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.

The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition was founded in Munich in 1966 as the Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law. Over the following decades, it became instrumental in the development of the areas of law that it dealt with. In 2002, in conjunction with new appointments, its scope of research was extended to include core areas of antitrust law and tax law − hence, the change of the Institute’s name to Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law. After the establishment of an additional department for financial economics in 2008, this Institute was replaced, as of 1 January 2011, by the MPI for Intellectual Property and Competition Law and the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance. Together with the MPI for Foreign and International Social Law, these Institutes form the Munich-based Max Planck Campus for Legal and Economic Research. In 2013, the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law was expanded to include a new, economics-oriented department (Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research); in 2014, the Institute changed its name to Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition.