Greg R. Vetter
Through speakers, case study readings, other readings, and class discussion, this course covers the central concepts and roles involved in strategic management of intellectual property rights, such as patent, copyright, trademark, know-how, digital information, and licensing of all these. The course will examine a variety of corporate settings, with some additional emphasis on startups and organizations whose assets are primarily intangible. During most weeks of the fourteen week semester, there will be a speaker on either Tuesday or Thursday, with the other day dedicated to discussion of readings and/or the speaker presentations. It is expected that there will be nine to twelve speakers during the semester. The course will examine the use and strategic deployment of intellectual property rights in relation to business strategy and market ecologies.
Please read carefully the Generally Applicable Syllabus Information. This document sets forth course policy for attendance, preparation and participation, use of computers, and other items. A complete understanding of this document is necessary to take full meaning from the Class Schedule and Other Information set forth immediately below. Section III of the document, examination and grading, does not apply to this course.
| Name: | IP Strategy & Management |
| Class # / Section #: | 6384 / 23691 |
| Place: | BLB-3 |
| Time: | Tuesday & Thursday, 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. (2 class sessions per week, 3 credit hours) |
| UHLC Listing: | http://www.law.uh.edu/schedule/class_information.asp?cid=12007 |
| Reading Materials: | There is no book for this course. It is anticipated that all readings will be from publicly available materials, or from materials available from Westlaw or Lexis. If there are any students in the course from other UH schools without Westlaw or Lexis access, the course instructor will arrange to have those materials provided. |
| Supplement?: | There is no requirement to purchase a statutory supplement. |
| Prerequisites | There is no prerequisite, but IP Survey is recommended. Students without knowledge of intellectual property rights should expect to undertake additional reading from this online resource. |
| Brief Description of Coverage: | This class will meet in two 1.5 credit-hour blocks each week. Assignments will be detailed in the table below as the semester progresses. |
| Absences Limit: | Assuming two class meetings a week, six or less absences
constitutes attendance meeting the eighty percent requirement. More
than six absences means that the eighty percent requirement is not met. Attendance will be taken via a roll sheet passed throughout the class each session. |
| "Pick your seat" seating chart date: | Thursday, January 16, 2014 |
| {reserved} | {reserved} |
| Final Exam Information: | Take-home final during the last week of the course, graded blind against your exam number. The final will be issued with several days for completion. There will be an upper limit on the number of words allowed in an answer, inclusive of footnotes. Superior class participation can boost your grade one level, for example, from B to B+. |
| First day/week's assignment: | Read this course web page, the linked Generally Applicable Syllabus Information (ignoring section III), and the assignments detailed in the table below for the first day/week of class. |
| {reserved} | {reserved} |
| Audio Recording of Class Sessions | I will audio tape the class sessions using a portable recorder attached to my person and post links to the audio tracks on the class web site for the sole and limited educational purpose of allowing students to stream the recorded sessions to review or to enable students who missed a class to hear the class presentation. Any audio tracks created will be deleted and destroyed shortly after the final exam for the class. Since I call on students, there is a slight chance that your contributions to class discussion, whether voluntary or while on call, may be included in the audio recording. The chance is slight because the recording technology I use does a poor job of picking up any voices other than my own. Your continued registration in this class indicates your acquiescence to any such incidental recording for the purposes described above unless, if you have concerns about this, you come speak with me as soon as possible but in no event later than the first day of the second week of class. |
| Cancellation Day(s) | Tuesday, Jan. 28 was a day of class cancellation due to UH closing for weather. This class day was made up by adding 5 minutes to each of the 15 class periods thereafter. |
| Makeup(s) for Cancelled Day(s): | The last two class periods of the semester are dedicated to the process associated with the take home final and will not include an actual class. The last class period will be Thursday, April 17. |
These are posted on my home page at:
The links below are for general reference and may be used for some class assignments.
The table linked below provides the detailed assignments for this course. It also may provide links to materials for each class and other items related to the course. In order to allow flexibility in the class, assignments beyond those posted for the next week are subject to change; therefore, students who may wish to read ahead are urged to contact the professor before doing so. The rate of progress through the materials depends on the class dynamics.
After each class session, the class date will become a hyperlink to the audio for that class.
Call assignment will be as described in the Generally Applicable Syllabus, or per the method below, depending on the number of course enrollees.
Revision to Generally Applicable Syllabus:
Call assignment for cases is by individual using the first letter of the
last name, proceeding alphabetically most of the time. In some instances,
multiple persons share the same first letter of the last name, in which
case a number indicates who the person is based on alphabetical order. If
a person assigned to a case does not appear for a class session, I will look for volunteers. Adjustment
of individual case assignments may occur up to mid-evening (around 7 pm)
of the night before class.
Students must email me if they will not attend in
order for this system to work well.
