Academics
Explore key issues facing IP practitioners from both a theoretical and practical approach. Working together with field leaders, you'll take part in topic-based seminars and develop the skills needed to transact intellectual property within a global economy.
Course highlights
The program is composed of several seminars, which focus on different elements of practice as they relate to the overarching theme of international IP transactions. Four small-group tutoring sessions reinforce the content addressed in these seminars and allow you to discuss questions that arise as you connect topics.
Practical insights
The program offers two site visits with workshops that provide you with an opportunity to see current practice in industry and gain insight into international licensing strategies via discussion with corporate legal teams.
- One visit usually takes place at Google's Hamburg office: Learn about the challenges that attorneys may face while working on IT project and practice your skills in a simulated negotiation about cloud services agreements.
- The second site visit is yet to be confirmed for 2024. The the past, participants visited Airbus and HomePort, an innovation hub for zero emissions, 3D printing and automation in general.
Negotiation workshop
The program culminates in an intensive two-day negotiation workshop to establish terms for a license agreement in a real-life setting. This workshop will be supervised by IP practitioners from major firms who will coach and critique your performance.
Teams of two or three
- will receive a factual scenario containing confidential information,
- develop a negotiation strategy
- and meet with an opposing team for two successive rounds of negotiation.
Schedule
- Course load: students follow a set curriculum that earns them 5 ABA or 10 ECTS credits
- Classes: Monday through Friday between 10 am and 5 pm for three weeks
- Extracurricular program: coordinated with the schedule as to not overlap with courses
Assessment and credit
Credits
- Although not accredited by the American Bar the program follows the ABA's standards for Student Study at a Foreign Institution
- Depending on the credit system at their home university, students can choose to earn 5 US ABA or 10 ECTS credits
- The home institution decides which and how many credits to accept for transfer
Assessment
- Two-day final negotiation workshop (ungraded)
- Two-hour written exam (graded)
- Attendance and active participation in at least 80% of program activities is required
Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Credit
- Attorneys licensed in California may satisfy their full 25-hour MCLE requirement by completing the Summer Program through UC College of the Law San Francisco
- Except for Legal Ethics, Prevention / Detection / Treatment of Substance Abuse or Mental Illness, and Elimination of Bias in the Legal Profession
- Attorneys licensed in another state should consult their bar to determine whether California MCLE programs may be used to satisfy their CLE requirements
Topic List 2024
All topics
- DL-101 Online General Course on Intellectual Property
- Algorithmic Licensing and AI: Technological and Legal Issues
- Challenges in License Agreements re Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and Bitcoin Ordinals
- Conflict of Laws in International Agreements
- Drafting Principles
- FRAND Licensing
- Forced Technology Transfers: The Case of China
- IP Aspects of Technology Transactions
- IP Transactions Based on Blockchain and Smart Contracts
- IT and Cloud Projects - Legal Framework and Negotiations
- Legal Aspects of Licensing
- Licensing in Biotech
- Open Source Licensing
- Patent Law and Licensing
- Practical Aspects of Licensing
- Principles of International and European Copyright Law
- Principles of Negotation
- Trademark Licensing: Case Law & Practice
DL-101 General Course on Intellectual Property
Offered through the WIPO eLearning Center, this course provides an in-depth view of the fundamentals of IP law. It is composed of a series of modules treating the following topics:
- Copyright
- Related Rights
- Trademarks
- Geographical Indications
- Industrial Design
- Patents
- WIPO Treaties
- Unfair Competition
- Protection of New Varieties of Plants
- IP and Development - The WIPO Development Agenda
Offered by
AI Licensing: Mind the Copyright but not only that
The rise of AI, its constant improvement, and the use of AI tools in our day-to-day lives, for businesses and by government agencies, are unstoppable. Copyright and ethics are probably among the most frequently discussed topics surrounding this theme. In this session, we will take a copyright-focused look at the licensing of input and output that shape AI.
Challenges in License Agreements re. Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFTs) and Bitcoin Ordinals
The introduction of Non-Fungible Token (NFTs), and more recently bitcoin ordinals, as part of the blockchain technology, has raised new legal issues in the drafting, conclusion and enforcement of license agreements. After an extremely sharp rise and subsequent fall of NFTs in 2021, the licensing issues have continued well into 2023 with the introduction of “ordinals” into the bitcoin blockchains. To understand the issue of licensing with or through NFTs and bitcoin ordinals, it is important to understand what these technologies are able to achieve and where they fall short. This lecture focuses on the legal challenges of the various ways of including the respective technologies in IP license agreements.
Conflict of Laws in International Agreements
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Karsten Thorn
This session deals with IP-related European rules on international jurisdiction and conflict of laws (existence and scope of IP rights, infringement, licensing). Where appropriate, a comparison with rules of other jurisdictions will be undertaken.
Drafting Principles
This session is designed to help you develop strong drafting skills to create clearly enforceable contractual provisions. We will focus on the key principles of effective drafting, draft clauses without the aid of a precedent, and review clauses to identify drafting errors.
