Intellectual Property (IP) Law is an enormous bear trap upon which all innovators necessarily climb: One hasty movement, one careless step, and your once-in-a-career idea is severed forever. It matters not whether that false step is due to mere ignorance, simple negligence, or actual intent—the result is always the same: You lose your greatest idea, you squander your best research, and you live to see others build it in your place.
ENGIN 5030 explores patent law. In order to prepare entrepreneurs ...
for a course in patent law, intellectual property (IP) in general must first be discussed. To this end the various types of IP (patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret) are briefly compared.
ENGIN 5030 then examines patent law in particular, including fundamentals like §101 utility, §101 patentable subject matter, §102 novelty, §103 nonobviousness, and §112 enablement and written description. In order to comprehend such fundamentals, requirements of definiteness; functional claiming; statutory bars; experimental use; the AIA grace period; 3rd party activity; the machine or transformation test; the teaching, suggestion, or motivation test; §102(f)/103 derivation prior art; analogous arts; claim drafting; Markman claim construction; the doctrine of equivalents; prosecution history estoppel; joint infringement; divided infringement; indirect infringement; imputed institutional knowledge; prior user rights; consequences and timing of IP sales; the AIA’s prior commercial use defense; and international considerations will also be analyzed.
Yes, you will learn as much patent law in this course as you would in any Law School.
After discussing an aspect of patent law, we shall immediately apply that law to startup strategy. ENGIN 5030 is unique in that it teaches not patent law and policy (which law schools and casebooks focus upon), but rather patent law and entrepreneurial strategy: This course applies patent law directly, and intentionally, to the entrepreneurial perspective. With an eye toward precision, ENGIN 5030 details the foregoing concepts within the scope, time, and element domains.
To summarize: In ENGIN 5030 we shall explore the contours of the bear trap. We shall do so to the same depth as any top-five law program. In so doing we shall discover how to seize the bear trap, how to turn it around, and how use it to defend your greatest innovations.
This course is not easy—but it is very useful.
If you enroll in ENGIN 5030, you will receive a world-class education in patent law that you cannot receive in any other way (aside from spending four years to apply for, gain admission to, and attend a top-five Law School). In ENGIN 5030 you will receive that education at a fraction of the cost.
Someday soon that education will likely save your best ideas—and then your business—in that order.
