INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND TECHNOLOGY LAW

PENN LAW FACULTY

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SPRING 2007 COURSES

Cybercrime Seminar
This course will explore the legal issues that judges, legislators, and lawyers confront as they respond to the increase in Internet and computer-related crime. We will explore how crimes in cyberspace challenge traditional concepts of crime that developed to deal with crimes committed in physical space. We will also explore how the investigation and prosecution of crime in cyberspace are altered from the physical world models. Topics will include: an exploration whether paradigms of the physical world translate to the cyber world; computer hacking and computer viruses; child exploitation; on-line threats and on-line stalking; online economic espionage and intellectual property theft; the interaction of the laws of privacy (constitutional and other) and law enforcement efforts to gather evidence from computers and on the Internet; cyber terrorism; issues of federalism and national sovereignty in computer crime. An introductory course in American criminal law is required, but previous experience in computer technology is not. A basic familiarity with the Internet will be helpful. The seminar will examine how the criminal justice system should respond to computer-related crime. We will consider three broad questions. First, what conduct should be considered criminal in cyberspace? Second, how do we protect privacy on the Internet and what rules should govern law enforcement investigations of computer crime? Third, how should traditional notions of sovereignty and punishment that govern criminal law in the physical world apply in cyberspace? After the first, introductory class, we will spend approximately five classes each on the first and second questions and two classes on the third. We will have a federal law enforcement agent and a federal judge as guest lecturers/moderators. 3Ls: the requirement of 2 papers of ~1,500 words each can be converted into a single paper to fulfill the senior writing requirement.

Documentaries and the Law Seminar
This seminar will explore the law as it is reflected in documentary film and as it impacts documentary filmmaking. The course will begin with an overview of the history of documentary film and the various modes of filmmaking, including cinéma vérité or direct cinema. It will expose the students to the actual mechanics of nonfiction film production, and investigate the challenges of representing documentary filmmakers, particularly with regard to achieving access to legal institutions and obtaining the consent of subjects. A unit also will be devoted to lawyers' and clients' legal advocacy on film, including Day-in-the Life films, video settlement brochures, taped confessions, taped victim statements, and multimedia closing arguments. The rest of the course will analyze how law is presented and critiqued in various documentaries. Nanook of the North, Chronicle of a Summer, Titicut Follies, The Thin Blue Line, Super Size Me, Triumph of the Will, Love & Diane, Home, and Weather Underground will be among the films screened. By the end of the semester, the students should be able to articulate a concept of video literacy for lawyers. Guest lecturers will include documentary filmmakers, academics, and entertainment lawyers. The weekly screenings are mandatory. Film work may be submitted in lieu of a paper.

Intellectual Property Transactions Seminar
This seminar explores the commercialization of technology and intellectual property rights. Through case studies, class exercises, and a review of common and statutory law, this seminar offers students an overview of the theory and practice of intellectual property law and related transactions.

International Communication: Power & Flow Seminar
This course will address old and new patterns of communications flow across national and societal borders, taking account of media technologies, mutual perceptions, rhetorical forms, and the balance of power and influence in a globalizing world.

Introduction to Intellectual Property Law and Policy
This course starts from the premise that the law and policy of intellectual property is increasingly becoming an important component of a modern legal education. As such, the course will present a broad overview of the contemporary doctrinal and policy challenges facing intellectual property in an era of rapidly changing technology. The course is not intended to replace (or be a prerequisite for) any of the basic IP courses - instead, the class will be structured around several of the major recent disputes over the patent, copyright, and trademark laws, considering these from both a doctrinal and a social policy perspective.

Patent Law In our modern technologically-based economy, the creation and enforcement of patent rights can make or break a business. With record numbers of patents being issued every year, the stakes for inventors (and, indeed, their lawyers) continue to increase, even as the patent law and its administration faces growing criticism. This course seeks to equip students with a detailed overview of the law and policy of the United States patent system. We'll organize our inquiry into four components. The first considers the justifications for (e.g., economic, moral, political) and creation of patent rights as well as the relationship between patent law and other "intellectual property" concepts. The second will delve into the details of the statutory requirements for patentability, with a focus on both the "black letter" law and the underlying policies. Third, we'll consider the scope and enforcement of patent rights, again considering how the policies expressed in the legal doctrine relate to the justifications for patent rights we discussed in section one. And finally, we'll conclude with a look at the subject matter of patents -- considering specifically the cases of biotechnology, computer software, and internet business models -- drawing together the ideas introduced throughout the course. Class exercises and simulations will be used throughout to highlight important concepts. Last year's syllabus and additional information can be found at patents.pennlaw.net/.

