Course offerings and faculty
Curriculum
Counterfeit Product and Intellectual Property
1 credit, Kirsten Koepsel
The purpose of the course is provide the student with a broad understanding of counterfeiting and it's economic impact and what legal/enforcement practices are used to control it both nationally and internationally, including how does counterfeiting affect copyright/trademark/patent holders as well as the impact it has on society and trade.
Federal Trademark Registration
1 credit, Sujata Chaudhri
This course will survey federal trademark registration practice. Topics will include an overview of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) registration process, searching and evaluating a mark, preparing and filing a federal trademark application, common application pitfalls, responding to PTO office actions, post-registration requirements, client communications and maintaining a docketing system.
Global IP Management
1 credit, Michael Gollin and Leo Jennings
Intellectual property (IP) management skills are increasingly important for innovation in a global economy. IP management involves implementing strategies for organizations to protect their own innovations with IP rights (trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks and patents), while accessing the innovations of others. This course presents IP management strategies in view of innovation dynamics, and provides practical examples of how IP laws can be applied to meet organizational goals. Through lectures, classroom discussions, exercises, and a final report, the class covers the legal and historical background of the modern IP system, and provides practical steps for selecting a strategy appropriate to an organization's mission, resources, and competitive environment, and then implementing that strategy. Students will learn to identify goals, assess intellectual property portfolios, and define IP legal issues, to increase assets, reduce liabilities, improve market share, and promote partnering. By the end of the course, students will be able to identify, improve, and implement strategies for managing intellectual property, to promote competitive advantage in a changing world.
International and Comparative Patent Law
2 credits, Konrad Becker
International and regional treaties and non-U.S. patent systems, including the Paris Convention, Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and European Patent System.
International and Comparative Trademark Law
2 credits, Gerd Kunze
Explains the provisions relating to trademarks of the international and regional intellectual property treaties (such as Paris Conventions, the GATT TRIPS Agreement, OAPI and ARIPO in Africa, NAFTA and the Andean Pact in America, trademark harmonization in Europe) and the 1994 Trademark Law Treaty, and gives a comprehensive introduction to the Madrid System for the international registration of marks and to the Community Trademark System.
Entertainment Law
2 credits, Jon Garon
This course will address the legal and transactional issues involved with live performance, recording agreements, motion picture licensing, finance, and development, virtual entertainment of computer gaming and virtual worlds, and new media. Students will immerse themselves in the deal-making aspects of practice in the entertainment industry and the relationships between the media producers, distributors and artists in these industries.
Managing Knowledge Assets in the University
2 credits, Karen Hersey
Through discovery and authorship, new knowledge emerges every day on university campuses. Using and sharing new knowledge to advance scholarship and improve lives often occurs through the transactional mechanisms of patent and copyright licensing. This course will explore the legal foundations and management techniques used by universities in turning knowledge into intellectual property assets for the benefit of both academic creators and their institutions. Particular attention will be paid to issues and policies governing ownership, the interplay of institutional external funding obligations and faculty rights of academic freedom, the role of agreements between universities and faculty concerning use of faculty-owned educational materials and the effects of recent legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the TEACH Act and the USA Patriot Act on how universities use and manage knowledge assets.Mining Patent Information in the Digital Age
2 credits, Jon Cavvichi
Introduction to a wide range of computerized search and research tool currently available for patent searching and computer intelligence and strategies for their effective use.
Pharmaceutical Patent Law
1 credit, Joy Ouellette
Pharmaceutical patent law is a niche field with worldwide implications. Building on the concepts learned in a basic patent law course, this course is designed to foster awareness and understanding of the intricacies involved when patent law converges with regulatory law in the pharmaceutical realm to foster innovation while providing the public access to life-saving medicines. This course will focus on the challenges faced by both innovator (brand) and generic pharmaceutical companies and the strategies implemented by such companies In their efforts to retain or capture market share. Topics include an overview of the Hatch-Waxman Act and its practical guidance of the brand and generic drug approval process, Orange Book Listing requirements, pharmaceutical patent drafting, challenging pharmaceutical patents, paragraph IV litigation, settlements, and antitrust concerns.
