received his doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in 2022. Today he works as a lawyer in Munich.

The Heinrich Hubmann Prize is endowed with 5,000 euros and is awarded every two years by VG WORT. The award ceremony on 14 March 2025 took place as part of the symposium of the Institute for Copyright and Media Law on “Media and Copyright Challenges of Artificial Intelligence” in Munich. In awarding the prize, VG WORT commemorates its long-standing board member Professor Dr. Heinrich Hubmann (1915–1989), who, as a university lecturer and author of numerous works, advocated the “law of the creative mind”. He is regarded as an outstanding scholar of German copyright law in the second half of the 20^th century.

Sutterer, Moritz
Das Kollisionsrecht der kollektiven Rechtewahrnehmung
Abhandlungen zum Urheber- und Kommunikationsrecht, 65, Nomos; Stämpfli Verlag; C.H. Beck, Baden-Baden; Bern; München 2024, 555 S.
doi.org/10.5771/9783748943228

In his laudatory speech, Dr. Rudolf Leška, President of the Czech ALAI, emphasized the great importance of Adolf Dietz’s research for the development of copyright law, particularly in what was then Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic. Dietz expressed his gratitude by pointing out that he had described the new Czech copyright law as a “top European product” in a commemorative publication for Rehbinder.

After studying law in Munich and Paris, Adolf Dietz obtained his doctorate in 1966 at the Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität in Munich, where he also passed his second state examination in law in 1967. From 1966, Adolf Dietz worked as a research assistant at the Institute (then the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law). From 1972 to 1978, he was head of the department and then research group leader in the copyright department until his retirement in 2001. As an expert on German, European and international copyright law and on intellectual property in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the People's Republic of China, he published numerous books and journal articles in these fields. After his retirement, he remained associated with the Institute as an Affiliated Research Fellow. In addition to numerous other honors, Adolf Dietz received an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Brussels in 1996 and the Grand Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2002.

With the Jan Löwenbach Award, the ALAI Czech National Group commemorates the founder of the first Czechoslovak ALAI group. The copyright lawyer Jan Löwenbach was himself a music composer and also a creative artist. The group he founded in 1926 was dissolved by the German occupying forces in 1939. The ALAI Czech Republic national group was founded in 2013. The sculpture for the Jan Löwenbach Award was created by Czech designer and glass artist Jakub Berdych.

Hall is Emerita Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). In addition to her outstanding contributions to innovation economics, the AEA also recognizes her achievements as a policy advisor and mentor.

More information directly in the American Economic Association’s laudatory statement.

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

The Faculty Prize is awarded by the Faculty of Law to all doctoral theses that were consistently awarded the highest grade summa cum laude in all four assessment units. The award is presented in the form of a certificate, which is ceremoniously presented by the Dean during the academic doctoral and graduation ceremony together with the doctoral certificate.

In addition to the certificate, since 2013 doctoral students have also received a trophy specially made for them by the Alumni and Sponsors’ Association. This is presented by the Chairman of the Alumni and Sponsors’ Association at the academic doctoral and graduation ceremony. The trophy consists of a fine silver coin with a purity of 99%. (silver 999). The faculty seal, which differs slightly from the LMU seal, is embossed on the coin.

Report on the Award of the GRUR Dissertation Prize

In the statement of reasons for the award, the Adepi cites that the Department of Intellectual Property and Competition Law is “one of the most prestigious and important research centers in the world in this field”.

Since 2019, the Adepi Award recognizes the work of individuals and institutions that work for the protection and development of intellectual property in general and the collective management of rights in particular, from fields such as politics, education, business or law, contributing to the creation of culture in a fair and sustainable way.

Notification on the Adepi website

Update:
At the festive award ceremony on 5 July at the Palacete de los Duques de Pastrana in Madrid, Begoña Gonzalez Otero received the award on behalf of the Institute's Intellectual Property and Competition Law Department from the Spanish Minister of Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta.