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Innovation and Intellectual Property Management (IIPM) Laboratory

And here comes another soon-to-be IIPM alumni. Congratulations to Maximilian Elsen, who successfully completed his viva on Friday, 26th January. In his research he The title of his PhD thesis is "Inventions in Climate Technologies - A Patent Analysis".

His research addresses the complexities involved in identifying and classifying climate technologies from patent data, while acknowledging the inherent limitations and specific characteristics associated with patent data. By reviewing available means for identifying climate technology patents, his research examines advantageous features of existing classification schemes and discusses present challenges. It identifies the Cooperative Patent Classification Y02 class as the most comprehensive patent classification scheme for climate technologies, owing to its cross-sectional and hierarchical structure. Based on the Y02 class, this research constructs a dataset of global high-value patented inventions in climate technologies and conducts three studies: The first study (i) investigates patent applications in climate technologies between 1980 and 2019 and critically evaluates them compared to their non-climate related counterparts. The second study (ii) examines contributions from inventors in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) to the development of climate change adaptation technologies. The third study (iii) develops metrics to assess the contribution of organisations towards the development of climate technologies based on their patent portfolios.

Catalina Martinez kindly agreed to act as external examiner. The internal examiner was Steve Evans. 

News & Blog articles

IIPM @ R&D Management Conference

1 July 2025

Qi Ang Du and Frank Tietze attended this year's R&D Management Conference in Pisa (Italy) organized by the Institute of Management of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna . Frank Tietze acted as one of the chairs for the IP Management track jointly organized since 2021 with Alfred Radauer, Martin Moehrle, Ioanna Stefan, Martin...

Newspaper article

2 June 2025

A short opinion piece by Prof. Tietze was featured in the Brussels Morning Newspaper calling for more innovation within our IPR systems to address global challenges: https://brusselsmorning.com/we-need-strong-intellectual-property-rights-for-a-sustainable-future/73186/

Thought piece: Has Innovation Broken Western Culture? Reflections on Contemporary Western Culture and Possible Innovative Ways Forward

20 May 2025

By Frank Tietze (2025) Western culture today is profoundly shaped by ongoing waves of innovation, a concept close to my heart and to which I have dedicated many years of my professional research and teaching career. Technological innovation particularly has transformed daily life, created jobs, and helped build tech...