Intellectual Property Law – PLST 420

Course Description

This course is designed to assist the student in gaining a broad understanding of intellectual property law and relevant legal terms. In addition to studying general principles and rules, the student will also study copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.

Rationale

Intellectual property law is an interesting and important area of law. It secures and promotes progress by incentivizing creativity and ingenuity. In fact, failing to adequately secure, protect, and defend intellectual property can devastate an enterprise. A professional with a proper understanding and knowledge of intellectual property law can avoid this, however. This course thus explores common forms of intellectual property protection including copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret law.

Course Assignment

Textbook readings and lecture presentations

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Discussions (6)

The student is required to provide a thread in response to the provided prompt for each Discussion. Each thread must be at least 300 words and demonstrate course-related knowledge. Each thread must incorporate at least 3 scholarly, academic citations. In addition to the thread, the student is required to reply to 2 other classmates’ threads. Each reply must be 200 words. Each reply must incorporate at least 1 scholarly citation in current Bluebook format.

Quizzes (6)

Each quiz will cover the Learn material for the Module: Week in which it is assigned as well as the preceding Module: Week. Each quiz will be open-book/open-notes and consist of 25 true/false, fill-in-the-blank, matching, and/or multiple-choice questions.

Trademark Research Memorandum Assignment

The student will write a legal memorandum relating to a trademark registration decision. The memorandum will be formatted as if it were submitted to a supervising attorney for review. The student will need to apply the fact pattern with material from the textbook in order to draft the memorandum. The assignment will be based on a hypothetical fact pattern that an intellectual property paralegal might encounter. The memorandum must be double-spaced and at least 2 pages in 12-point, Times New Roman font.

Cease and Desist Letter Assignment

The student will write a cease and desist letter relating to a copyright infringement issue. The letter will be formatted as if it were to be submitted to an attorney for review. The student will conduct research regarding (i) the law surrounding the intellectual property issues in the situation and (ii) the form and substance of a cease and desist letter. The assignment will be based on a hypothetical fact situation that an intellectual property paralegal will be likely to encounter. Some of the questions may be short essay questions; thus, when appropriate, use current Bluebook style for scholarly references.