Postgraduate course in IP transactions – update

Last Friday we posted about a possible LLM or postgraduate diploma course on the subject of IP transactions, which we would like to establish with a leading university.  IPKat also kindly posted about this idea, on the same day.  This posting is to give you an update on progress.

So far, we have received some very positive responses from 9 people, including several solicitors, a patent attorney, a trade mark attorney, a barrister, and (surprisingly, but very welcome) an IP professor in Turkey.  We have also seen some interesting and useful comments on the IPKat posting.  These responses encourage us to think that there is a market for what we are proposing, and that the course is on the right lines, subject to some fine-tuning.

In order to persuade a leading university to take the course on, we will probably need to demonstrate financial viability.  This, in turn, will depend on support from large law firms who are likely to send their junior associates on the course on a regular basis.  In this context, we are encouraged by the responses we have received from 3 people responsible for sending IP associates on courses at law firms, namely:

• a leading City/international law firm
• a leading national/international law firm
• a leading specialist media law firm

If you are responsible for sending IP associates on courses, or you know someone who is, it would be very helpful to our cause if you or they could send us an email of support (to mark@andlaw.eu), to supplement those we have already received.  A response before next Friday (5th September) would tie in with a meeting that we have arranged for that date.

Thank you to those people who have already responded.  This idea has been germinating for several years, and it looks as though we are starting to generate some momentum to make it happen.