International Intellectual Property Law

The LLM in International Intellectual Property will be comprised of the following courses, which we believe will advance our students’ knowledge and career paths in this cutting edge field of law.

Following these courses you will find a list of optional courses that may be taught pending a minimum student enrollment.

Note: Each course is divided into a number of modules and each module will be taught over the course of two weekends.

This course covers the fascinating area of Industrial and Intellectual Property. You will probably already have an understanding of what Intellectual Property or ‘IP’ is about; that it is a very significant economic asset of many businesses and therefore an understanding of the law related to this area can be very important in a commercial context. What you may be less aware of is that the law in this area is not just financially significant; it also throws up lots of interesting theoretical and ethical questions.

Module A: Intellectual property and technology
– Patents and related rights
– Legal status of patents, what might be patented
– The process of obtaining and enforcing a patent
– Trade secrets and the action for breach of confidence

Module B: Copyright law
– Copyright and related rights
– Introduction to copyright law, forms of copyright works, ownership of copyright, duration, infringement, enforcement of copyright.

Module C: The law of trademarks and passing off
– Introduction to trademark law
– Passing off
– Registered trademarks: registration and subject matter
– Forms of trademarks
– Trademark infringement, remedies and revocation

Module D: Intellectual property – integrated topics
– Justifications for intellectual property
– Sanctions for misuse of intellectual property, including civil remedies and criminal sanctions
– Legal protection of designs in the UK: overlap with other rights
– Dealing with intellectual property rights
– Intellectual property and Europe – monopoly and a common market

The course will introduce you to the basic concepts of intellectual property relevant to medical research and development, pharmaceuticals and medical technology, genetic research and public health. You will gain an overview of key current issues, examine some of them in more detail through case studies, and in so doing develop skills and understanding which you can apply to monitor further developments in this fascinating area of the law. You will study the laws of various jurisdictions in the course. Much of the discussion focuses on English law, as shaped also by European Union (EU) legislation, but the aim here is more to illustrate broader legal principles than to give you expert knowledge of this particular jurisdiction, and we will also look at relevant international law and various other national laws.

Module A: Intellectual property of medicine and its sources
– International framework and history of intellectual property relevant to medicine
– Categories of intellectual property relevant to medicine
– European and National systems (UK and designated jurisdictions)
– Applications of intellectual property in medical and pharmaceutical industries

Module B: Access to medicines
– Overview of the issues and history of the campaign
– Human right to health and the ethics of patents
– TRIPS Agreement
– Doha Development Round (Ministerial Declaration; Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health; Decision on Paragraph 6)
– Paragraph 6 System

Module C: Patents and life forms
– Legal and socio-legal concept of life form
– Ethical considerations and exceptions
– Medical biotechnologies
– International, European and designated domestic frameworks (including European Biotechnology Directive)
– Genes and gene sequences
– Cloning
– Germ-line modification technology
– Embryos

Module D: Property in the person
– Medical and genetic privacy and intellectual property
– Genetic privacy
– Genetic sampling and collection; genomic libraries and databases
– Traditional medicine and genetic resources

This important course investigates the relationship between intellectual property and the internet. What does intellectual property consist of on the internet? The internet has changed almost everything, and intellectual property law constitutes one of the most important aspects of its transformation. Old models are broken, no longer fitting how the world has changed and we’re not altogether sure with what to replace them. One of the key issues is whether we rewrite laws afresh or seek to modify traditional concepts to better meet the needs of our internet society. These key issues and their implications, along with the agencies that play significant roles in relation to ‘internet governance’ are explored in detail in this course.

Module A: Digital copyright
– Introduction to digital copyright
– Copyright Directive and Digital Millennium Copyright Act
– Emerging copyright issues
– Licensing and rights management in the digital arena

Module B: Trademarks and other rights in distinctive signs online
– Introduction to trademarks
– Developments in use of trademarks online
– Principle of territoriality and use of trademarks online
– Unfair competition

Module C: Domain names
– Introduction to the mechanics of the domain name system
– Cybersquatting
– Recent developments concerning domain names and intellectual property
– Dispute resolution

Module D: Computer-related patents
– Business methods patents
– Software patents
– Prior art effect
– Enforcement of rights

The exploitation of intellectual property rights is rarely confined to a single jurisdiction, but rather it crosses national borders. This interjurisdictional exploitation occurs most commonly with the innovation rights, that is: patents and trade secrets. However, issues arise in relation to other intellectual property rights as well. Thus, questions about the ownership of the key rights, the licensing of these rights and competition law must be answered. In Transfer of technology law you will study how and why the rules governing technology transfer work. The course examines the issues largely from the perspective of United Kingdom and European Union law.

Module A: Intellectual property and technology transfer
– Background to technology transfer
– Breach of Patent confidants
– Copyright
– Designs

Module B: Licensing of intellectual property
– The interests in intellectual property
– Ownership
– General contractual principles
– Assignment
– Licences
– Licence terms
– Royalties

Module C: Competition law and technology transfer
– Introduction to competition law
– Market definition and article 101(3)
– Technology Transfer Block Exemption
– Research and development and specialisation block exemptions
– Licence agreements outside a block exemption
– Abuse of dominant position
– Patent pooling

Module D: Border issues in technology transfer
– Sequence: module A must be attempted before module D
– Exhaustion
– Border controls
– Export control
– Taxation
– Compulsory licences

The University of London provides a diverse and robust curriculum, with a selection of interesting and important courses, therefore AAU may teach optional courses as well. However, they are not currently scheduled and their availability will be subject to minimum student enrollment. Nonetheless, please do let us know if you are interested in one of these courses:

– Franchising law
– Intellectual property and sport
– International and comparative law of copyright and related rights
– International and comparative law of patents, trade secrets and related rights
– International and comparative law of trade marks, designs and unfair competition

AAU also offers skill-based support courses for Law students such as Fundamentals of Legal Research Writing and Analysis, Legal English, Legal Research and Writing, Moot Court, Legal Skills Development, and Cross Cultural Negotiations and Dispute Resolution.