Introduction to patents and intellectual property Code:  CR.002    Credits:  2
View general information   Description   The subject within the syllabus as a whole   Professional fields to which it applies   Prior knowledge   Information prior to enrolment   Learning objectives and results   Content   View the UOC learning resources used in the subject   Additional information on support tools and learning resources   Methodology   Guidelines on assessment at the UOC   View assessment model   Continuous assessment  
This is the course plan for the second semester of the academic year 2023/2024. To check whether the course is being run this semester, go to the Virtual Campus section More UOC / The University / Programmes of study section on Campus. Once teaching starts, you'll be able to find it in the classroom. The course plan may be subject to change.

This course is a general overview to Intellectual Property Rights protection and their use by PhD students. Intellectual Property Rights are here understood in their wider sense, including royalties and copyright, patents and utility models, brands and design rights, as well as commercial secrets

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In "Introduction to Intellectual Property Protection" we introduce the students to the wide range of possibilities that are available to protect the research results. Although the course was originally thought for industrial doctorate students, it has been opened to all the people interested in learning the options for intellectual property protection. In addition, parts of this course intersect with contents from the Free Software Msc.

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This course has two main objectives:

  1. Training of researchers, obtaining the basic knowledge of the available options for protecting their (research) work.
  2. Training of professionals, who already develop products in RD departments outside the University, and are interested in intellectual property protection options.

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This course requires no prior knowledge on the topics, although some basic knowledge in video recording may be useful...

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It also requires some knowledge of English equivalent to B1 of the European Framework of Reference for Languages. Both the materials and the tutoring will be delivered in english

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The main competences of the course will consist on:

Basic competences:

  1. Students will have the learning skills to allow them to continue studying in a self-directed or autonomous way.

 Specific competences:

  1. Understand the different types of legal protection relating to R+D results.
  2. Identify the R+D+I results which are liable to legal protection and to distinguish between 'intellectual' and 'industrial' results.
  3. Protect the R+D+I results, both under the figure of intellectual property (royalties/copyright) and under the figures of industrial property (patents, models, designs and brands), together with their reach and limitations.
  4. Recognise your own rights, as well as the rights of other parties involved in the R+D+I: the university, companies, and other collaborators.
  5. Manage the most relevant legal aspects within an R+D+I project.
  6. Identify and characterise the most important elements of an exploitaiton plan (for the exploitation of the R+D results).
  7. Decide on a licensing scheme, between exploitation through open licenses / open access or a more proprietary model.

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The course will be divided in 9 different topics, with specific activities that will be assessed during the course. Essentially the syllabus will be:

  1. Identification of intellectual/industrial results.
  2. General presentation of the legal framework of intellectual property: copyrights
  3. General presentation of the legal framework of registered IPRs (industrial propert)y: patents, models, designs, brands.
  4. Managing IPRs: collaboration, people,
  5. Managing IPRs: inbound licensing, third party rights (co-authorship and co-ownership, university and corporate ownership).
  6. Managing IPRs. Formal patent protection
  7. Exploitation: Choosing a model and structure
  8. Exploitatoin: choosing a license (software) - proprietary and free licenses of exploitation.
  9. Exploitation: Spin-outs - benefits and obligations, tech transfer agreements.

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Material Support
Introduction to Intellectual Property Rights Audiovisual

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The materials located in space Classroom resources will help further the goals of the course. The tutors will use the Message Board, which is classroom space communication, and will provide documents and other information to complement previous and explanatory videos on specific topics. Note there are many external links, there are many good materials that are publically written about IPR and tech transfer!

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The teaching methodology will be based in the continuous assessment of a set of activities that will be provided in the virtual campus. This is an activity based online course, you fix your own pace and you decide when you dedicate your time to the module. There are only specific deadlines for delivering the activities. Essentially you will be provided by:

-   A set of learning resources: video lectures, pdf documents and examples.

-   Specific delivery instructions for each activity.

The student is supposed to visualize the video lectures and resources, and ask any doubt in the forum boards of the course. The active participation in the forum, asking questions, answering questions from other students and posting opinions in the open debates is highly recommended in the course.

You will have academic tutors that will answer your questions in the forum boards, and they will guide you through the learning process.  Many of the activities delivered will be corrected and appropriate feedback will be provided.

The nature of this course involves the delivering of a short oral presentation. Students should prepare an appropriate environment to record themselves delivering oral presentations. The basic methodology of the course is learning practicing.

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The assessment process is based on the student's personal work and presupposes authenticity of authorship and originality of the exercises completed.

Lack of authenticity of authorship or originality of assessment tests, copying or plagiarism, the fraudulent attempt to obtain a better academic result, collusion to copy or concealing or abetting copying, use of unauthorized material or devices during assessment, inter alia, are offences that may lead to serious academic or other sanctions.

Firstly, you will fail the course (D/0) if you commit any of these offences when completing activities defined as assessable in the course plan, including the final tests. Offences considered to be misconduct include, among others, the use of unauthorized material or devices during the tests, such as social media or internet search engines, or the copying of text from external sources (internet, class notes, books, articles, other students' essays or tests, etc.) without including the corresponding reference.

And secondly, the UOC's academic regulations state that any misconduct during assessment, in addition to leading to the student failing the course, may also lead to disciplinary procedures and sanctions.

The UOC reserves the right to request that students identify themselves and/or provide evidence of the authorship of their work, throughout the assessment process, and by the means the UOC specifies (synchronous or asynchronous). For this purpose, the UOC may require students to use a microphone, webcam or other devices during the assessment process, and to make sure that they are working correctly.

The checking of students' knowledge to verify authorship of their work will under no circumstances constitute a second assessment.

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You can only pass the course if you participate in and pass the continuous assessment. Your final mark for the course will be the mark you received in the continuous assessment.


Weighting of marks

Option to pass the course: Continuous assessment

Final course mark: Continuous assessment

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The student will solve four Continuous Assessment Activities related to the course. In particular:

 

CAA 1: In this CAA we propose to think about an idea or invention from your own research / productive entity, and present it in an understandable way to your fellows. You will record a presentation and submit it to the virtual classroom.

 

CAA 2: Reading of a document related to the legal framework of intellectual property (if it is possible a official document regulating the field, from the European Union). The activity could be the writing of a report (3 or 4 pages) answering questions about this report.

 

CAA 3: A practical exercise where the student should fill a form relating to his/her results, and for patenting his/her invention. We could use the US forms (https://www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms), or European (https://www.epo.org/applying/forms-fees.html)

 

CAA 4: We will provide the student with the text of several licenses (CC, CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, Apache SL, MIT License). Students should emphasize the main similarities and differences among these licenses, and write a report with summary (tabular) of the main aspects covered on each license. And choose one for exploitation!

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