Publication database

Markush structures are molecular skeletons containing not only specific atoms but also placeholders to represent broad sets of chemical (sub)structures. As genus claims, they allow a vast number of compounds to be claimed in a patent application without having to specify every single chemical entity. While Markush structures raise important questions regarding the functioning of the patent system, innovation researchers have been surprisingly silent on the topic. This paper summarizes the ongoing policy debate about Markush structures and provides first empirical insights into how Markush structures are used in patent documents in the pharmaceutical industry and how they affect important outcomes in the patent prosecution process. While not causing frictions in the patent prosecution process, patent documents containing Markush structures have an increased likelihood to restrict the patentability of follow-on inventions and to facilitate the construction of broad patent fences.

With permission of Elsevier

The book chapter analyzes the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement's (TCA) Chapter on future thematic cooperation on cybersecurity. It explains the broader political, technological and regulatory context of cybersecurity cooperation at the international and the EU levels. It then analyzes the TCA's passages individually and within this broader context. Finally, it provides an evaluation and outlook on future EU-UK cooperation on cybersecurity.

The rapid adoption of AI technologies by many organizations has recently raised concerns that AI may even-tually replace humans in certain tasks. In fact, when used in collaboration, machines can significantly enhancethe complementary strengths of humans. Indeed, because of their immense computing power, machines canperform specific tasks with incredible accuracy. In contrast, human decision-makers (DM) are flexible andadaptive but constrained by their limited cognitive capacity. This paper investigates how machine-basedpredictions may affect the decision process and outcomes of a human DM. We study the impact of thesepredictions on decision accuracy, the propensity and nature of decision errors as well as the DM’s cognitiveefforts. To account for both flexibility and limited cognitive capacity, we model the human decision-makingprocess in a rational inattention framework. In this setup, the machine provides the DM with accurate butsometimes incomplete information at no cognitive cost. We fully characterize the impact of machine inputon the human decision process in this framework. We show that machine input always improves the overallaccuracy of human decisions, but may nonetheless increase the propensity of certain types of errors (such asfalse positives). The machine can also induce the human to exert more cognitive efforts, even though its inputis highly accurate. Interestingly, this happens when the DM is most cognitively constrained, for instance,because of time pressure or multitasking. Synthesizing these results, we pinpoint the decision environmentsin which human-machine collaboration is likely to be most beneficial. Our main insights hold for differentinformation and reward structures, and when the DM mistrust the machine.

View all ESMT Working Papers in the ESMT Working Paper Series here. ESMT Working Papers are also available via SSRN, RePEc, EconStor, and the German National Library (DNB).

We illustrate conditions under which a trade platform selling its own products alongside third-party sellers benefits or harms consumers. This benefits consumers by lowering prices in a suite of models: a gatekeeper platform facing a competitive fringe of sellers, when fringe sellers also have their own channels perfectly or imperfectly substitutable to the platform; when the gatekeeper platform with fringe sellers competes against a big seller with market power on a differentiated alternative channel; and when the gatekeeper platform hosts only a big seller with market power. Platform product entry might harm consumers when a big firm sells both on the platform and on its alternative channel. The platform selling its own products harms consumers when consumers have heterogenous tastes for variants of products and the platform can control the access of fringe sellers via its commission and own product price. We also review the recent literature to highlight other channels via which benefits and harm arise from the platform selling its own products in its marketplace.

With permission of Elsevier

This thesis investigates how the social embeddedness of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) impacts their firms’ decisions.

The book chapter "Digital Identity" in the Handbook "Digitization of the State and Public Administration" analyzes digital identification and authentification technologies and their impact in public administration and society. First, it introduces and defines the concept of digital identity. Second, it gives an overview of the technologies' applications in public administration and beyond. Third, it analyzes their governance and implementation in Europe and Germany. Fourth, it presents perspectives for the future development of digital identity in increasingly networked societies.