Study

This course will cover a number of intersections between the law and the people and institutions who constitute the world of the visual arts, including artists, museums, collectors, dealers, and auctioneers. The course will also cover non-legal material geared to shaping practices of art market participants, such as codes and guidelines adopted by art-museum associations, as well as some relevant literature from other academic disciplines. Specific topics will include: (1) contexts in which a legal institution must determine whether a particular object is a work of "art" or art of a particular type; (2) artists' rights, including statutory and non-statutory moral rights and resale rights; (3) problems of authenticity; (4) the legal rights and duties of auctioneers, art dealers, and other intermediaries; (5) the legal structure of art museums, including issues of internal management and governance; (6) stolen art, including objects looted during World War II; and (7) developments in law and industry practice relevant to "cultural heritage," the association of particular objects with particular places or societies.

Students will be required to participate in class discussions, and will have the option of writing a 25-30-page research paper OR taking a take-home exam. Paper topics must be approved by the instructor, who will be glad to make suggestions (some of which will involve local field research).

There are no prerequisites for the course. Although some background in intellectual property (copyright and trademark law) would be helpful, none is required. A set of readings will be distributed prior to the first meeting of the class. Before then, a complete updated syllabus will be posted.

This class offers an introduction to the law of trademark and unfair competition. Whether or not students intend to specialize in trademark law, a basic understanding of its rules will better enable them to advise clients who wish to protect their own marks, as well as those facing claims that they have infringed someone else’s mark. No technical background is needed. Trademarks include brand names and logos, and can also extend to other features that identify the source of a product for its consumers – including colors, packaging, and design – when they meet certain requirements. The course will begin with the requirements for obtaining trademark protection: distinctiveness, use in commerce, special rules for trade dress, and various bars to protection such as genericity and functionality. It will then cover confusion-based trademark infringement, secondary liability, anti-dilution, statutory and common law defenses, false advertising, and cybersquatting. Could a Utah theme park called “Evermore” stop Taylor Swift from calling her album “Evermore”? Did Lil Nas X’s Satan shoes infringe Nike’s trademarks? With the proliferation of craft brews, are we running out of brand names for beer, particularly pun-based “hoptions”? The course will address these and other pressing questions.

In an age where nearly every organization collects and uses data, lawyers must be data-savvy. Modern data challenges ask clients to navigate legal, technical, and mission considerations, often all at once. Machine learning and artificial intelligence add still more questions, even as organizations race to realize data’s potential.

This course focuses on data governance: how organizations and communities make decisions about data, code, and their missions, and the wide-ranging impact of those decisions. Students will learn about three foundational data governance models: how companies protect and manage access to data; how data is shared and reused for research purposes; and how public datasets are assembled and managed. The course will feature simulations and interactive exercises to help students apply these models and skills to real-world scenarios.

At the end of the class, students will gain an understanding of how the law defines and regulates data, and how regulatory frameworks for data differ from field to field. They will also gain foundational knowledge in organizational and multi-stakeholder governance, and how good governance principles might apply to data. Finally, they will gain experience designing and applying governance models for organizations and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

No technical background is necessary to take this class. The first few weeks will include an introduction to data, databases, and governance best practices. 

What does it take to thrive as a transactional attorney today and tomorrow? Future of Contracts aims to expose students to current issues in the digital transformation of legal services—e.g. harnessing data, facilitating operations and project management with design and technology, applying artificial intelligence to key functions, etc.—in order to help our approaches to transactional law and contracts practice be “future friendly.”

There is no question that a sea change is underway and that new are key forces for change. Legal professionals are increasingly turning to accessible and impactful technologies that help them achieve better outcomes and offer higher value through data-driven analytics and insights, higher efficiency and productivity, and greater and more equitable access. Students interested in preparing for tomorrow should be exposed to this world as much as possible.

With guest experts and current materials, the focus of all deliverables will be on realistic experiences of being a transactional attorney today and tomorrow. Graded work product will include a series of individual and team assessments—of legal tech companies, modern business challenges, and opportunities for greater access to justice.

Class will meet on a regular schedule except that one class will be canceled in order for students to take part in the Duke Center on Law & Technology’s Future of Contracts Design Derby. That will likely happen on Friday 23 February 2024. If registering, please calendar that date. (see story from 2023 Future of Contract Design Derby: https://law.duke.edu/news/students-seven-law-schools-participate-2023-future-contracts-design-derby/)

No textbook required.

This seminar introduces trade secrecy doctrine and examines the most important policy contexts in which trade secrecy are arising today. No background knowledge is required. However, students must be prepared to be quick studies of various areas of technology and law. Of the various U.S. intellectual property regimes, trade secrecy is perhaps the most doctrinally elusive. Historically a common law tort that also borrowed from property and contract, trade secrecy has become codified in state, federal, and international regimes. The codification of trade secrecy doctrine has coincided with increasing recognition that it is often the most important mechanism by which firms protect returns on innovation and/or business investment. Notably, trade secrecy (and secrecy more generally) is becoming increasingly important not only for private firms, but also for national and regional innovation and security strategies. This seminar begins with an introduction to the trade secret doctrinal canon (including a discussion of how trade secrecy intersects with patent, copyright, and data exclusivity protection). It then discusses empirical evidence on uses of trade secrecy. Next, it considers various policy contexts, ranging from cybercrime and data regulation to employment and public administration. The seminar concludes by examining frontier technology areas in which trade secrecy plays a prominent role. These include machine learning and biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets are the currency of an innovation economy. Each of these forms of intellectual property may be bought and sold, licensed, or used as security. How each is used will depend on the business context; the needs of a start-up company being far different from those of a multinational corporation. This course will focus on intellectual property transactions in various business contexts, including: maximizing value and assessing risks; using intellectual property in financing start-ups; protecting trade secrets; employment issues related to intellectual property; intellectual property licensing; and intellectual property in mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcy.

Data often is referred to as the “new oil” or the “new gold,” given its potential to help unlock many economic and social benefits ranging from making industries more innovative and efficient to aiding in drug discovery, combatting climate change, and identifying and addressing social disparities.  The exponential growth of data has enhanced the need to develop robust data governance and data sharing practices, which can implicate a broad range of legal and policy issues, including privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, antitrust, corporate, and emerging AI policies.  Since many U.S. organizations collect and process data in multiple countries, data governance and sharing systems often need to factor in the laws of multiple jurisdictions.The goal of the seminar is to give students a foundation in the key legal and policy issues shaping data governance and data sharing practices, and insight on how organizations are operationalizing data governance and data sharing in the quickly evolving legal environment.  The course addresses relevant US laws and policies as well as select international laws and policies in order to help prepare students to address data governance and sharing practices that extend across certain jurisdictions.  To accomplish these learning objectives, the seminar begins with an overview of data governance and a series of classes focusing on legal and policy issues implicated by data governance.  Next, the seminar includes a series of classes focused on data sharing, including emerging laws and policies promoting data sharing and contractual strategies and challenges for implementing data sharing.  Finally, the course will explore how policymakers are turning to certain technology solutions to help address competing legal and policy concerns such as protecting privacy, on the one hand, and promoting data sharing and transparency, on the other.