evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different intellectual property rights for the protection of a variety of commercial products.

You must ensure that you understand and comply with the University’s rules regarding plagiarism and other academic misconduct (the Guide to this is available at: http://www.york.ac.uk/about/departments/support-and-admin/registry-services/academic-misconduct/).

 

Learning outcomes

This assessment is intended to assess the achievement of the Module Learning Outcomes:

 

  1. An understanding of the role of confidentiality, patents, copyright, and design rights in the protection of ideas and their expression;

 

  1. An understanding of the role of trade marks and the law of passing-off in the protection of business goodwill and brands;

 

  1. An understanding of the territorial nature of the intellectual property system, the international mechanisms used to address this, and the concept of exhaustion of rights;

 

  1. The ability to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different intellectual property rights for the protection of a variety of commercial products;

 

  1. The ability to advise clients on how intellectual property rights can, and cannot be, used to promote or finance a business, or to protect an individual’s creative effort;

 

  1. The ability to apply the knowledge and techniques developed in the module in different contexts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE TASK:

 

Client Advice Letters.

 

The Case Study is divided into eight parts (Case Study Parts I to VIII) – each Part being dealt with at the relevant PBL session according to the timetable set out in the Module Guide.

 

You will assume the role of the intellectual property specialist solicitor acting for the main protagonist (or as appropriate, his company) in the Case Study. Imagine that in relation to each Case Study Part, that solicitor (you) is requested to write a letter (“Advice Letter”) to the client advising on the current position.

 

You will be required to submit three Advice Letters:

 

  1. one Advice Letter chosen from either Case Study Parts I, II or III;

 

  1. one Advice Letter chosen from either Case Study Parts IV, V, VI or VII; and

 

  1. an Advice Letter relating to Case Study Part VIII.

 

The Word Limit for the total of three Advice Letters is 4,000 words.

 

Please treat these as real client letters – they will be assessed on that basis. Each Advice Letter should be written as if it is a formal letter and dated on the next working day after the last date mentioned in the relevant Case Study Part (or as otherwise advised by the Module Leader).

 

Please use addresses (fabricated for both your firm and the client) in the letter – these do count toward the word limit. You may want to use a firm logo. You can fabricate a name for yourself as the solicitor – don’t use your real name for obvious reasons. Please could I kindly ask for none of the following: Harvey Specter, Jessica Pearson, Louis Litt, Mike Ross or, especially, Rachel Zane.

 

Please mark the letters Advice Letter I to VIII at the top of the Letter, as appropriate.

 

If you are writing Letter VI – you may cut and paste the Trade Marks Search Table (provided as Annex 1 to Part VI). Please assume that this is correct. This table does not count toward the word count.

 

The Advice Letters should seek, where appropriate, to describe the legal problem(s), the potential legal solution(s), and the commercially realistic options available to the client. The client should be treated as a well-educated (but not legally trained) individual who is interested to know why he needs to take certain actions, as well as what his commercial options are.

 

Although most lay clients would not necessarily wish to see authorities in letters addressed to them, for the purposes of this assessment please use footnotes to give authority to the points you make (please also see the guidance above and below re Word Limits) and use OSCOLA citation style (as mentioned above). Explanations of the fact pattern and/or ratio of a cited case may be used in the body of the letter where you think it appropriate to give a strong message to the client.

 

Some solicitors will use a client letter in part to reiterate the fact pattern communicated to them and establish that the solicitor has understood it correctly. Although this is good practice in many situations (and is, I believe, the approach followed in the Clinic Module), due to word limit constraints you are not required in your Advice Letter to fully reiterate the fact pattern of the PBL Case Study. You will be assessed on the quality of your advice – you should therefore keep any reiteration of the fact pattern to a minimum and repeat factual elements only to the extent that you consider they are reasonably required to ensure that the client understands to what your advice relates.

 

Although there will be areas of focus in each of the PBL sessions, the Case Study Parts have (very deliberately) not been rigidly partitioned into the specific areas of intellectual property law. Therefore different elements of intellectual property law will appear (and sometimes reappear) throughout the Case Study where appropriate. It is common in practice for a situation to require an appreciation and application of many different intellectual property rights and this combined/parallel approach is intended to allow for a more realistic introduction of problems into the Case Study and an opportunity to recreate more realistic Advice Letters. Therefore, although you will be submitting only three Advice Letters, you will (as you would in practice) need to develop a thorough understanding of the entire fact pattern as it develops, as this will influence your ongoing