LL4BP Half Unit
Current Issues in Intellectual and Cultural Property Law
This information is for the 2024/25 session.
Teacher responsible
Dr Luke McDonagh
Availability
This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time) and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.
This course has a limited number of places and demand is typically high. This may mean that you’re not able to get a place on this course.
Course content
This course takes a historical, theoretical and contextual approach to intellectual and cultural property and aims to provide an overview of the concepts, institutional models, and socio-economic formations that cut across the diversity of both regimes. Expansive questions are asked but not in abstraction. Contemporary cases studies will be used to interrogate the normative bases and doctrinal architecture of rights to inventions, art, trade marks, biodiversity and more. A wide range of topics and interests will be covered and no previous background in intellectual property will be assumed.
Indicative seminar topics include the encroachment of the public domain by the pressure to protect unprecedented kinds of subject matter, the relevance of monopolies in 'negative spaces' (the fashion industry, fan fiction, magicians, and stand-up comedy); the evolution of non-conventional trade marks such as scents, shapes and over-arching brands, the link between incentives and innovation; the controversy over Covid-19 vaccine production and technology transfer, artificial intelligence as inventor and author, and the intersection of human rights and intellectual property.
Teaching
Two hours of seminar teaching per week in Winter Term. There will be a Reading Week in Week 6 of Winter Term.
Formative coursework
All students are expected to produce one 2,000 word formative essay during the course.
Indicative reading
• Biagioli, Jaszi & Woodmansee, Making and Unmaking Intellectual Property (2011).
• Boyle, The Public Domain. Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (2009).
• Miles, Art as Plunder. The Ancient Origins of Debate About Cultural Property (2008).
• McDonagh, Performing Copyright: Law, Theatre and Authorship (2021).
Assessment
Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours and 30 minutes) in the spring exam period.
Key facts
Department: Law School
Total students 2023/24: 32
Average class size 2023/24: 32
Controlled access 2023/24: Yes
Value: Half Unit
Course selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.