Face-to-face , first and second term, 30 hours of theory.

First term
Monday from 19:15 to 20:45 at 43 Botanique 6
Second term
Thursday from 17:15 to 18:45 at 43 Botanique 6

French

The objective is to introduce the students to the interdisciplinary approach. More particularly, it is a question of bringing the students to “state as a problem” an aspect of their choice from the topics related to intellectual property laws. From the starting point of a legal aspect, of a point of law concerning intellectual property, it is a question “of developing a line of thought”, to build a reflection which mobilises disciplines other than law (history, economics, politics, sociology, criminology, philosophy, etc.).

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The intellectual property laws have experienced an exponential increase in scope and in number over the past twenty years. An inevitable consequence of the “globalisation” of law, the legislation, which governs intellectual property, has become a doubly complex corpus. On the one hand, there is not “one” law governing “intellectual property”, but multiple bodies of legislation which each refers to a particular field, or to a particular object (patent, royalty, semiconductors, software, plant variety rights, etc.). The only common point is that they are intangible goods, which have two common characteristics, non-rivalry and non-exclusivity: the use of the good leaves it intact and does not prevent others from using it simultaneously. In addition, on the statutory level, the emerging problems appear in the form of a cascade or a pyramid. Thus, national law is superseded by European law, which itself is superseded by World Trade Organization law.

The intellectual property laws raise major societal issues. To realise this, one need only consider the debates surrounding the phenomenon known as peer to peer or the tensions that can exist between the access to the essential medicinal products and the corresponding patents.

The teaching approach is based on interactivity during the class meetings. The seminar consists of lectures and possible interventions or lectures by guest speakers and/or students.

Part of the meetings will be devoted to an introduction to “intellectual property” and the interdisciplinary approach to a particular issue, that of the impact of the patents on an aspect related to Public Health, that of the access to the essential medicinal products.

Three criteria are taken into account in the final evaluation:
- Active participation in seminars,
- The quality of the oral presentation of the final work,
- The final work (compliance with formal academic requirements, building a personal reflection from authors).

Final work:

A “state of the question”, or progress report, must be handed in by each student at a pre-arranged meeting halfway through the course. The state of the question is a document of one or two pages, which includes the topic chosen and the manner in which it will be developed. It is useful to indicate some bibliographical references.

The state of the question enables the lecturer to assess each student's progress and to make suggestions if need be. The state of the question will be returned to the students during one of the subsequent meetings. The lecturer will announce office hours for individual meetings with students who wish to do so.

Students are to submit their written assignment by the end of April at the very latest.

Bibliographical suggestions are made to students during the initial scheduled sessions.

One meeting per week up to Easter.