The Pierce advantage: Constantly growing & evolving innovative IP courses and curriculum
Size of curriculum matters : Prospective students want the facts
In 2006 Professor Kenneth L. Port,William Mitchell College of Law Director of Intellectual Property Law Studiespublished his provocative articleIntellectual PropertyCurricula in the United States in volume 46 of the Pierce Law Review IDEA
In 1999, Professor Roberta Kwall of DePaul University Law Schoolpublished rather interesting statistics regarding intellectual property ("IP")course offerings at American law schools.' Apparently, much has changed inthe six short years since she conducted her survey. In 1999, Kwall reported thatthere were 56 law schools offering a course titled Patent Law' and 54 lawschools offering a course titled Copyright Law.2 Today, there are 139 lawschools offering Patent Law and 123 law schools offering Copyright Law. Allbut seven law schools in America offer at least one course in IP. Fifty-twoschools offer 1 to 4 classes, 89 schools offer 5 to 10 classes, and 20 schools offer more than 10 courses.Clearly, American legal academia has "discovered" IP.
Measures of IP curriculum
To say that much has changed in the IP curricula of law schools in the United States over the last decade is a gross understatement. According to data from theNortheast Association of Pre-Law Advisors (NAPLA) Handbooks, growth of IP programs has been on a progressive rise.
This growth has led to the growth of IP curricula at the top ranked schools with IP programs. The problems for prospective students looking to gage the value added of large course offerings are many. The first question is how to measure the size of each IP curricula. The number changes each semester. There is no central source that tracks this data. Many schools only publish current courses. Other schools publish "course offerings" that inflates the figure since courses are taught more than once per year. Some schools list courses that are only peripherally related to IP. A recent 2008 review of the websites of the Top 30 IP Law School Programs ranked by U.S. News & World Report shows a wild range in the number of self designated IP courses, from a handful to a staggering seventy. The average was twenty five.
There are only so many IP courses a law student can take. There are only so many courses an IP students might need. Pierce suggests that prospective students look carefully at both the quantity and the quality of IP courses.
Pierce Law : a history of firsts
In 2008 Pierce offers dozens of IP courses. When Pierce was founded there were two law schools that taught patent law. Pierce was the first school to teach patent prosecution in a multi-level course supported by a growing range of patent courses. In the first decade of Pierce Law, a wide range of courses in trademark, copyright, trade secrets, licensing and other "soft IP" subjects steadily grew into what we consider to be the most robust IP curriculum in the United States. Pierce Law was the first to add corporate patent lawyers to the IP Faculty to teach IP Management. At that time this was a knowledge base well guarded by corporate IP counsel mastered only by years on the job. Pierce Law IP Faculty were the first to develop course materials on IP Management
The curriculum integrates all aspects of IP and then integrates IP throughout the law school curriculum
Beyond "dedicated" IP coursesPierce Law attempts to point out the IP implications in a wide range of subject areas. The following is not a list of courses, but of areas of law with IP interrelationships . Looking at IP throughout the curriculum is a concept Pierce Law has termed "IP through and through", meaning our students learn IP throughout their law studies.
- Agriculture law
- Art Law
- Bankruptcy
- Conflicts of Law
- Commerce & Technology
- Crimes
- Damages
- Economics
- Employment (e.g.trade secrets)
- Entertainment
- Environment (e.g. sustainable development)
- Health
- Human rights (indigenous, cultural, traditional)
- Insurance
- Labor
- Remedies
- Sales (Uniform Commercial Code)
- Secured transactions (debtor/creditor)
- Sports
- Taxation
- Torts (defamation, appropriation)
Pierce Law constantly adds new courses to meet global needs
Pierce Law evaluates its IP curriculum each year, adding and dropping courses to meet he needs of soon to be lawyers and global IP professionals.
The hallmarks of the Pierce Law IP curriculum:
- Broad and deep, with dozens of growing and changing courses
- Integrates all aspects of IP and then integrates IP throughout the general curriculum
- Recognizes the global nature of IP and offers many foreign, international, comparative and global courses
- Recognizes the value of a practice based education as part of an integrated strong legal education
- Recognizes the interdisciplinary nature of IP and includes courses at the interface of IP, business, management, science, technology, economics, public interest and more
- Recognizes the ever changing nature of IP, offering courses in IP in developing nations, such as Traditional Knowledge
- Recognizes the value of scholarship offering many opportunities for IP students to engage in scholarly courses resulting in publishable quality work products.
Pierce Law rarely offer a course every other year. We offer core courses up to three times a year. That is especially important to students here for the one year graduate programs degrees. At other schools students miss taking courses because of conflicts.
Pierce Law leads the way in IP management: the IP life cycle management approach
These law courses offer students the opportunity to master the IP Life Cycle:
- Identifying IP and intellectual capital
- Creating IP
- Branding IP
- Protecting IP
- Managing IP
- Valuing IP
- Creating new markets for IP
- Monetizing IP
- Transferring IP
- Financing IP
- Securitizing IP
- Taxation of IP
The 2008 example : New courses
Added to our extensive collection of IP course offerings in 2008 are:
- International Technology Transfer Institute Clinic
- Law & Business of the Entertainment Industries
- Negotiation, Preparation & Enforcement of Entertainment Contracts
- Current Issues in Information Technology & IP
- Intellectual Property Amicus Clinic
- Legal Protection of Traditional Knowledge & Biodiversity
- Global IP Portfolio Management
- Music Law
- Law of Motion Picture
- Contemporary Issues in Internet Law