Note of March 26, 2014: In the table below, the abbreviated cite for a source is given in brackets.
|
| Assignment | { resv } | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Exit and Voice in Free and Open Source Software Licensing {Exit & Voice} Open Source Business Models short video {FOSS Business Models Video} List of Open Source Business Models {FOSS Business Models List} |
See also: www.opensourcestrategies.org |
||||
SPEAKER: Jessica Lewis; The Coca-Cola Company {Lewis} Cola Wars backgrounder handed out in class during the previous week {Cola Wars} |
presentation via internet video conference Dell social media initiative blog post |
Jan. 23 |
| Assignment | { resv } | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
inclement weather day - speaker rescheduled |
Jan. 28 |
||||
Wendy H. Schacht, Cooperative R&D: Federal Efforts to Promote
Industrial Competitiveness (2010) {Schacht} University Technology Transfer story: DriveScribe {DriveScribe Story} Interview with Dr. Clarke (streaming video) {Clarke Video} Nelson, Ten Things Heads of Institutions Should Know about Setting Up a Technology Transfer Office (web article at IP Handbook website) {Nelson} |
Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) The Better World Project website Licensing Executives Society IP Handbook website IPX Intellectual Property Management company |
| Assignment | { resv } | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SPEAKER: Dr. Mark S. Clarke, Associate Vice Chancellor / Associate Vice President for Technology Transfer, Univ. of Houston Division of Research, Office of Intellectual Property Management {Clarke Pres.} |
in-person presentation Other local technology transfer offices: UTMB, and some of its available technologies; MD Anderson |
Feb. 4 |
|||
Patent Portfolios {Portfolios} Kimberly-Clark article handed out in class: Toilet-Paper War Heats Up With New, Wet Roll, WSJ, Jan. 17, 2001 {Kimberly-Clark TP War} Bart Eppenauer slides, emailed to the class. {Eppenauer Slides} |
For amusement: patent lawyers at lunch. |
| Assignment | { resv } | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SPEAKER: Bart Eppenauer, Shook, Hardy & Bacon (Mr. Eppenauer was formerly Microsoft Chief Patent Counsel) {Eppenauer} |
presentation via internet video conference |
Feb. 11 |
|||
What startups need to know about patent law (streaming video) {Schox} Michael Risch, Licensing Acquired Patents (2013) {Risch} |
| Assignment | { resv } | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Review these previously assigned items: Patent Portfolios, Licensing Acquired Patents (2013) |
Patent landscape report by WIPO on desalination technologies |
||||
Reisman & Cytraus, Institutionalized Technology Transfer in [the] USA: A Historic Review (2004) {Reisman} NASA eBook: Technology Innovation (2012) pgs. 34-40 {NASA Tech.} |
Government Technology Transfer offices: NASA, Navy, Homeland Security, Federal Labs, National Tech Transfer Center DARPA Open Catalog |
| Assignment | { resv } | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SPEAKER: Edward K. Fein, John E. James, NASA {Fein} {James} |
in-person presentation |
||||
Morgan & Cohn-Sfetcu, Automated Software Systems for Intellectual Property Compliance {Morgan} Black Duck getting started page (simply review the web page - there is no need to download the documents listed, which were separately emailed to students) {Black Duck} (NOTE: for any of the Black Duck materials, just cite to "Black Duck" and do not include a pin cite or the specific document name) |
| Assignment | { resv } | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SPEAKER: Irene Kosturakis; BMC Software {Kosturakis} |
in-person presentation |
Mar. 4 |
|||
Review this: Strategic Management of Intellectual Property – An Integrated
Approach and these: IP Theory maps{Theory Maps}; IP Strategy maps {Strategy Maps} |
| Assignment | { resv } | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DOJ/FTC Report, Chapter 2, Competition Concerns when Patents are Incorporated into Collaboratively Set Standards (2007) (it is not necessary to read the footnotes carefully) {Standards} IBM Inventors Break Patent Record (streaming video) {IBM Inventors} |
|||||
SPEAKER: Tim Lambert, Senior Principal Development Engineer,
Dell Enterprise Solutions Group, Dell {Lambert} |
presentation via internet video conference |
Mar. 20 |
| Assignment | { resv } | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Entrepreneur thoughts on the startup process {Chang} Frameworks for Entreprenership steaming video {Eesley} Handout: Preface and chapters 1 and 2 from: Carayannis, et al., Idea Makers and Idea Brokers in High-Technology Entrepreneurship (2003) {Carayannis} |
|||||
SPEAKER: Jim Unnerstall {Unnerstall} |
presentation via internet video conference |
Mar. 27 |
| Assignment | {resv} | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
For April 1: slides by Ms. Cauthorn, sent via email; {Cauthorn Slides} Article sent by email: Mark Harris, Snapping up Kodak {Snapping up Kodak} For April 8: this slide set; and slides by Mr. Banks, sent via email {Banks Slides} |
|||||
SPEAKER: Kimberly Klein Cauthorn, Senior Director and Head of Claims for RPX Insurance Services, LLC {Cauthorn} |
in-person presentation |
Apr. 3 |
|||
| Assignment | {resv} | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SPEAKER: Stephen J. Banks,
President -
C&C Interests, LLC,
Venture Partner -
S3 Ventures; and Kala Marathi, Executive Director of Innovation, University of Houston, C.T. Bauer College of Business {Banks} {Marathi} |
in-person presentation |
Apr. 8 |
|||
Review April 1 reading assignments, along with the two chapters from Carayannis, for synthesis discussion of the prior two presentations |
|||||
| Assignment | {resv} | Comment/Notes | { resv } |
Date |
Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Review Fisher and Exit & Voice |
|||||
Work and review hypothetical final |
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Last modified on April 23, 2014, by Greg R. Vetter