Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition

The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition is committed to fundamental legal and economic research on processes of innovation and competition and their regulation. The research focuses on the incentives, determinants and implications of innovation. With an outstanding international team of scholars and excellent scientific and administrative infrastructure including our renowned library, the Institute hosts academics from all over the world and actively promotes young researchers. The Institute informs and guides legal and economic discourse on an impartial basis. As an independent research institution, it provides evidence-based research results to academia, policymakers, the private sector as well as the general public.

Contact

Marstallplatz 1
80539 München
Phone: +49 89 24246-0
Fax: +49 89 24246-501

PhD opportunities

This institute has no International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS).

The Directors as well as some researchers of the Institute also teach as Professors and Honorary Professors at universities, including in particular the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. It is in that capacity that they also supervise their own PhD students at these universities. The Institute also accepts external PhD students as scholarship holders and guest researchers. Further information can be found on the website of the Institute under Research Stays.

Department Intellectual Property and Competition Law

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Department Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research

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Department Intellectual Property and Competition Law

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Portrait of Heiko Richter

An interview on the EU's planned Digital Markets Act with competition law specialist Heiko Richter

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Coronavirus vaccines are in short supply. India and South Africa have called for a relaxation of patent protection rules. Their proposal to temporarily suspend intellectual property (IP) rules related to Covid-19 vaccines and treatments is currently being discussed at the World Trade Organization. But is this proposal the right approach? In an interview, Reto Hilty, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, explains why he thinks laying hands on patent protection is dangerous.

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Dietmar Harhoff is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition where he heads the Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research. As Chairman of the Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation (EFI), he also advises the German government on innovation issues. In the run-up to the CeBIT, taking place in Hanover from 14 to 18 March, we spoke with him about how future-proof German industry is in the digital age, the role of start-ups, and the latest buzzword, “Industry 4.0”.

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Experts published a declaration according to 20 years TRIPS agreement

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Digitization is transforming the economy, society, and every individual’s life. With it, the need is growing for clear legal framework conditions. These should leave sufficient freedom for the data economy, while preventing too much market power from being concentrated in a single place. Our authors examine the ways in which politics have approached these challenges in the recent past. They also warn against protectionist regulation and rushed decisions – not only in the digital sphere.

Artificial intelligence is gaining in importance and advancing rapidly – literally as well as figuratively: robotic nurses could soon be moving into our homes. However, their behavior is still open to negotiation. At the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich, Axel Walz is investigating how legal means can be employed to help ensure that artificial intelligence adheres to human values.

The German economy is booming, with research and development seeing welcome growth in recent years. However, our author, Chair of the German government’s Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation (EFI), warns that we shouldn’t content ourselves with our achievements to date. Germany still has some catching up to do, particularly when it comes to digital infrastructure and the internet offerings of German public authorities and ministries. But higher education institutions and young, innovative businesses need support from the new federal government, as well.

Digital Transformation Manager (m/f/d)

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich March 05, 2024

Administrative Manager (m/f/d)

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Munich March 05, 2024

We and our automated partners

2022 Chugunova, Marina

Jurisprudence Social and Behavioural Sciences

Rapid advancements in technology and automation call for a deep understanding of how human behaviour changes when humans interact with technology-powered agents in place of human-to-human exchanges. It is important to take such changes in human behaviour into account when creating a legal and policy framework to regulate automation. To this end, we have prepared a review of interdisciplinary findings in this field.

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Patent rights in times of the pandemic

2021 Reto M. Hilty, Suelen Carls, Daria Kim

Jurisprudence Social and Behavioural Sciences

One of the biggest challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the provision of sufficient quantities of vaccine over months. While rich industrialised countries ordered huge quantities early on, poorer states suffered from a glaring shortage. Against this background, several of them have requested among other things the temporary suspension of patent rights at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Our team has analysed the legal situation.

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Data Access, Consumer Interests and Public Welfare

2020 Scheuerer, Stefan

Jurisprudence Social and Behavioural Sciences

Data access appears as a key condition for innovation and public welfare in the digital economy. Designing an adequate regulatory framework is at the centre of the current research of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, which analyses the respective issues from an interdisciplinary perspective of law and economics. Against this backdrop, the Institute developed the scientific concept of the conference "Consumer Law Days 2019" held by the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection.

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The use of copyright protected creative online content by German consumers

2019 Stürz, Roland A.; Suyer, Alexander; Harhoff, Dietmar; Hilty, Reto M.

Jurisprudence Social and Behavioural Sciences

How copyright-protected content is used on the Internet and, particularly, which conclusions should be drawn from users’ behavior has been the subject of intense debate for years. To what extent do Internet users download, stream or share content? What is the share of paid compared to free use? Do users consider their own conduct to be legal, and what are their motives for choosing potentially illegal forms of use? The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition examines these issues gathering data with a large-scale, representative quantitative survey of German consumers.

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From guild to AI: the renaissance of trade secrets

2018 Desaunettes, Luc

Jurisprudence

Every innovation starts with a secret. Every formula, technical improvement, or new algorithm is first protected by secrecy – firms are not compelled to disclose their knowledge. The current era of Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) has seen a resurgent interest in trade secrets, particularly because a firm’s competitive advantage is increasingly based on data. Data as such, however, cannot be protected by patents or other intellectual property rights. But how and to what extent should trade secrets be protected by law, and how can this protection be regulated?

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