ME208 Patent Law and Strategy for Innovators and Entrepreneurs
Fridays, 1:15pm to 3:05pm, Skilling Auditorium
Grading
The course is offered as 2-3 credits, which will affect your tuition bill, but not the workload for the course. The course can be taken for a letter grade, or as credit/no-credit.
20% Participation
40% Assignment – Provisional Patent Application
40% Assignment - Patentability Search and Analysis
Extra Credit Assignment (of up to 1/2 letter grade) - Infringement Analysis
Students enrolled for credit/no-credit will be graded based on the same requirements and on the same curve as the other students. Those receiving a letter grade higher than a C- will earn credit for the course, otherwise not.
Participation for On-Campus Students
Please carefully read the required material (and at least skim the recommended material) posted each week on the Coursework website. Using both the Socratic Method (used in law school) and the pop quiz method, the on-campus students will be randomly asked to answer and discuss questions based on the required material.
In the event of a planned absence, the on-campus student must submit thought-provoking questions based on the reading material to the TA before 12am (midnight) on the night before the lecture. Only the first three questions submitted by the student will be graded. In the event of an unplanned absence, please contact the instructor as soon as possible. Every on-campus student is allowed only one absence (planned or unplanned) for the quarter. If you are absent for a lecture, please watch the lecture on the scpd.stanford.edu website.
Participation for Off-Campus Students
Please carefully read the required material (and at least skim the recommended material) posted each week on the Coursework website. The off-campus students must submit thought-provoking questions based on the reading material to the instructor before 12am (midnight) on the night before every lecture. Only the first three questions submitted by the student will be graded.
Every off-campus student is allowed one unplanned absence.
Assignment - Provisional Patent Application – due on THU 30 OCT at 11:59pm
This assignment will include: Examining the invention and the underlying technologies; and Preparing a provisional patent application with broad and enabling language in the detailed description.
Assignment - Patentability Search and Opinion – due on THU 13 NOV at 11:59pm
This assignment will include: Examining the invention and the underlying technologies; Conducting a patentability investigation of issued patents and published applications; Analyzing the specification and drawings of the patents found during the patentability investigation; Opining on the scope of patent protection; and Preparing patentability opinion.
Extra Credit Assignment - Infringement Analysis – due on FRI 05 DEC at 12noon
This extra credit assignment will include: Examining the proposed product or service; Conducting an investigation for issued patents; Analyzing the claims of the patents found during the investigation; Investigating the file history of the most relevant patent; Conducting an infringement analysis of the most relevant patent and the proposed product or service; Developing the strategy for the infringement avoidance of competitor patents; and Preparing an Opinion Letter.
Important Notes on the Assignments
The ideal assignments includes about 4-6 pages of writing. Late projects will be reduced one full grade for every day after the due date.
Students must seek approval of the topic of their assignments from the instructor. Note that most employees have legal obligations to their employer. If a project of a student might negatively affect an employer of the student, the student is strongly advised to seek approval of their project from their employer.
Stanford has certain rights to inventions created at Stanford "with more than incidental use of University resources". The projects in this course involve the capture and evaluation of an invention, not the actual creation of the invention. Therefore, the project will not affect the ownership of an invention. In short, the act of writing and submitting an assignment by a student will not transfer any rights of the student to Stanford University (or vice-versa).
The instructor – Jeffrey Schox – hereby agrees to treat all assignments as confidential and proprietary, to use the project only for evaluation purposes, and to not disclose the project to any third party. Since the submission of the project by the student to the instructor is confidential, the submission will not be considered a publication or a public use under the patent laws.