Project area "Science, Technology and Innovation"
I. Bringing Technology Back In: Socio-economic and Institutional Repercussions of Technology
Ulrich Dolata and Raymund Werle
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II. Interaction of technological and institutional innovations
Technology has traditionally been treated either as independent (“technological determinism”) or as dependent variable (“social determinism”). To overcome these determinist and static approaches research on technological innovations and change has to put emphasis on how technology interacts with social factors, in particular with institutions. The basic idea is that (new) institutions as well as (new) technologies create (new) opportunities, provide new solutions to existing problems but also create new problems. The resulting dynamics drives technical as much as institutional development. Thus, technology is at the same time dependent and independent variable and so are institutions. The interaction of institutions and technology is mediated by individual and collective (corporate) actors in accordance with their values, interests and preferences.
1. Technical Innovations, Market Processes and the Protection of Intellectual Property
Raymund Werle
In a competitive economy firms are under great pressure to commercialize technical innovations quickly. The longer the process of innovation takes and the more resources it requires, the more essential it becomes to ensure market opportunities. Intellectual property rights (IPR) provide such an option. They also facilitate trading knowledge as a commodity before it is incorporated in specific processes and products. A market for knowledge emerges which is characterized by individualized processes of price determination and transaction. But firms also use IPR to prevent the diffusion of knowledge, thereby ruling out that competitors will develop innovations which build on this protected knowledge.
Thus, IPR and the way they are used have an impact on the process of innovation because they are considered if decisions are taken about where to allocate research resources. If legal protection of innovations turns out to be impossible, either innovative technical means (such as encryption) or politically achieved extensions of IPR will help.
Accordingly, technical innovations, market processes and IPR exert influence on each other. National and sectoral peculiarities can be discerned within this global trend. The project aims to study these interrelations in biotechnology and information technology.
2. Trading Intellectual Property: The Case of Patents
Irene Troy and Raymund Werle
The current developments of modern societies indicate a growing importance of knowledge and knowledge-based technologies coupled with an increasing reliance on the market mode of economic governance. If markets for knowledge are to evolve, intangible knowledge assets must first be commoditized through the assignment of intellectual property rights (IPR), especially through patents. But IPR do not guarantee functioning markets for intellectual property (IP). Coordinating the production and dissemination of knowledge via markets is extremely demanding. Patent owners can use their IP for different purposes - offering them for sale (or licensing) being only one option. If they choose this option, they have to determine the value of a patent, offer it on the market and identify potential buyers. Focusing on patents, this project will analyze the nature of patents as property and explore how their value is constructed by patent owners, potential buyers and intermediaries. We suggest that different facets of uncertainty account for difficult and imperfect market conditions, which can only partly be mitigated by intermediary agents. Presumably, non-market forms of exchange and trade of patents may often appear more attractive than market exchange.
III. Internet research
1. Internet evolution and development
2. Internet Governance
3. Political and social repercussions of the Internet
Raymund Werle and Volker Leib
Complete List of Internet related publications
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