Intellectual Property (IP) Management is intended for third year law students as a "capstone" course building on IP courses taken in the second and third years of law school. It is a practical, hands-on course designed to bridge academia and real-life private or corporate practice and is meant to provide the IP professional with a solid foundation in proactive counseling in the area of intellectual property. Exemplary topics include invention harvesting or extracting; invention records and disclosures; inventorship and ownership issues; laboratory notebook practice; patent searching; criteria and procedures for determining type of IP protection, particularly whether to file for patent protection or maintain as trade secret; trade secret policies and protection; IP education; IP audits and due diligence investigations; outside submissions; trademark practice (searching and clearance); international filing considerations, agreement practice, and other aspects of corporate IP management including understanding, developing, executing and/or managing IP strategies, IP committees, and IP budgets consistent with overall business objectives. Eligibility: Open to all except 1Ls. Course format: lecture. Grading: other (see syllabus), 100%. This course may be taken for an S/U grade.

S/U grading option not available for first-year students. But other students who have completed any course covering the substance of U.S. copyright, patent or trademark law may receive only S/U grades. Objectives: To introduce basic substantive requirements and procedures for obtaining, maintaining and enforcing patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks and related subject matters such as rights of publicity and domain names. Description: Beyond the basics, the course explores underlying policy goals and conflicts among types of intellectual property, for example, the tension between patent and copyright protection or the tension between federal and state protection. It also considers goals and conflicts with other laws such as free speech. It also considers matters such as the extent to which various types of IP are "property," available remedies, sources of law, and responsibilities of the two main IP agencies as well as those of various courts. Eligibility: Open to all students. Course format: lecture. Grading: other (see syllabus), 100%. This course may be taken for an S/U grade.

Patent systems and patent laws exist to promote investment in and development of technology. The recently-enacted America Invents Act (AIA) and certain U.S. Supreme Court decisions over the last 5 years have brought the most dramatic changes to U.S. patent law in more than 50 years. This course focuses on the fundamentals of U.S. patent law including patentability, infringement, inventorship, and ownership. The course will also explore some of the underlying themes in patent law as well as the purpose of and justifications for a patent system. The course reading includes the patent statute (Title 35 of the United States Code) both pre-AIA and post-AIA and selected case law primarily from the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The course will generally address both the procurement and enforcement of U.S. patents. Although this course will cover the legal principles underlying patent claim drafting and patentability, this course will not focus on patent practice and procedure.

Students will build on their basic claim drafting skills by learning the rules, regulations, customs, and practices for dealing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) when filing and prosecuting patent applications. Students will draft one complete patent specification and claims as well as responses to two USPTO Office Actions. Students may also prepare additional documents for filing with the USPTO. The course format is 2 hours per week of traditional lecture and discussion to cover theory and general principles plus regularly scheduled small group section meetings with a local practicing attorney. During the small group section meetings, the practicing attorney will discuss and provide feedback on the patent application and responses prepared for the course. Eligibility: Open to all except 1Ls. Prerequisites: PPI and Patent Law. Course format: lecture. Grading: final exam, 25%; class prep. and participation, 5%; regular submissions/quizzes, 10%; other (see syllabus), 60%. This course cannot be taken for an S/U grade.