This paper explores patenting and licensing of public funded inventions in Germany in order to capture nuances underlying the institution of IPR in the context of public funded research. We look at two mechanisms in Germany that concerns patenting and licensing of publicly funded science. The first is the operations of Ipal GmbH which undertakes patenting and licensing of technologies originating in the universities in Berlin and the second is that of the Max Planck Innovations (MPI), nodal centre for technology transfer of the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft-MPG). Accordingly, our paper presents case studies of patenting and licensing practices at the Humboldt University of Berlin (against the Ipal GmbH model) and that of the MPG (the MPI model). The analysis is structured around core issues pertaining to IPR and academic research, science-industry interface and technology transfer.

Sabyasachi Saha

Published in Berlin Working Papers on Money, Finance, Trade and Development, October 2013