Postgraduate Course: Intellectual Property - Law and Society (LAWS11202)

Course Outline
School	School of Law	College	College of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate)	Availability	Not available to visiting students
SCQF Credits	20	ECTS Credits	10
Summary	The course will examine Intellectual property from a law and society perspective, what is also considered to be socio-legal studies. It will build on the legal knowledge acquired by the students from existing courses on the legal and international aspects of IP law and will provide a complementary inter-disciplinary perspective to the subject. It will do so by introducing various studies and enquiries which have used, amongst others, historical, legal & economical, socio-legal and anthropological approaches to question and critique important concepts and policy questions within Intellectual Property law. It will centre on several existing empirical studies to enable the students to gain an awareness of the perceptions and implications of IP law in the real world. These examples will give some insight into the application and role of IP law for the various stakeholders, i.e. creators, rights owners, users, the general public and the public interest, and will serve as case studies for the students to develop their own critical and empirical research. The course will require the students to address a real or hypothetical question in the field of IP law using any one or more of the above approaches. This will give them hands-on experience to examine IP law in society by relying on secondary or primary source materials from non-legal areas and relating them to legal materials.
Course description	Not entered

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites	Students MUST have passed:	Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	Knowledge of the core elements of Intellectual Property Law including patents, trademarks, copyright and design rights. This knowledge can be either acquired through undertaking the Intellectual Property 1 and 2 courses or demonstrated through any earlier knowledge, training or experience that students may have.
Additional Costs	None

Course Delivery Information

Academic year 2015/16, Not available to visiting students (SS1)		Quota: None
Course Start	Semester 2
Timetable	Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info)	Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 176 )
Assessment (Further Info)	Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment)	1) An assignment to be completed by week 6. This may take the form of a short essay; a poster; a response to a policy consultation; or other form of assessment designed to meet topical subjects arising during the currency of the course. The assignment will be worth 20% of the final mark. 2) Students will be able to choose between the following 80% assessment options: a) a written essay at the end of term worth 80% of the final mark b) a written report and oral presentation of the report undertaken at the end of the term worth 80% of the final mark. The written report and presentation will each be worth 50% of the total mark. Due to the nature of this assessment (please see course description) team work of up to four in a team will be encouraged.
Feedback	Not entered
No Exam Information

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course, the students will have acquired - - An awareness of the role and importance of the law and society perspective for IP law in addition to the doctrinal approach, in understanding many key questions and concepts. - An appreciation of how such perspectives contribute to an evaluation of IP policy and practice; - A deeper understanding of the concepts and normative questions permeating IP law; - A practical understanding of policy questions in IP law through carrying out a piece of non-legal research and setting it appropriately within its legal context. - Transferable skills including (a) communication skills, oral and written (b) intellectual skills in identifying a non-legal approach to address a legal problem, the ability to gather and engage with non-legal materials, organise, evaluate and present them with relevant arguments (c) Managing time and taking responsibility for their work (d) team work skills