Introductory description

The module introduces students to patent law and the protection of confidential information, often understood as trade secrets. Patents and trade secrets are some of the central legal structures which form the foundations of the modern intangible economy. They shape economic, commercial, and financial strategies and valuations by granting monopoly rights in certain inventions and knowledges. Patents are also subject to significant political and cultural contestations, as witnessed in the contexts of Covid-19 vaccine patents and software patents.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The module will cover the following topics (indicative):

Week 1 History of patents; theoretical justifications; national, regional and transnational
frameworks under World Trade Organisation and the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)

Week 2 Patent Law: What is an invention? Patentable Subject Matter and Exceptions to Patentability

Week 3 Patent Law: Patent Bargain and the Role of Disclosure

Week 4 Patent Law: Novelty and Inventive Step

Week 5 Patent Law: Industrial Application

Week 6 Patent Law’s Limits: the examples of biotechnological inventions and computer software-related inventions

Week 7 Patent Law and Knowledge: What counts as knowledge? Who owns patents?

Week 8 Confidential Information and Breach of Confidence

Week 9 Misuse of Private Information

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• ⁃ Demonstrate an understanding of the historical development of patent law and the legal category of confidential information in their social, economic and technological contexts.
• ⁃ Exercise a critical understanding of patent law's theoretical justifications and its stated aims in relation to its social effects.
• ⁃ Critically reflect on patent law categories in relation to specific patentable subject matter, such as biotechnological or software related inventions.
• ⁃ Distinguish between the different legal strategies for patent law and confidential information.

Indicative reading list

Generic Reading lists can be found in Talis

Interdisciplinary

The course approaches the study of patent law and confidential information from doctrinal, as well as historical, economic, and philosophical perspectives.

International

The course material focuses on UK law, as well as explaining the relations between the UK and international legal frameworks (European Patent Convention, EU law, TRIPs). The course delineates the development of the modern patent and trade secrecy categories in international and transnational perspectives.
The readings furthermore comprise international scholarship, particularly historical scholarship on the premises and development of intellectual property law's fundamental categories, as for example, inventor, invention, and knowledge, including their colonial and neo-colonial backgrounds.

Subject specific skills

• analysis of primary legal sources and secondary scholarly literature
 in intellectual property law.

• critical analysis and argumentation, taking into account historical, economic, and sociological scholarship in the study of intellectual property law and carefully assessing its theoretical premises and claims.

• understanding of intellectual property law in its historical origins, as well as social and economic contexts.

Transferable skills

• precise reading, writing and speaking skills.

• acquisition of close reading competency and critical analysis.

• construction and presentation of a scholarly argument supported by careful analyses and relevant references.

• development of an ethical awareness of law's effects in society.

• introduction to different interdisciplinary methodologies of legal academic research: case-based reasoning, textual interpretation, historical, economic, philosophical interpretations.