Welcome to our IPCL 2011 Wiki

I remind you that the written exam will take place at 9 am and not at 1 pm.

GUEST LECTURES

Carlo Piana's guest lecture on "Open Standards, patent thickets and antitrust conflicts in the information technology market" will take place Wed October, 26 at 4 pm (Room 2C).
Reserve the dates :
November, 17 (Thursday) at 9 am (Room 3C): Giovanni Napolitano, WIPO
December, 7 (Wednesday), 4 Pm: Alessandra Tonazzi, Italian Competition Authority.
December, 5 and 6 (Monday and Tuesday): Svetlana Avdasheva, Higher School of Economics (Высшая школа экономики), Moscow.

Course objectives

This course's main objective is an assessment of the most relevant issues on the interface of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and competition law, thereby providing a solid foundation for students interested in the legal facets of managing innovation in dynamic industries. Both intellectual property law and competition policy can be said to pursue, by different means, the same primary aim of stimulating the innovation process. On the one hand, by allowing innovators to appropriate the results of their investments, incentives are created to take risks and engage in innovation activities. Competitive markets, on the other, allow for new products and services to emerge and be tested by consumers and/or other firms. However, as long as IPRs like patents and copyrights are considered plain monopolies, there is arguably an inherent tension between these two legal fields. In more recent times, it is especially the role of IPRs as tools to motivate firms to invest in innovation activities that has been questioned. The case for further and general strengthening of IPRs appears weak, and it is increasingly understood that a new balance needs to be struck between rewarding risk-takers and diffusing new knowledge. It is against the background of this ongoing discussion about the relationship between intellectual property and competition law that the course is aimed at analyzing the peculiarities of the legal management of the intellectual assets of firms acting in different economic sectors (e.g., fashion industry, information and communication technology markets, pharmaceutical industry).

On completing this course, students will be able to:
a) clearly identify those contexts in which innovation management decisions are influenced by intellectual property law and competition policy considerations
b) explain, in an interdisciplinary way, the core principles of intellectual property and competition law
c) employ general analysis skills helping them to identify crucial issues and therefore to ask the right questions in the management and expansion of the firm's intellectual (property) assets
d) understand and follow international trends in the area of IPRs and competition policy especially relevant to dynamic industries.

Contents

The first part of the course will be devoted to acquiring a basic knowledge of the intellectual property law system, starting from the national regime and moving to the European and international dimensions. Topics covered include, among others, technology licensing, the doctrine of exhaustion, the patentability of biotechnological inventions, copyright in the information society (involving questions such as the legal assessment of peer-to-peer networks of music and video files), trade marks, designs, open source and open content licenses. Appropriate space is then devoted to competition policy (national, European and at the international level), paying due attention to the latest developments in European and North American antitrust law, such as the 'more economic approach', the question of anti-competitive abuses of intellectual property rights (as exemplified by the iconic European Microsoft case) and the competition assessment of standards organizations.
Each course topic will be introduced through demonstration and discussion of past, current as well as hypothetical cases. The class discussions and assignments are specifically designed to help investigating industry specific problems, evaluate alternative approaches to them, and think about the most promising course of action.
Each course topic will be introduced through demonstration and discussion of past, current as well as hypothetical cases. The class discussions and assignments are specifically designed to help investigating industry specific problems, evaluate alternative approaches to them, and think about the most promising course of action.

Grading

The final grade (ranging from 1 to 30, according to the Italian University system) will depend on the following components:
· 60% final written exam on all the materials presented during the course
· 40% individual discussion and presentation of a case study and/or other assignments.

Office hours

Fridays, 10.15 a.m. By appointment.

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