PUBPOL 3764

Intellectual Property Law and Policy

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2023-2024. Courses of Study 2024-2025 is scheduled to publish mid-June.

This course covers domestic copyright law, which protects creative expression; patent law, which protects novel and useful inventions; and trademark law, which protects brand identifiers.  It also explores common law intellectual property rights like trade secret protections.  The aim of the course is not simply to learn what the law is, but why.

When Offered Fall.

• Demonstrate understanding of the positive law of copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and other similar rights.
• Utilize the tools of policy analysis to determine how different legal rules could potentially satisfy, or fail to satisfy, policy aims.
• Analyze and compare the rights given to IP creators in different jurisdictions and their underlying justifications.
• Exhibit synthetic understanding of legal concepts by drawing upon multiple lines of legal precedent.
• Formulate and express arguments in favor of specific legal standards to generate given policy outcomes.

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