Administrivia
Professor Larry Downes
Email: larry@larrydownes.com
Office number: (510) 526-9547
Office Hours: Tuesday 2:30pm-3:30pm F487 Haas Faculty Building , Thursday 2:30pm-3:30pm 311 South Hall Additional office hours can be made by appointment.
Course Description
The intersection of law and technology has always been accident-prone. The slow, evolutionary pace of law regularly collides with the ever-accelerating introduction of new technologies, which have a natural tendency to cause disruption in social, economic, and political relations.
As the world hurtles toward an information-based economy, the tension between the two has reached a breaking point.
This course introduces one of today’s flashpoints for this difficult relationship: the law of intellectual property. Or perhaps, we might conclude, the “law” of “intellectual” “property,” for each element of what was once a sleepy legal backwater has become a topic of fierce debate, not all of it cordial, and not all of it involving legal academics. Today, intellectual property law is the subject of demonstrations, acts of sabotage, mass civil disobedience, bitterly fought Supreme Court cases, intense lobbying, litigation, and legislating. By and large it is digital technology that has ignited these political flames.
The course has two objectives:
-
Positivist – Introduce as objectively as possible the main features of the law of intellectual property, including trade secrets, copyrights, patents, trademarks, and licensing. The particular emphasis in each of these areas will be the rapidly evolving (some would say mutating) jurisprudence of each of these sub-fields of IP law as they relate to digital technology. The goal here will be to make you fluent in the language of IP law conversations, which will, I hope, serve you in your future professional and academic work.
-
Normative – Explore some of the major issues that consume IP’s interested parties today, and try to reach some conclusion as to how these problems ought to be resolved, both in the macro (methodology, organizing principle) and micro sense (individual issues).
Course Information
Course Dates: August 31 to December 9, 2004
Lecture Schedule: Tuesday Thursday 12:30pm-2:00pm in 110 South Hall
Units: 3
Grading Option: Letter Grade only
Course Text
Required
Software and Internet Law, 2nd ed., Mark A. Lemley, Peter S. Menell, Robert P. Merges and Pamela Samuelson. Aspen Publishers, 2003.
Course Resources
You can register for daily headlines on technology stories. There is an IP law related story nearly every day.
Another source for daily news.
CNET’s daily newsletters also have IP law stories nearly every day.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
A vast collection of new materials and archives of law and technology issues, including IP problems.
The Center for Democracy and Policy
Another Law and Technology action group.
Professor Lessig of Stanford’s blog (with guest stars) covers a wide range of IP law problems related to digital technology.
A non-profit corporation established to try easing many of the problems we will explore in class.
The Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Harvard Law School’s Internet Law Project
Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society
Stanford University’s Internet Law Project
Grading Criteria
30% Midterm Exam
50% Final Paper
20% Class Participation/Instructor Discretion
Course Work
PART 0
August 31 : Tuesday
Introduction – Frontiers, Economics, and Other Frauds
Required Readings
Software and Internet Law [Online]
September 2 : Thursday
Required Readings
Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003) [Online]
Available in PDF form for free (Why free? Why PDF?) at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/02pdf/01-618.pdf.
I would like you to read the entire document, including
the two dissenting opinions. I realize this is a large
assignment, and if your time is limited focus on the
dissents by Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer.
PART I: TRADE SECRETS
PART II: COPYRIGHT
PART III: PATENT AND TRADEMARK
PART IV: LICENSING
PART V: IP IN CYBERSPACE CURRENT EVENTS
Tentative. We may substitute some/all of these topics for more current issues depending on class interest and current events.
last updated on 2004-09-15 by Lisa