IP strategy at Northwestern

I’ve got an email alert for “IP strategy”, and had an interesting hit come up related to our ongoing discussion of teaching the fundamentals of IP in a business context. This time, not in an MBA programme, but rather as part of training lawyers. The law school at Northwestern offers a concentration in “Business Enterprise” as part of their JD (the three year postgraduate US law degree), which is gained by taking a number of approved electives. The one that caught my eye (and my email alert) is naturally:

Intellectual Property Strategy: Domestic and Global Perspectives

What a cool course title!  At law school (and in my undergraduate) I always got excited reading through the course catalog — something about all the possibilities for learning new things, almost seemingly without limit.  This time, I didn’t see a full course description, but here’s what I would cover or expect to see in a course with this kind of scope:

• The civil law / common law divide on copyright (copyright v author’s rights)
• Human rights perspectives and IP
• An overview of the various international IP institutions (WIPO, UNESCO, WTO, etc)
• The various international IP systems we do have (PCT, Madrid, etc)
• Regional IP systems (Benelux, EU, EPC, OAPI, etc)
• Free Trade Agreements and WTO rules
• Digital technology and the internet (particularly around jurisdictional issues and data havens)
• International private law & IP issues

This is probably just for starters, as having been on both sides of the aisle in a university setting on international IP issues, I can see endless possibilities.  One particular angle for teaching the strategy side would be case studies, among which I like to use anime fansubs together with the RIAA, BSA, FAST, and Creative Commons as examples in the copyright space.  I can see lots of room for covering NPEs/trolls and why they are prevalent in certain jurisdictions (US) and not so in others (EU) as well.

They also have a number courses in this concentration that would be particularly good for preparing for an in-house IP counsel role, including Taxation of Intellectual Property.

This course and approach adds a further dimension to the ongoing discussion we’re having, partially captured in our article for Managing IP, about how to best approach the IP/Business role within an organisation (the CIPO). One point we’ve been discussing — the risk aversion (or just issue-spotting) approach that gets baked into the lawyer training process. Does it make it more difficult for lawyers to become IP/business leaders? I don’t know the answer, but I do think that courses and concentrations such as this one at Northwestern help to move the ball.

Any thoughts?  What would you teach law students about international IP strategy?

Tagged as: FTA, law school, mb, mba and ip