Forced Technology Transfers: The Case of China
This session will focus on tensions related to forced technology transfer in China. It will include a discussion of the both formal legal rules and informal mechanisms though which foreign investors may be pressured to transfer technology as a condition of investment in China, the response of major trading partners such as the United States and the European Union, and the adequacy of recent legal reforms designed to address concerns over technology transfer.
IP Aspects of Technology Transactions
Technology is at the heart of today's business transactions and intellectual property plays a crucial role in making them successful. This session will provide an overview of how IP is dealt with in a variety of transactions, helping you recognize potential stumbling blocks and providing strategies to manage them effectively. We will discuss how IP rights are handled in the context of various transactions, including M&A activity and joint development agreements.
IP Transactions Based on Blockchain and Smart Contracts
Blockchain, combined with smart contracts, is expected to revolutionize licensing transactions in intellectual property. After explaining the function and main characteristics of this emerging technology, this session will discuss practical examples of current, in part experimental applications: In particular, we will look at blockchain-based platforms, which promise secure licensing of digital content and use smart contracts to automate such transactions and standardize licensing terms and conditions. Thereby, we will focus on legal and technical opportunities as well as challenges. Topics of this session will include the relevance of the blockchain technology for the issue of digital exhaustion in copyright law, the potential of blockchain and smart contracts regarding the administration and enforcement of IP rights and possibilities to protect features of blockchains as IP.
IT and Cloud Projects - Legal Framework and Negotiations
This session will provide an overview of problems that attorneys may face while working on IT projects. You will have the opportunity to practice your (legal) skills in a simulated negotiation. There, we will show you negotiation techniques as well as typical issues raised during discussions about cloud services agreements.
This session will take place at the Google office.
Legal Aspects of Licensing
This session will provide an overview of the general structure of license agreements and the most relevant legal aspects of license agreements. Topics of this session will include the underlying principles of international license agreements, the most relevant provisions in license agreements, applicable law, license agreements in litigations and the relevant rules of antitrust and competition law. The session will include many practical examples to provide a good foundation for the program.
Licensing in Biotech
This session aims to give a practical insight into licensing and negotiation issues of biotech/pharma license deals – taking into account themes and challenges which have emerged in context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will explain typical clauses to address these on the basis of a license deal template that will be handed out as part of the lecture.
Limitations on License Agreements
Lecturers: Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Lefstin and Prof. Dr. Dana Beldiman
While parties are generally free to choose the terms of their license agreements, the legal regime of most jurisdiction circumscribes that freedom to a greater or lesser degree. These limitations may arise from policies of the intellectual property laws, or from other bodies of law. This class will address some of the more important legal limitations on license agreements, including exhaustion and royalty structure, FRAND obligations, bankruptcy, and antitrust (US) or competition law (EU).
Open Source Licensing
This lecture provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of open source technology and licensing. Students will gain a basic understanding of the origins and development of open source licensing and its impact on the technology industry. Key topics include the core principles of open source, an overview of prominent open source organizations, and various licensing models.
The class will also touch on open source as a business model, including its benefits and challenges, current trends in the open source community, and recent controversies. By the end of the lecture, students will have a foundational grasp of open source licensing and its role in modern technology and business.
Patent Law and Licensing
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Lefstin
This session will focus on two aspects of patent doctrine and practice that are of special importance for agreements to license technology across borders. It first considers doctrines of patent eligibility, which address what types of inventions may be the subject of patents. Standards of patent eligibility have diverged sharply between the United States and other jurisdictions in the last decade. As a result, key technologies in biomedicine and information technology are patentable in some jurisdictions but not others. Second, this session will address the concept of exhaustion, which limits the ability of licensors to control downstream uses of technology following an authorized use. Limitations imposed by exhaustion at both the national and transnational level will be explored.
Practical Aspects of Licensing
Lecturer: Dr. Annemarie Westpfahl
This session will address practical aspects and typical constellations of IP/IT license contracts in the daily work of an IP/IT lawyer. The session focusses on IP/IT licenses in M&A transactions, change of control in license contracts, as well as the nature of sub-licenses and their fate in the event of the termination or expiration of main licenses.
Principles of International and European Copyright Law
Copyright is one of the four main pillars of intellectual property law besides trademarks, patents and trade secrets. This session will provide an overview of forms of creative works protected by copyright, of creators’ exclusive rights and limitations hereon such as the principle of exhaustion. We will discuss relevant case law and address the relationship between technological progress and copyright law.
Principles of Negotation
Negotiation is omnipresent in the professional life of a lawyer and business person. This session will present the topic of negotiation on an introductory level and attempt to outline a number of key aspects and principles. Particular focus will be placed on characteristics of effective negotiators, bargaining styles, value claiming (distributive negotiation) and value creation (integrative negotiation). The session aims to give you insight, tools and vantage points that will assist you in completing the negotiation you will undertake in conclusion of the summer program and in your further professional practice. The session will combine discussion, informal lecture and a variety of workshop-style activities.
Trademark Licensing: Case Law & Practice
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Kristoff Ritlewski
As an example for comparative aspects of international licensing this session will cover different approaches to the principle of exhaustion and how the drafting legal professional might react. While previous sessions will have already covered some basics surrounding the technicalities of licensing, this session will be a good opportunity to review and repeat acquired knowledge in the light of trademarks cases.
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