Brief description of the lecture：

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.

Short biography：

Dr. Stefan Wagner is a Professor of Strategy and Innovation and Director of PhD studies at ESMT Berlin. He joined ESMT in 2011 after completing his Habilitation (2010) and his Doctorate in Management (2005) at Ludwig-Maximilians University LMU Munich. He was Fulbright Scholar at UC Los Angeles in 2001/2002. Also, he is a Senior Fellow at the Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP) and serves on the boards of the European Policy for Intellectual Property Association EPIP and the Doctoral Program of the Berlin School of Economics. He is also a member of the editorial review boards of the Strategic Management Journal and Strategy Science. Results of Stefan's research have been published in leading journals including Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy and Review of Economics and Statistics.