Please take note of the evaluation methods for each course, noted at the end of the course description.
6477 Federal Circuit
Judge Randall Rader and Prof. John Whealan
This course will cover the unique role of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit as the only national court of appeals organized on the basis of subject matter rather than geography. Topics include the creation of the Federal Circuit and an overview of its varied jurisdictions (e.g., government contracts, constitutional takings, and international trade). Emphasis on the contributions of the Federal Circuit to patent law, and in particular its administration of eligibility, bars, “non-obviousness,” equivalents, and other modern patent law problems. Comparative study of the patent jurisprudence of the Federal Circuit and other nations’ courts. (Examination)
6496 Intellectual Property Law Seminar: TRIPS, Patents, and Public Health
Prof. Sarah Rajec
This course will explore the contentious relationship between pharmaceutical patents and public health. The framework for discussion will be TRIPS and the various flexibilities inherent in it that potentially enable member countries to devise regimes that promote access to medicines. The various topics for discussion include: incentivizing the creation of new drugs through patents; promoting affordable generics through exploiting TRIPS windows such as compulsory licensing; regulatory data protection and the interface between patents and drug regulation; and alternative innovation mechanisms for incentivizing the creation of new drugs such as patent prizes and advance purchase contracts. The discussions will also include real world examples such as the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan African, neglected/tropical diseases in developing countries, the Anthrax fear in the US and the bird flu pandemic threat. (Paper)
6840 Cross-Border Trade in Intellectual Property
Prof. Dan Burk
International trade in goods protected by copyright, patent or trademark law has become a matter of enormous economic significance. This course will address a number of the specialized issues raised by such transactions. Consideration will be given to various doctrines that regulate or prevent unauthorized importation of goods protected by intellectual property rights, such as those forbidding parallel importation or regulating trade in so-called "grey goods" and those dealing with the first sale doctrine and exhaustion of intellectual property rights. We will focus as well on the economic and social policy considerations underlying those doctrines. The course will address issues that arise under all three major categories of intellectual property and review the response of the U.S., the E.U., and other legal systems to those issues. (Examination)
6842 Internet Law I
Prof. Robert Heverly
While the debate still continues in the academy over whether a "law of cyberspace" is truly needed, businesses and organizations are confronted every day with issues that arise out of the Internet and the activities it enables. This course will take a practical approach to the Internet, identifying and discussing these issues in the larger context of the law's role in commerce. The course will include a discussion of control over the Internet, and will focus on questions of personal jurisdiction; civil liability (including rules for third-party speech); copyright and control; free speech (including obscenity and indecency); questions of domain names and linking; and online contracting and agreements. (Examination)
6845 Technical Protection of Authors' Rights
Judge Edward Damich
Technologies used to protect authors’ rights (such as encryption, flags, degradation schemes, and watermarking) and the law that protects and regulates them, including the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the European Copyright Directive, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty, and the WIPO Performance and Phonograms Treaty. Consideration of the impact of these technologies. (Examination)
6846 Philosophical Foundations of Intellectual Property
Prof. Michael Madison
Selected themes in the history and theory of intellectual property, including economic rationales for intellectual property rights, the debate over the limits to intellectual property protection from the 18th through the 20th centuries, and historical accounts of the intellectual property system. (Writing assignment)
6847 Intellectual Property and Indigenous Heritage: Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore
Prof. Silke von Lewinski
In recent years, tensions have increased between indigenous peoples and western industries about the use of genetic resources belonging to their land, their traditional knowledge and folklore. Under intellectual property systems, these achievements are regularly not protected, but indigenous peoples consider them under their own (customary) laws as belonging to them. Since industries often make benefits from using genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore either as such or as a basis for further (patentable) inventions and derived works protected by copyright, indigenous peoples have claimed that protection be established so as to be able to control the use of these achievements, to share in the benefits, to be able to prevent offensive or other uses damaging their spiritual interests, and to have their origin acknowledged. This course will consider these issues in the framework both of examples of national and regional legislation and of efforts to develop international norms and standards, in particular in WIPO. (Examination)
6850 Law of Software Contracts
Prof. Gregory Maggs
Contract and copyright issues arising out of software contracts. Contractual attempts to authorize or restrict copying and use of software; the proper legal characterization of software and software contracts; copyright limitations on contractual terms; formation of software contracts and potential remedies for their breach. (Examination)