Software Licensing
2 credits, Ronald Weikers
Software Licensing will explore the drafting and negotiation of software license agreements. We will engage in pragmatic drafting and negotiation exercises, and we will study case law, that will collectively convey legal and business concepts in a practical, modern context. We will learn about the contractual and intellectual property underpinnings of software-related agreements, including contract information, license grants, ownership, acceptance, confidentiality, breach, warranties, warranty waivers, damages, limitations of liability, remedies and much more. We will also learn how business decisions and litigation concerns will impact your role as an effective software contract negotiator and drafter.
Technology Licensing
2 credits, Karl Jorda
Detailed drafting of clauses and agreements negotiated to implement creative business arrangements for licensing intellectual property from your client to another and from another to your client. Considers determinative financial factors and other practical factors in the context of actual licensing situations.
Telecommunications
2 credits, Russell Hanser
This course will provide an overview of telecommunications law and policy in the United States. Topics covered will include (but will not be limited to) the following: the structure of contemporary telecommunications networks; the legal regimes governing inter-carrier payments, universal service, spectrum use, wiretapping, privacy and other consumer protections; and the role of law, politics, and economics in the policy-making process. Special focus will be placed on issues arising from the sweeping technological and marketplace developments reshaping telecommunications regulation, including the growth of next-generation broadband networks and Internet protocol applications.
U.S. Copyright Law
2 credits, Craig Joyce
U.S. constitutional statutory and judicial bases of copyright law as well as the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions. Covers copyright protection and copyright licensing of work products in literary, audiovisual, performing arts and computer software fields.
U.S. Trademark Law
2 credits, Mary LaFrance
The goal of the course is to review U.S. trademark and other state and federal law designed to protect commercial goodwill while avoiding consumer confusion: to evaluate the rights of authors, artists, and other celebrities to trademark-like protection of their personae: and to analyze advertising claims against the backdrop of consumer perception.
Intellectual Property Management - Financial Principles
1 credit, Gordon Smith
An examination of the financial and economic principles that underlie the valuation and exploitation of intellectual property in business. Discussion includes accounting concepts and investment theory.
Faculty
Konrad Becker
Adjunct Professor; former head, Patent and Trademark Department, Novartis
Jon Cavicchi
Intellectual Property Librarian and Assistant Professor of Research, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Sujata Chaudhri
Adjunct Professor; Senior Associate, Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C.
Jon Garon
Former Dean and Professor of Law, Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, MN
Michael Gollin
Adjunct Professor; partner, Venable LLP, Washington DC
Russell Hanser
Adjunct Professor; Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer, LLP, Washington DC
Karen Hersey
Professor of Law, Senior Scholar in Residence, Franklin Pierce Law Center
Leo Jennings
Adjunct Professor; Baker & Hostetler, LLP, Washington DC
Karl F. Jorda
David Rines Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director, Germeshausen Center for the Law of Innovation and Entrepreneurship; former corporate patent counsel, CIBA-GEIGY (U.S.); past president of Pacific Intellectual Property Association and New York Intellectual Property Law Association
Craig Joyce
Law Foundation Professor and Co-Director Institute for IP & Information Law, University of Houston, TX
Kirsten Koepsel
Adjunct Professor; Director of Intellectual Property & Industrial Security, Aerospace Industries Association
Gerd Kunze
Adjuncy Professor; Former Director of Trademarks, Nestle Products Co. Ltd., Switzerland
Mary LaFrance
Professor of Law, William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV
Joy Ouellette
Adjunct Professor; Global Associate, Mylan Inc.
Gordon V. Smith
Adjunct Professor and Trustee; President, AUS Consultants, Moorestown, NJ
Ronald N. Weikers
Adjunct Professor; Weikers & Co., Manchester, NH
