Global Intellectual Property Law, Human Rights, and Technical Communication

International trade in intellectual products has increased in recent years, leading to a dramatic rise in the U.S. International Trade Commission\u27s (USITC) caseload (USITC 2012, pp. 20-25). As individuals interact globally through travel and internet access, they also more frequently use and create intellectual products that are accessible on a global scale; thus, nation states\u27 treaty negotiations on intellectual products have an important impact on their own citizenries as well as those of others. When technical communicators author intellectual products they may enter into a process of communicative interaction that leads to self-actualization , the state of having achieved personal potential and satisfied abstract internal desires and drives. The products they create may also be characterized as protected speech in critique and commentary. But in settings where marketing interests are favored over goals to produce products that not only increase profit, but are also useful in a humanistic sense, technical communicators also have the capacity, even inadvertently, to use intellectual products in ways that can inhibit the self-actualization and speech processes of others. At the international level, technical communicators may operate within marketing structures that might even inhibit the rights of those in developing countries whose power to participate in a commodity system may be limited or controlled. (For instance, writers might work to market tourism to an area that could be harmed culturally and environmentally by the presence of visitors outside the natural norm.

Teaching International Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual property law was in the backwater only a few decades ago. The Section on Intellectual Property Law of the Association of American Law Schools was not even founded until the early 1980s, and the creation of intellectual property specialty programs has been only a recent phenomenon. As senior legal scholars reminisce, early in their career, they would have been lucky to find a school that would allow them to teach a class on intellectual property law. Although intellectual property law teaching has come of age in the past decade, international intellectual property law courses remain nonexistent in more than half of American law schools. Notwithstanding this limited interest, the momentum has picked up quickly, and international intellectual property law is slowly emerging to become a staple in the core intellectual property law curriculum. As part of the Symposium on Teaching Intellectual Property Law, this essay reflects on the teaching of international intellectual property law. It begins by identifying three different stages in the development of an international intellectual property law course. Going from the pre-TRIPs era to the post-TRIPs era, this essay shows how the growing complexity of the international intellectual property regime has made teaching the subject increasingly challenging. The essay then focuses on this challenge and examines why international intellectual property law is taught in the first place, what materials teachers can cover, and how they can effectively present those materials. By offering both questions and suggestions, this essay invites readers to evaluate and rethink the design of an international intellectual property law course. It concludes with some bonus considerations that may be relevant to both teachers and administrators

Teaching International Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual property law was in the backwater only a few decades ago. The Section on Intellectual Property Law of the Association of American Law Schools was not even founded until the early 1980s, and the creation of intellectual property specialty programs has been only a recent phenomenon. As senior legal scholars reminisce, early in their career, they would have been lucky to find a school that would allow them to teach a class on intellectual property law. Although intellectual property law teaching has come of age in the past decade, international intellectual property law courses remain nonexistent in more than half of American law schools. Notwithstanding this limited interest, the momentum has picked up quickly, and international intellectual property law is slowly emerging to become a staple in the core intellectual property law curriculum. As part of the Symposium on Teaching Intellectual Property Law, this essay reflects on the teaching of international intellectual property law. It begins by identifying three different stages in the development of an international intellectual property law course. Going from the pre-TRIPs era to the post-TRIPs era, this essay shows how the growing complexity of the international intellectual property regime has made teaching the subject increasingly challenging. The essay then focuses on this challenge and examines why international intellectual property law is taught in the first place, what materials teachers can cover, and how they can effectively present those materials. By offering both questions and suggestions, this essay invites readers to evaluate and rethink the design of an international intellectual property law course. It concludes with some bonus considerations that may be relevant to both teachers and administrators

Student Intellectual Property Issues on the Entrepreneurial Campus

This article examines issues that are more frequently arising for universities concerning intellectual property in student inventions. It seeks to identify the issue, explain the underlying law, identify actual and proposed solutions to these issues, and explain the legal ramifications of these potential solutions

Copy(write): Intellectual Property in the Writing Classroom

The editors of Copy(write): Intellectual Property in the Writing Classroom bring together stories, theories, and research that can further inform the ways in which we situate and address intellectual property issues in our writing classrooms. The essays in the collection identify and describe a wide range of pedagogical strategies, consider theories, present research, explore approaches, and offer both cautionary tales and local and contextual successes that can further inform the ways in which we situate and address intellectual property issues in our teaching.https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/textbooks/1003/thumbnail.jp

The Commons: Tools for Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric

The Commons: Tools for Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric gives instructors and students of college writing courses a single source for information on metacognitive critical reading, rhetorical awareness, and MLA formatting basics as well as interesting and relevant reading and viewing content. Its approach is interdisciplinary, bringing in material from ecology, sociology, psychology, technology, popular culture, political science, cultural studies, and literature. Each essay, website, video, infographic, and poem has been carefully chosen to speak to the Eastern Kentucky University community, but everyone can find something that speaks to our common human experience and our need to communicate and connect with one another.https://encompass.eku.edu/ekuopen/1003/thumbnail.jp

Best Practices for the Law of the Horse: Teaching Cyberlaw and Illuminating Law Through Online Simulations

In an influential 1996 article entitled Cyberspace and the Law of the Horse, Judge Frank Easterbrook mocked cyberlaw as a subject lacking in cohesion and therefore unworthy of inclusion in the law school curriculum. Responses to Easterbrook, most notably that of Lawrence Lessig in his 1999 article The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach, have taken a theoretical approach. However, this Article—also appropriating the “Law of the Horse” moniker—concludes that Easterbrook’s challenge is primarily pedagogical, requiring a response keyed to whether cyberlaw ought to be taught in law schools. The Article concludes that despite Easterbrook’s concerns, cyberlaw presents a unique opportunity for legal educators to provide capstone learning experiences through role-playing simulations that unfold on the live Internet. In fact, cyberlaw is a subject particularly well-suited to learning through techniques that immerse students in the very technologies and networks that they are studying. In light of recommendations for educational reform contained in the recent studies Best Practices for Legal Education and the Carnegie Report, the Article examines the extent to which “Cybersimulations” are an ideal way for students to learn—in a holistic and immersive manner—legal doctrine, underlying theory, lawyering skills, and professional values. The Article further explains how the simulations were developed and provides guidance on how they can be created by others. The Article concludes with a direct response to Easterbrook, arguing that cyberlaw can indeed “illuminate” the entire law

Vol. 40, No. 12, April 11, 1990

•Cook Lecturer Stresses Historical Method •Former Prime Minister Discusses European Future •Baker Reacts to Dean\u27s Letter •Parting Remarks •A Failing Community •Farewell to Michigan Law School •Intellectual Property\u27s Disappearance Inexcusable •Classifieds •How We Can Help the Homeless •Review of Fall 1989 Courses •Fall 1989 Grade Curves •Cubs to Win NL Pennant •Class Tapes Add to Grade Controversy •The Big Goodbye •Law in the Ra

Vol. 40, No. 12, April 11, 1990

•Cook Lecturer Stresses Historical Method •Former Prime Minister Discusses European Future •Baker Reacts to Dean\u27s Letter •Parting Remarks •A Failing Community •Farewell to Michigan Law School •Intellectual Property\u27s Disappearance Inexcusable •Classifieds •How We Can Help the Homeless •Review of Fall 1989 Courses •Fall 1989 Grade Curves •Cubs to Win NL Pennant •Class Tapes Add to Grade Controversy •The Big Goodbye •Law in the Ra