Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law

The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (German: Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb) is a Munich, Germany, based research institute, which is part of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, which manages more than 90 institutes and research institutions. The institute was formerly known as Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law and the name was changed to Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in view of the broader focus of the institute and its interdisciplinary character. The major research areas of the institute are intellectual property, innovation and competition. Apart from providing research support for scholars from across the world, the institute also publishes the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC).

As of 2015, Prof. Dietmar Harhoff is the Managing Director of the Institute. Prof. Reto M. Hilty and Prof. Josef Drexl, are Directors of the institute.

In 1952, a new school of law “The Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Law” was founded at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Under the leadership of its first Director Eduard Reimer (1896–1957), President of the German Patent Office, the Institute quickly gained international importance and recognition. His successor Eugen Ulmer (1903–1988) put a stamp on the research work for decades; he notably promoted the expansion of the national and international copyright and competition law. In 1966, as its founding Director, he established the “Max-Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law”.

Alongside Eugen Ulmer, Friedrich-Karl Beier (1926–1997) and Gerhard Schricker (until 2003) were admitted to the Directorate of the Max Planck Institute. In the following decades, the Max Planck Institute would exert a wide-ranging influence on the national and international development of the relevant fields of law. An outstanding example of this influence was research based on comparative law analyses regarding European harmonisation of the law against unfair competition of trademark law, of design law as well as copyright law. Also essential were comparative law studies on the patentability of biotechnological inventions or the exploration of limits between the trademark rights.

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