Navigating the Intellectual Property Landscape

Catalog description

Intellectual property is progressively becoming a central feature of the modern economy. Though most people are vaguely aware of its general purpose, business familiarity and comfort with this seemingly exotic area remains elusive. Rather than a singular field, intellectual property is best understood as the collection of its constituent parts of trademark, copyright, trade secrecy, and patents, each with a distinct realm of application and unique features. Business decision makers in all industries can no longer remain unaware of the benefits and pitfalls of these fields. Individuals can benefit from being conversant around at least the basic contours of trademark, copyright, trade secrecy, and patents, as they can provide substantial protection for your business if you can manage to procure them, but they can also be substantial impediments if your competitors happen to procure them. This course provides an overview of the fundamental features of trademark, copyright, trade secrecy, and patents, with an emphasis on their specific subject matters as well as their particular strategic benefits and pitfalls. The aim is to introduce the areas and their elemental structures to better enable business decision makers to interact with and understand the strategies employed by their intellectual property attorneys.