Position Statement of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition of 25 May 2022 on the Commission's Proposal of 23 February 2022 for a Regulation on Harmonised Rules on Fair Access to and Use of Data (Data Act)

On 23 February 2022, the European Commission issued a Proposal for a Regulation on harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data (Data Act). The overarching objective of the Proposal is to ‘ensure fairness in the digital environment, stimulate a competitive data market, open opportunities for data-driven innovation and make data available for all’. The Institute hereby presents its Position Statement that features a comprehensive analysis of whether and to what extent the proposed rules might reach the envisaged objectives. It comments on all parts of the Proposal, including the new IoT data access and use right. Finally, the Institute offers a set of recommendations as to how the proposed provisions should be amended in the legislative process to align them better with the objectives of the Data Act

Influência da área foliar na assimilação de CO2 ao longo dos estádios fenológicos em um dossel de milho.

Objetivando estudar a variação da área foliar, por meio do IAF (índice de área foliar), nos diferentes estádios do milho BR 106, e a influência desse índice na assimilação do CO2, foi realizado um ensaio experimental na área experimental da EMBRAPA Milho e Sorgo em Sete Lagoas-MG, cultivado sob plantio direto. A partir dos resultados foi inferido que a senescência das folhas do terço médio inferior, mais expressivas na transição do P2 para o P3, aumentou a AFE (área foliar específica), dependente do IAF, induzindo a uma queda na assimilação do CO2, ao longo do período reprodutivo. Esse comportamento do IAF e da assimilação de CO2 não afetou o rendimento final de grãos do BR 106 que apresentou um valor próximo do potencial

International Instrument on Permitted Uses in Copyright Law

Funder: Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (IMPRS-CI, IP MPG) (2

Intellectual Property, Open Science and Research Biobanks

In biomedical research and translational medicine, the ancient war between exclusivity (private control over information) and access to information is proposing again on a new battlefield: research biobanks. The latter are becoming increasingly important (one of the ten ideas changing the world, according to Time magazine) since they allow to collect, store and distribute in a secure and professional way a critical mass of human biological samples for research purposes. Tissues and related data are fundamental for the development of the biomedical research and the emerging field of translational medicine: they represent the “raw material” for every kind of biomedical study. For this reason, it is crucial to understand the boundaries of Intellectual Property (IP) in this prickly context. In fact, both data sharing and collaborative research have become an imperative in contemporary open science, whose development depends inextricably on: the opportunities to access and use data, the possibility of sharing practices between communities, the cross-checking of information and results and, chiefly, interactions with experts in different fields of knowledge. Data sharing allows both to spread the costs of analytical results that researchers cannot achieve working individually and, if properly managed, to avoid the duplication of research. These advantages are crucial: access to a common pool of pre-competitive data and the possibility to endorse follow-on research projects are fundamental for the progress of biomedicine. This is why the "open movement" is also spreading in the biobank's field. After an overview of the complex interactions among the different stakeholders involved in the process of information and data production, as well as of the main obstacles to the promotion of data sharing (i.e., the appropriability of biological samples and information, the privacy of participants, the lack of interoperability), we will firstly clarify some blurring in language, in particular concerning concepts often mixed up, such as “open source” and “open access”. The aim is to understand whether and to what extent we can apply these concepts to the biomedical field. Afterwards, adopting a comparative perspective, we will analyze the main features of the open models – in particular, the Open Research Data model – which have been proposed in literature for the promotion of data sharing in the field of research biobanks. After such an analysis, we will suggest some recommendations in order to rebalance the clash between exclusivity - the paradigm characterizing the evolution of intellectual property over the last three centuries - and the actual needs for access to knowledge. We argue that the key factor in this balance may come from the right interaction between IP, social norms and contracts. In particular, we need to combine the incentives and the reward mechanisms characterizing scientific communities with data sharing imperative

Smart Urban Mobility as a Regulatory Challenge

The ‘smart city’ has become shorthand for developments in technology that influence how cities are organised and how citizens coexist in them. ‘Smart mobility’, one of its most visible sub-domains, has been considerably affected by ecological, demographic and economic pressures. Emerging methods of transporta- tion and innovative business models can overcome old problems, but they also pose new societal, economic and legal challenges. This introduction aims to shed light on the law, regulation and policy of ‘smart urban mobility’ by critically examining its substantial transformation from a regulatory perspective. It outlines the notion of the ‘smart city’, highlights trends in ‘smart’ urban mobility, points to related legal challenges and explains the conception and chapters of this book

Yes Means No(thing): Bridging Consent in Contract Law and Data Protection in the Context of Smart Mobility

This contribution departs from a theoretical question relating to the similarities and differences between informed consent as a concept of contract law on the one hand and as a concept of privacy and data protection on the other hand. As a lot of private urban mobility initiatives (e.g. Uber public transportation) focus on tracking and profiling users for the purpose of data analyses that lie at the core of their business models, informed consent plays a fundamental role in the transactions through which this data is acquired. This chapter aims to explore the urban mobility context in order to identify and discuss legal issues linked to the tensions between contract on the one hand and privacy and data protection law on the other. In order to discuss consent from the perspective of contract law, it examines the contract as the transactional regime underpinning the legitimacy and legal validity of an agreement between two parties. What is the role of consent in contract formation? How does it come into being, and how is it recorded? In addition, when does consent need to be informed according to contract law? These questions will be central to Section 2. Section 3 will connect the reflections on contract law to insights from privacy scholarship in order to define and understand the concept of ‘informed consent’ and how this concept relates to the contractual consent explored above, especially in light of the recent ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Planet49 case. Section 4 discusses the main similarities and differences between the two facets of consent and reflects upon whether they (need to) converge or diverge in the context of smart mobility as a policy pursuing local/regional sustainability