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#Intellectual Property and Antitrust

Areas of Study

Curriculum

Intellectual property and information law

Intellectual property courses explore how (and how well) the law balances IP rights with openness to, in the words of the US Constitution, “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”

The intellectual property curriculum begins with introductory courses in each of three major areas—patents, copyrights, and trademarks—or with a survey course on intellectual property law that provides an overview of the key aspects of all three areas. Students then can select from a rich menu of advanced courses and seminars. For example, students can study patent litigation issues with one of the country’s premier patent litigators or learn about international patent law from Professor Rochelle Dreyfuss, one of the drafters of the American Law Institute’s Project on Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transnational Disputes. Some courses, such as Patent Litigation, Advanced Copyright, Advanced Trademark and Advertising Law, and International Intellectual Property Law, dig more deeply into the three basic forms of intellectual property. Others, such as Entertainment Law, Art Law, Fashion Law, and Internet and Business Law for Technology Companies, investigate the way that IP law plays out in particular business contexts. Students also explore the impact of law on innovation and information in courses and seminars on topics such as traditional knowledge, media law, innovation without IP, information privacy, electronic commerce law, and First Amendment rights of expression.

Antitrust and competition policy

Antitrust looks to those laws that structure and control marketplace competition, creating incentives to innovate while at the same time controlling monopolies and restrictive trade practices.

The antitrust and competition policy curriculum begins with the introductory course in US antitrust law. Students can then select from a diverse group of advanced courses that focus on four different areas related to competition policy. The first area is economics, and includes Professor Daniel Rubinfeld’s antitrust law and economics course and his course in quantitative methods. The second area examines the regulated side of the economy, including courses such as Professor Harry First’s Antitrust and Regulatory Alternatives. The third area is international, which includes Professor Eleanor Fox’s courses in European competition law and comparative competition law. The fourth area is practice-oriented, featuring courses such as Antitrust Issues in the Distribution of Goods and Services, taught by a leading antitrust specialist.

The Colloquium on Innovation Policy

For more than a decade, the capstone of the study of innovation at NYU has been the Colloquium on Innovation Policy. Co-taught each spring semester by two NYU faculty members, the colloquium provides students with an opportunity to explore in depth the current work of invited scholars from a variety of universities who examine innovation policy from various disciplines, including law, economics, history, psychology, sociology, business, and the humanities. The colloquium draws attendees from the New York area's innovation policy community: academics from other institutions, intellectual property and antitrust practitioners, and businesspeople. Our students are the heart of the colloquium, however, critiquing the papers that the outside speakers present, and preparing and presenting research papers of their own.