Course Catalogue

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This course provides students with the opportunity to address real-life, complex challenges related to policy-making in intellectual property and technology law. Over the course of the semester, students will work on a challenge task framed as a problem or issue of practical relevance, set by external partners or the course instructors. Students will address different levels of policy making in a variety of settings from the perspective of a particular stakeholder or sector. This may include creative businesses, cultural heritage organisations, government departments, digital rights non-governmental organisations, technology firms, or any other stakeholder in the creative economy.

By adopting an experiential learning approach, the course will enable students to apply the knowledge they acquired during their studies and develop skills in a practical setting. They will be encouraged to think critically about the legal and policy challenges to evaluate and address the complexity of policy-making in intellectual property and technology law. 

10 x 2 hour seminars in Semester 2.

The course is open to all LLM students subject to the requirements of the LLM programme on which the student is enrolled.

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This course is assessed by two pieces of coursework. The first is a group oral presentation (25%) which will require students to present a mid-point update on their progress in addressing the challenge. The second assessment is a report of no more than 4,000 words (75%) providing a critical assessment of the challenge from the perspective of a relevant stakeholder or sector, the main legal aspects which should be considered, and related policy recommendations. Students will have to demonstrate and be assessed on their ability to link the knowledge gained through the activity with the literature, theory and debates in intellectual property and technology law. 

The principal aim of the course is to provide students with knowledge, experience and critical understanding of complex processes of policy-making in intellectual property and technology law and their impact on different stakeholders in the creative economy. By allowing engagement with issues of practical significance to stakeholders, the course aims to raise students' awareness of the complexity of policy making across intellectual property and technology law, to develop skills and expertise required to address such complexity, and to expose students to a diverse range of career options.

Further aims include:

■ Develop the analytical and critical skills of students by engaging with real-life policy-making challenges posed by emerging technologies to different stakeholders in the creative economy; 

■ Provide students with transferrable skills and so enhance their employability;

■ Develop the communication and teamwork skills of students; 

■ Encourage independent learning and problem solving.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Identify, discuss and analyse complex rules and issues affecting different actors; 

■ Evaluate the effectiveness of law and policy from the perspective of different stakeholders; 

■ Construct coherent arguments on the application of key legal concepts to practical scenarios involving different actors in the creative economy;

■ Critically engage with contemporary legal debates through the lens of current policy challenges;

■ Propose reforms to existing regulatory frameworks in the interest of diverse stakeholders.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.