Intellectual Property Management

Business ideas are often connected to large investment and are also an important part of the competitive advantage of the firm. In this course, the students will become aware of the possibilities that exist within laws and business research to protect and develop competitive business ideas based on intellectual property. The first part of the course describe the legal foundation for such decisions while the second part deals with the strategies for handling intellectual property that exists within business research. The course will provide the students with sufficient background to understand how new ideas can be developed and protected within existing judicial systems. However, for most firms the legal solutions are not enough. In order to find a competitive strategy for the intellectual property the legal solutions needs to be combined with a business strategy that enables the firm to both protect and utilize their assets.

The course is meant for engineering students in the 4th or 5th year of their 5 year integrated master programme. The course is mainly taught in Norwegian. If you are an English speaking student: contact the course responsible before enrolling.
After having completed the course the students are expected to be able to describe and explain the central elements of relevant law, intellectual property and possible strategies for protecting and utilizing intellectual property. The students are expected to have developed skills in identifying valuable knowledge resources and skills in constructing strategies for protecting and utilizing intellectual property that has been identified and developed in the firm as well as in the context of the firm. The students are also expected to be able to motivate their solutions with regards to the type of product and type of firm that the solution is developed for. Moreover, the mandatory assignments will enable the students to develop their skills in scientific writing.

The course has lectures and exercises where the students will develop their skills using real cases. There are two mandatory assignments where the first test the foundations while the second assignment test the students’ ability to use the foundations in analyses.