Comprehensive Patent Data of the German Democratic Republic 1949-1990—Technical Report and Dataset Overview

This paper documents the generation and the content of the Comprehensive Patent Database (CPDB) of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (1949-1990), Version 1.1, which is freely available at GESIS https://doi.org/10.7802/2423. The database contains all patents granted in the GDR and published by the Office of Inventions and Patents (AfEP, later: German Patent and Trade Mark Office/DPMA) in the period between 1 January 1939 (application before but granted in the GDR) and 29 June 2006 (application in but granted after the GDR). The core database covers the years 1950 to 1990 and contains 24 variables with manually cleaned and processed information on a total of 261,822 unique patents of the GDR. The data was collected and prepared for the purpose of research on innovation activity in the GDR

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Firm survival in complex value chains and global innovation systems : Evidence from solar photovoltaics

Economic globalization and the modularization of value chains increasingly challenge long-held conceptual models explaining the spatial evolution of industries. This paper seeks to re-interpret early industry life cycle dynamics by disintegrating an industry's value chain into upstream, core and downstream parts and characterizing each part according to its underlying global innovation system (GIS) configuration. We distinguish between firms in parts of the value chain that depend on formalized, science-based innovation and cater for globally standardized mass markets (‘footloose’ GIS) and firms in parts of the value chain that rely on spatially more stable GIS structures, in which either the innovation activities or the valuation dynamics (or both) depend on spatial embedding in given territorial contexts. Our hypothesis is that firms which occupy parts of the value chain with footloose GIS characteristics will have shorter survival times than firms which operate in spatially more stable GIS types. Demand-side policies will accordingly produce stronger competitive advantages for firms operating in GIS with spatially stable valuation structures. The empirical context of our study is the solar photovoltaics (PV) industry. We analyze market entry and exit of 129 German and 127 Japanese PV firms from 1960 to 2016 using a Cox Proportional Hazards model. The results support the hypotheses that firm survival and policy effects depend on a value chain part's underlying GIS configuration

Nothing new in the East? New evidence on productivity effects of inventions in the GDR

Former socialist systems were considered inferior to Western market economies in terms of innovation and productivity. We provide new evidence on the productivity effects of inventorship in the Soviet-type economy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). We investigate three types of inventorship: knowledge generation, accumulation and diffusion. By applying a Cobb-Douglas production function using original primary and harmonized productivity data and manually cleaned patent data of the GDR between 1970 and 1989, we show that inventorship contributed to productivity in the industry sectors. This holds for knowledge generation, accumulation and diffusion in general, while in the presence of sufficient local interactive capabilities, international knowledge diffusion did not result in productivity gains. We contribute to empirical evidence on the productivity effects from an alternative system of patenting and innovation.230

Universalien der Innovation - Erfindertum und technischer Fortschritt in der DDR und dessen Rolle nach 1990

Vergleichende wirtschaftshistorische Studien zur Innovationstätigkeit und wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung im geteilten Deutschland zeichnen im Allgemeinen ein Bild der technologischen Rückständigkeit der DDR gegenüber der BRD. So zutreffend dieser Befund auch ist, so sehr verstellt er den Blick auf die Rolle, die das Erfinderwesen nach 1990 für die Transformation und den Aufholprozess spielte. Der vorliegende Beitrag fragt nach den Universalien von Innovationsprozessen und meint damit, dass in der DDR personelle Potentiale sowie technische Kompetenzen und Errungenschaften entstanden, an die nach dem Systembruch angeknüpft werden konnte. Diesem ambivalenten technologischen Erbe der DDR ist in den Untersuchungen zum Aufholprozess der Neuen Länder bisher kaum Beachtung geschenkt worden. Als erste empirische Annäherung werden im vorliegenden Beitrag Patentdaten der DDR im Vergleich zur BRD ausgewertet. Die Patentdaten sind aufgrund des frühen Beitritts der DDR zur Weltorganisation für Geistiges Eigentum (World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO) verfügbar und ermöglichen den Vergleich des Patentierungsverhaltens der beiden deutschen Staaten. Es zeigt sich, dass die Patentanmeldungen in der DDR und der BRD zwischen 1950 und 1989 zunahmen. Dabei entwickelten sich die Anmeldungen in der DDR und der BRD zwischen den 50er und 80er Jahren ähnlich dynamisch: plus 54,6 (DDR) und plus 52,2 (BRD) pro 100.000 Einwohner. In beiden Landesteilen spielten seit den 1960er Jahren Technologieprogramme und Innovationsoffensiven eine Rolle. In der BRD wurden im gesamten Zeitraum durchschnittlich doppelt so viele Patente pro 100.000 Einwohner angemeldet, wie in der DDR (75,1 versus 40,5). Ihre ungünstigere Ausgangslage von 7,1 Anmeldungen gegenüber 57,5 in der BRD im Jahr 1950 konnte die DDR nicht ausgleichen. Die Verteilung der Patentanmeldungen nach Technologieklassen gibt Aufschluss darüber, welche technologischen Schwerpunkte in der DDR gegenüber der BRD gesetzt wurden. Es zeigt sich, dass trotz der Systemunterschiede die Patentanmeldungen der beiden Länder auf die Technologiefelder ähnlich verteilt sind. Ein Bezug der Patentanmeldungen zu den in Forschung und Entwicklung (FuE) Beschäftigen gibt Hinweise auf die Effizienz der Patentaktivität in der DDR und der BRD. Im Jahr 1987 lagen die FuE-Personalintensitäten (FuE-Beschäftigte pro 1.000 Beschäftigte) in der DDR und der BRD nahezu gleich auf. Die Anzahl der Patentanmeldungen in Relation zu den FuE-Beschäftigten blieb 1987 in der DDR mit 90 gegenüber der BRD mit 149 Patentanmeldungen pro 1.000 FuE-Beschäftigte zurück. Das geringere Niveau der Patentanmeldungen (pro 100.000 Einwohner) und die geringere Effizienz der Patenterzeugung (pro 1.000 FuE-Beschäftigte) dürften Ausdruck der unterschiedlichen Systeme und Anreizstrukturen sein. Die sehr hohe Ähnlichkeit der technologischen Schwerpunkte und die Dynamik ihrer Entwicklung zwischen 1950 und 1989 legt jedoch die Schlussfolgerung nahe, dass die hinter den Patentanmeldungen stehenden Erfinderkompetenzen der DDR (zumindest in weiten Teilen) auch nach dem Systembruch im Innovationssystem des vereinten Deutschlands eingesetzt werden konnten. In diesem Sinne sprechen wir von Universalien der Innovation und stellen die noch weiter empirisch aufzuarbeitende These auf, dass die Erfinderkompetenzen der DDR für den technologischen Erneuerungs- und Modernisierungsprozess nach 1990 eine wichtige Rolle spielten

Unable to innovate or just bad circumstances? Comparing the innovation system of a state-led and market-based economy

State socialism failed due to its inner contradictions. Despite huge investments in R&D- intensive industries, the soviet-type economy collapsed in 1989 in Eastern Germany, and the market-based system in the Western part prevailed. We compare the two parallel existing innovation systems in Germany to shed light on the success and failure of the state-led innovation system. Based on newly created indicators from archive data we show in a natural experiment setting that modernization efforts in relation to GDP was much bigger in the socialist as compared to the market economy in the last decades.These achievements, however, could not fully unfold in favor of economic growth due to obstacles related to the setting of research priorities, innovation incentives, and knowledge flow.2111Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovatio