Advanced Trademark Law (5504) Based on the foundation created in Trademark Law, this course will help equip students with the skills to be a trademark practitioner as well as an active participant in the discourse regarding trademark jurisprudence in the United States today. Subjects covered include practice before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, unique aspects of trademark litigation, including the use of expert witnesses, and an advanced exposition on the future of trademark jurisprudence. Grading: Letter graded. Credits: 2 Offered: Irregularly Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Business of IP: Business Transactions (3905) This course explores how intellectual property issues arise in the context of various businesses and industries. The course also examines how IP issues are approached and resolved. Grading: Letter Credits: 1 Offered: Irregularly Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Business of IP: Independent Film Production (3901) Independent Film Production will focus on the many legal and business aspects involved in the production of an independent film including, but not limited to: business creation; production development; financing; copyright clearance, acquisition, and licensing; contract negotiation and drafting in all aspects of production; union issues; film distribution; and many other related subjects. The course will be a mixture of the law relating to each aspect of independent film production and a discussion of the real world application of the skills required to move an independent film from concept to completion to distribution. Grading: Letter graded Credits: 2 Offered: Irregularly Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Copyright Law (3610) If we are truly in the Information Age, then individuals and businesses need to know how to protect their information. Copyright law provides one means of doing so. This course provides an in depth examination of the core principles of U.S. copyright law, including copyrightable subject matter, ownership, infringement, remedies, and defenses. It also explores related rights such as the Visual Art Rights Act of 1990, the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Grading: Exam Credits: 3 Offered: Fall Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (3093) This course analyzes the intellectual property and cultural property rights of Tribal Nations in the United States. The course discusses how Tribal Nations may use federal statutes of general applicability to protect their property interests, and how these federal statutes may fail to protect traditional indigenous knowledge. This course also discusses the federal statutes that have been enacted by Congress to specifically safeguard indigenous cultural and intellectual property, and how Tribal Nations have begun enacting tribal laws governing their own cultural property and traditional knowledge. Grading: Credits: 3 Offered: Fall Subject Areas: Intellectual Property, Native American Law Intellectual Asset Management (5400) This course is designed to immerse students in the processes involved in managing an intellectual asset portfolio. Basic knowledge of patents, trademarks, copyright and trade secret will be assumed. The class will operate as a real world microcosm with each student assigned a fictional company to act as CHIEF IP COUNSEL managing an intellectual asset portfolio. Students will participate through in depth reading assignment, classroom activities/assignments, lecture and guest speakers. Grading: Letter graded. Credits: 3 Offered: e/o Spring Categories: Experiential Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Introduction to International Data Protection Law (3902) Multi-national organizations, often organized under U.S. state law or operating in the United States, increasingly must comply with a myriad of international laws regulating virtually every aspect of their organization and operation with respect to their customers. While previously, geographic restrictions reduced compliance obligations for companies operating from the U.S., new laws like the General Data Protection Regulation, the Brazilian Data Protection Regulation, and the Chinese Cybersecurity Law, have implemented long-arm jurisdiction to regulate organizations doing any business with residents of these countries, even without a physical presence in these locations. This course will provide an overview of data protection law, with an introduction to the differences between U.S. and other international laws, with a special focus on the General Data Protection Regulation. This will include a discussion of issues relating to privacy and individual rights, technical requirements, and practical business strategies for implementing compliance programs to meet multi-national obligations. This course will provide a foundation on which to pursue a career in technology law and business compliance. Grading: Letter graded Credits: 1 Offered: Irregularly Subject Areas: Intellectual Property, Business and Commercial IP - Appellate Practice (3600) This course is a skills-development class directed at teaching the specialized legal writing and oral advocacy skills needed to bring appeals of intellectual property disputes before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Through a combination of weekly written assignments, preparation of a written appellate brief, and delivery of an oral argument, students will learn the advocacy skills needed to successfully appeal a patent, trademark or copyright dispute to the CAFC, which has exclusive jurisdiction over such appeals. Students who complete IP Appellate Practice take Advocacy for two credits. Grading: Letter graded. Credits: 3 Offered: Spring Categories: Experiential Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Jurisdictional and Procedural Issues in Patent Litigation (8008) This course treats selected jurisdictional and procedural issues that are encountered in patent enforcement litigation. The particular issues covered have three characteristics: (i) they are prominent and commonly occurring in patent litigation; (ii) they raise fundamental questions of court power, procedural organization, etc., that extend widely across fields other than patent law; and (iii) they have been addressed recently in decisions of either the Supreme Court of the United States, or the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sitting en banc. Grading: Letter-graded Credits: 1 Offered: J-Term Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Patent Law I (5001) Introduces the history, philosophy and economics of the patent system, including the policy objectives of the system and the major legal mechanisms by which those objectives are carried out. This introduction focuses on the justifications for the grant of patent rights and the relationship of those justifications to the substantive requirements of statutory subject matter, utility, anticipation and obviousness. This course presents the theory of patent claiming and its linguistic consequences. Grading: Exam Credits: 3 Offered: Fall Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Patent Law II (5000) Provides a detailed examination of the substantive law and underlying policies that govern the validity, enforceability, and infringement of patents. The subjects to be treated include claim theory, enablement issues, interference theory, the meaning of "prior art," the Doctrine of Equivalents, contributory infringement and misuse, re-issue and re-examination, remedies, restriction practice and double patenting, design patents, and an overview of internal procedures of the Patent and Trademark Office. Grading: Letter graded. Credits: 3 Offered: Spring Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Patent Prosecution (5002) This course focuses on practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office in the prosecution of applications for patents, and addresses considerations in the preparation of a patent application. The course provides an introduction to claim drafting and studies the application of legal authorities in drafting claims to avoid the prior art. Participants receive an overview of the rules of practice before the Patent and Trademark Office as they relate to both pre-issuance and post-issuance procedures. Grading: Letter graded Credits: 2 Offered: Fall Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Seminar: Information Policy, Protection & Cybersecurity (5118) From a legal point of view, there is a lot more to cybersecurity than the mechanics of how to secure computers and mobile devices. This course begins with the identification of the various types of information that are commonly used and stored by businesses. It then examines the legal theories and strategies by which such information can be protected, including contract law and trade secret law. Next it considers the legal obligations that information holders have to maintain the privacy, confidentiality and security of information and the potential liability that flows from a failure to do so. Technological strategies and standards for securing information that is held in digital form are also discussed. Grading: Letter graded Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Seminar: International and Comparative IP Law (5005) The primary focus of the course will be on international and comparative patent law, but the course will also address some facets of international trademark and copyright law. The course will present a comparative study of certain features of foreign patent laws. It will also overview the major multilateral treaties that govern the transnational assertion of patent protection of United States laws that are specifically directed to the protection of U.S. patent rights against foreign activities Grading: Letter graded Credits: 3 Offered: Irregularly Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Intellectual Property, International and Comparative Law Seminar: Media Law (3530) This class is about the First Amendment and the Free Press. We will discuss a selection of the legal issues generated by the activities of the mass media. We will consider regulations of print, broadcast, and electronic media, including laws that govern obscenity and pornography, laws aimed at balancing free press and fair trial rights, and laws meant to preserve multiple voices in a market. We will explore publication-related issues such as libel and invasion of privacy, and newsgathering-related issues such as the extent of the reporter's privilege and restrictions on access to information. We will examine common law, regulatory law including Federal Communications Commission regulations, and statutory law including the Freedom of Information Act, but the primary focus of the course will be on how the First Amendment limits governmental control over the media. The final grade will be based on class participation, an exam, and preparation of a paper on a topic selected by the student and approved by the professor. With the professor's prior approval, students may prepare a "long paper" to satisfy the Advanced Research and Writing requirement. You will get three credits if you write a long paper (which you may do even if you’ve already satisfied the long paper requirement) and two credits if you write a shorter paper. This is a seminar course with limited enrollment. Grading: Letter-graded Credits: 2 or 3 Offered: Fall Categories: Long Paper Subject Areas: Government Practice, Intellectual Property, Public Interest Law, Constitutional Law and Civil Rights Trade Secret Law (9913) This course provides an in-depth examination of trade secret law, including the scope of protection, the prerequisites for protection, and the elements of a claim for trade secret misappropriation. In contrast to other IP courses, trade secret law is primarily based upon state law. Thus, students will learn how to read, interpret, and apply state law and how differences in theway states interpret and apply trade secret law may alter the outcome of a case. Grading: Letter-graded Credits: Variable Offered: Irregularly Subject Areas: Intellectual Property Trademark Law (5502) Provides an in depth analysis of the fundamental issues involved in protecting indicia of source. The basics concepts in trademark, trade dress, and unfair competition are covered. The subject matter of trademark law, the scope of trademark rights, infringement, defenses and remedies are presented. This course also covers the protection of trademarks when registered as domain names under the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy. Grading: Letter graded Credits: 3 Offered: Every Other Fall Subject Areas: Intellectual Property
