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Course

Competition Law and Intellectual Property - LAWS8074

Faculty: Faculty of Law

School: Faculty of Law

Course Outline: See below

Campus: Sydney

Career: Postgraduate

Units of Credit: 6

EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)

Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 2

Enrolment Requirements:

Prerequisite: Academic Program must be either 9200, 9210, 9230, 5740 or 5265

Excluded: JURD7474

CSS Contribution Charge: 3 (more info)

Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule

Further Information: See Class Timetable

View course information for previous years.

Description

This course considers the crucial interface between competition law and intellectual property and whether they are complementary or in conflict. It looks at the rationale for each and problems which exist in the relationship in a global context. Issues to be discussed will likely include misuse of intellectual property and market power; refusals to license; patent pools, tying arrangements and standard setting organisations; industry specific issues in pharmaceuticals, computer software and hardware; compulsory licensing; collecting societies. Worldwide there is no consensus on how to deal with many of these issues, which have generated intense conflict between the European Union and the United States, and China and many other countries.


LLM Specialisation

Recommended Prior Knowledge

None

Course Objectives

A candidate who has successfully completed this course should be able to:
  • Understand the roles of competition law and intellectual property law against their economic background
  • Identify the likely complements and conflicts between competition law and various areas of intellectual property
  • Identify particular problem areas arising from these two areas
  • Understand the conflicts between the differing approaches to these problems in selected jurisdictions globally

Main Topics

  • Basics of competition law and economics
  • Basics of intellectual property law and economics
  • Theory: conflict or complement?
  • Misuse of patents to acquire or maintain market power
  • Specific arrangement such as patent pools; tying arrangements; standard-setting organisations and issues arising
  • Refusals to license by the dominant firm- comparative views
  • Industry specific issues: pharmaceuticals; computer software and hardware
  • Compulsory licensing (a) as a remedy for other antitrust violations; (b) as a response to social problems (AIDS drugs in Africa
  • Collecting societies
These issues and others are the focus of competition enforcement agencies worldwide. There is no consensus about how to deal with them and they have generated intense conflict between the US and EU. China has yet to refine its approach to dealing with these questions, but as it does it will no doubt become a very important part of the discussion.

This course is taught by Distinguished Professor Michael Jacobs of De Paul University College of Law, Chicago.

Assessment

Essay plan: 20%
Essay: 70%
Class Participation: 10%
Columns

Study Levels

Undergraduate Study Postgraudate Study Postgraduate Research Study Non-Award Study

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