Intellectual Property Postgraduate Certificate (Online)

Course overview

This part-time course provides a development opportunity and will increase your prospects and employability by giving you practical skills and theoretical knowledge that firms and Intellectual Property departments, alike, are demanding.

It is designed to give a detailed overview of substantive intellectual property law. On successful completion of this course, you will obtain full exemptions from the foundation level examinations for qualification as a patent attorney or trade mark attorney in the UK (IPReg/CIPA/ITMA). Please indicate on your application form if you want to follow the patent attorney or trade mark attorney path.

The course is accredited by the statutory regulator IPReg, and is treated as equivalent to the old JEB/CIPA papers (P1, P5, T1, T2, T5, D&C, Law); as well as ITMA (Foundations of Law, Design and Copyright Law, Trade marks A, Trade marks B). For many students, it is the first step to professional qualification.

You can complete this course whilst in full-time employment; more than 80% of our students are sponsored by their employers. If you do not have prior legal knowledge you will be supported by a range of online activities relating to foundational principles of law (such as English legal system, contract law and tort).

You will gain specialist knowledge by studying the following:

• Patents: Confidentiality; Exclusions from patentability and industrial utility; Novelty, Inventive Step and Obviousness in Patents; Patent Infringement and Interpretation of Patent Claims; Dealing in Patents and Patent Ownership
• Trade Marks: Rationale, international European, UK framework; Registration UK and EU (application, opposition, appeal, the role of the UK and European Courts); Absolute and relative bars; Infringement and defences; Exhaustion; Passing off; Internet issues
• Registered & Unregistered Designs
• Copyright: Subsistence, criteria for protection; Authorship and ownership; moral rights; Infringement and defences; Internet issues; Copyright tribunal; Competition law
• Exploitation (assignments, licensing, franchising, security interests)
• Patent practice: Drafting workshop (enablement, clarity, requirement for specification); UK, PCT, EP and US patent prosecution, before and after grant; Evidence in patent proceedings
• Trade Mark practice: Who is the proper applicant? Pre-application search of the Register; Priority claims; The mechanics of applying to register a UK Trade Mark and CTM; Overview of Trade Mark Law and Procedure in Europe; The US/Canadian approach; Devising a strategy for protecting Trade Marks around the world; Litigation procedure.

These topics are grouped into three (20 credit) Masters level units. In addition, you will be expected to cover a non-credit unit titled Principles of Law, assessed by online activities.

The course carries 60 masters level credits which can be subsequently build up to a PG Diploma (120 credits) or LLM in Intellectual Property (180 credits).

Delivery

The course starts in January, with online enrolment, and ends in June with a final two hour examination. You will find that approximately 60 hours of the course (over three weekends) are delivered by leading academics and practising experts in IP. To reinforce and develop your knowledge you will have to undertake approximately 12 hours per week of self-directed study (reading set texts and web resources, researching, participating in online tutor group activities etc.) using our Virtual Learning Environment and electronic resources.

The dedicated weekend course will be delivered in our Executive Business Centre on the Lansdowne Campus which is close to the town centre and the travel interchange, giving easy access to rail, bus and coach services.

Please note that the deadline for applications onto this course in January 2013 is Monday 10 December 2012.