Categories: Business, Corporate, Commercial Law Intellectual Property

Instructor(s)

Frenchick, Grady

Course Data

Course Description

IP Issues for Business Lawyers:
(1.) Mergers et al. IP in the New Technological Age, 6th Ed. The text will be used during the first approximately 2/3 of the semester while the students are researching their presentation/paper topics; Presentations will be scheduled and given to the class during the remaining part of the semester.
(2.) IP-related articles in the business press e.g., the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, can or will provide topics for student research papers . Recent examples include stem cells (ethics), eBay (compulsory licensing), Blackberry (patent entrepreneurs), short term copyright protection for fashions, the Merck case (experimental use), proprietary/generic drug conflicts, e.g. Bristol-Myers drug Plavix, F.T.C. generic drug policy, Hatch-Waxman “reverse payments” antitrust issues; eBay; Medimmune; IP and telecom trade-based issues in the International Trade Commission, mobile device patent wars (Apple, Samsung); KSR; Seagate; the American Invents Act; restriction of the inequitable conduct doctrine; trademark registration argument estoppel; the recent jurisprudential attention from the USSC given to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit relating to patentable subject matter (Bilski, Prometheus) and patent exhaustion (LG Electronics); Bayh-Dole federal research dollar-supported academic tech transfer—non-practicing entity issues; the patentability of genes. There are many others. The student identifies a topic of their choice, including but not limited to articles in the business popular press (or elsewhere), researches the IP and business issues relating thereto, gives a presentation to the class, and writes a paper in law review format. (If taking the course for 2 credits, the paper should be about 15 pages; if for 3 credits, about 25 pages.) The paper will be due the last day of finals.

The format will be largely student-determined and permits business lawyer students with interests in copyright, patent, litigation, antitrust law, tax law, IP ethics corporate law or trademark law to take the class. Evaluation: class discussion (10%), presentation (10%) and paper (80%) (Pass-Fail available). Prerequisite: an IP course (patent law, patent prosecution, patent skills, copyright law, trademarks, licensing) or antitrust law --and an interest in IP business issues.

Questions? Please contact:
Grady J. Frenchick
B.A., M.S., J.D.
Patent Attorney
Direct: 608-234-6056
Cell: 608-334-3014
Tel: 608-255-4440
Fax: 608-258-7138
GFrenchick@whdlaw.com

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