Law (Intellectual Property Law) - PDip

University of Kent

Over the past few decades, the scope of intellectual property has grown significantly. The goal of the module is to provide an overview of copyright and the law of confidential information from different angles in order to be able to assess this expansion. In so doing, it will examine this area of law from historical, theoretical and practical perspectives. The emphasis throughout the module is on reflexive critique. That is, we will study the different modes of justifying copyright and the protection of confidential information; the different historical approaches to trace the ways in which we can understand the political economy of copyright and confidential information and we will look at the past to try to find ways of thinking about the present situation of international legal regimes. On a more contemporary level, we will study the interaction between copyright and freedom of expression, the problems posed by technological works, as well as the more practical question on the way of producing evidence in copyright and breach of confidence trials. No prior knowledge or study of intellectual property is required

This module explores a range of key issues in contemporary intellectual property, which are subject to contentious and often crudely conducted debates. It identifies and questions intellectual property law's underlying justifications, conceptual assumptions and material practices through the lens of novel modes of biological, cultural and scientific production that challenge the legal regime.

The establishment of the WTO on 1 January 1995 has signalled the beginning of a new era in international economic relations. Unlike the GATT, whose main purpose was the reduction of barriers on trade in goods, the WTO legal regime reach deeper into more areas of policy-making, ranging from the regulation of services and investments to the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights. Furthermore, through its Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) the WTO has the capacity to generate case-law on the resolution of disputes under the WTO agreements that it covers. This marks a significant shift from the earlier GATT dispute settlement mechanism as it creates, for the first time on the multilateral level, a binding decision-making apparatus. Thus any serious attempt to understand the nature and development of international economic law requires a careful and detailed study of the WTO and its emergent law and practice. It is the cornerstone of the new global economic order. This module offers a comprehensive overview of this evolving legal and regulatory order.

The module will explore emerging privacy and data protection issues. Students will be challenged to critically examine how e.g. personal, financial, health and transactional data are managed and who has access to this information. It will require students to assess emerging legal, regulatory, data protection and personal privacy issues raised by widespread access to personal information, including genetic data.

Cultural heritage law has developed as a distinctive legal topic in the last thirty years to regulate the widening concept of heritage which started with the protection of historical monuments in the 19th century and now includes intangible values. This area of law considers a developing jurisprudence that involves international treaties, laws, ethics, and policy consideration relating to the heritage. Academic research now aims to identify values and principles that contribute to a fair and equitable cultural heritage policy. It addresses the essential question of the need to change the law to accommodate the specific needs of protection of cultural heritage/cultural property. It aims to give coherence to practices shaped by art dealers, collectors, museums, communities and States, as well as a complex body of rules at the intersection of civil law, property law, criminal law, public law, private international law and public international law. Those different interactions have developed a less than coherent legal framework that will be comparatively analyzed by reference to French, English and American Law.

This module will cover the legal framework in which the entertainment and knowledge industries operate. The objective is to introduce the key features of the music, film, pharmaceutical, finance and toy industries to embrace a different way of studying copyright, design, trade mark and patent rights. It is an attempt to study law "in action", and to provide students with a capacity to understand how intellectual property rights are transacted, evaluated and litigated differently depending on the trade/industry. The module will study the complex interplay between law, commerce, culture and communications and identify how these connections make intellectual property licensing possible.

The goal of the module is to provide an in-depth introduction to the laws of patents and trademarks (including passing off). Particular emphasis is placed on the political, socio-historical, cultural and economic contexts in which these laws operate, as well as on the implications of legal concepts on proprietary strategies. The module will take a distinctive approach towards the study of intellectual properties by focusing on concepts and their practical effects: the module will focus on key concepts in patents, trademarks and passing off and critically examine their implications for political economy, culture and science. Such key concepts may include: patents, novelty and invention; in trademarks and passing off: brands, sign and goodwill.