OTHER COURSES

Advanced Topics in Intellectual Property Seminar
This course is intended to be a vehicle for the advanced study of intellectual property, as well as an opportunity for students to engage in a serious writing project in these topical areas. One of the primary goals of this course is to assist students in developing and writing a 30-35pp law-review style paper suitable for publication (in a Penn journal and elsewhere). The course will thus generally have parallel tracks: one track related to the substantive materials read and discussed each week, and one track related to students' individual work on a paper. In most class, both of these tracks will be represented -- meaning we will be discussing both 'paper issues' as well as the major IP issues of the day.

Copyright
This course will focus on the protection of literary, musical and artistic works through copyright and related doctrines. Topics will include the concept and purposes of copyright (including a brief discussion of patents and trademarks), copyrightable subject matter, ownership of copyright, formalities, and rights, limitations, and remedies provided by copyright.

Intellectual Property Transactions Seminar
This seminar explores the commercialization of technology and intellectual property rights. Through case studies, class exercises, and a review of common and statutory law, this seminar offers students an overview of the theory and practice of intellectual property law and related transactions.

Mass Media Law
This will be a survey caselaw based course. For example, will consider content regulation of the media (defamation and indecency), rights of journalists, structural regulation of media. There will be some over-lap with First Amendment/Free Speech course, but not enough to prevent taking both.

Mass Media Policy Seminar
The seminar will involve a critical examination of the mass media, consider mostly leftist criticisms, review economic and democratic theory arguments and consider policy proposals. Students will most weeks be expected to write short (paragraph to one page) critical comments on the readings and write a term paper. Only one or two weeks will be spent on case law, which will raise issue of ways first amendment restricts structural regulation of the media.

Media and Sovereignty
This course examines the idea of "models" of media regulation. We look at varying techniques and contexts for shaping media policy. One focus will be on transformations of public service broadcasting. Another will be on media in conflict zones. Another theme will be state responses to the permeability of the Internet (and other new technologies). Depending on various research activities, there may be a focus on media reform in the Arab Middle East.

Patent Litigation Seminar
This course examines the basics of litigating patent disputes in a United States District Court and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, including pre-suit investigation, drafting of pleadings, fact and expert discovery, “Markman” claims construction proceedings, dispositive motions, in limine motions, trial, post-trial motions and appeal. Policy implications will also be considered, e.g., the cost of litigation as a tax on innovation (and its effect of understanding this as a tax on the desirability of deciding these cases summarily, in a bench trial, and without extensive discovery); Markman hearings and the allocation of authority between judge and jury; the advisability of jury trials in patent cases; appeals and specialized adjudication; and the allocation of authority between trial and appellate court.
A prior course which included patent law is required.

Technological Change, Economic Growth & the Law Seminar
This seminar will explore in depth the cutting edge legal issues in our emerging knowledge-based economy. In so doing, we will engage a number of economic perspectives on innovation law and policy, evaluating the impact of intellectual property laws, antitrust oversight, government support for basic research, and telecommunications regulation. We expect that students will come with an interest in these areas and some relevant background. Because the seminar will be driven almost entirely by student papers and class discussion, you must be very interested in the topic and committed to attending every seminar-except for an extraordinary reason.

Telecommunications
This course will explore the manner in which advances in technology, economic/regulatory theory, and First Amendment doctrine are forcing Congress and the FCC to rethink telecommunications regulations. The course will begin with a critical overview of the regulatory scheme governing the traditional communications media: telephony, broadcasting, and cable television. The course will then examine the problems posed by new forms of telecommunications, including digital broadcast satellites, wireless telephony, digital television, and the Internet.