Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professors Steve Chang, Robert Katz, Christopher McKee, and Christopher Roth

J.D. Skills 293 | 2 credit hours

The objective of this course is to help students develop the skills necessary to handle intellectual property (patent/trademark/copyright) disputes in the federal courts and administrative agencies. By focusing on pretrial activities, the course provides the opportunity to examine a dispute from its beginning, including the types of investigations and filings that are made and consideration of alternative forums, through discovery and the filing of a summary judgment motion. By covering this period of the litigation cycle, students will have the opportunity to develop both written and oral skills necessary for a trial lawyer. The emphasis on the pretrial aspects of a case is beneficial because most new associates spend far more time in their first few years dealing with these aspects of litigation than they do participating in actual trials. The course includes practice in drafting pleadings, discovery and motions, as well as the opportunity to hone oral skills through taking discovery depositions. Because this course focuses on pretrial activities, it also is a good companion course to the patent trial advocacy course, which focuses on the trial phase of a proceeding.

Prerequisite: Civil Procedure (or the equivalent Legal Process and Society). Recommended: Prior enrollment in at least one basic trademark or patent course and Evidence.

Students may not receive credit for both this course and Civil Litigation Practice.