Master Seminar in Intellectual Property LawLaajuus (10 cr)

Content

General information

General information
The University of Lapland has established a collaboration for running a Msc research seminar in the field of intellectual property (IP) law with the University of Helsinki/Faculty of Law and the IPR University Center.

The working language for the seminar is Finnish and English. Students can write their thesis either in English or Finnish.

Depending of students’ needs and on the currently ongoing pandemic, during the year 2023 the lectures will take place either at the University of Lapland, the University of Helsinki (Portania building), or via online tools (via Microsoft Teams). Ideally the dispositioseminaari will take place physically at the University of Lapland.

The topic for the seminar will be: “IPR and Emergencies”.
The Covid-19 pandemic has caused and continues to cause immense human and nature suffering, creating unprecedented challenges for national governments and the international community and pressuring both national and international legal systems. The intellectual property law system is no exception in this disruption. First, the principles and rules that regulate access to and use of information have been both central facilitators and causes of hindrance during the pandemic. Second, innovative new vaccines and drugs, as well as technology-aided solutions for various medical equipment in shortage during the worse periods of the pandemic, have been considered central both to survive during the crisis and for ‘going back to normal’. Third, large portions of the global community have had to go online in order to keep on being informed, educated, to work or be entertained. Indeed, much of the debate illustrates some the classical dilemmas with IPR: free information flow saves lives but so do drugs; and if drugs cannot be developed without restrictions on access to and use of information, then can a balance be achieved? In a way the Covid-19 pandemic has been an large-scale eye opener, questioning the readability and preparedness of systems like IPR in times of emergencies and pointing to fundamental flaws in relation to the internal and external balancing tools in IPR. Indeed, these questions applies to the Covid-19 pandemic context, but can very well be extended to several other types of crises, such as all the possible and unpredictable multi-level emergencies that climate change and loss of biodiversity could cause in the future. The Msc research seminar will discuss these fundamental issues, shedding light on the role, potential and shortcomings of IPR in times of emergencies.

Qualifications

Maximum 15 students from ULap can take part in the seminar. Selection of students will be done based on the following criteria:

1. Students should have already completed their BA degree;
2. Students should have gained at least a total of 200 ETCS by the time of registering into the Msc research seminar;
3. Students should have taken at least one optional course in IP law (at least 5ECTS), in addition to the mandatory commercial law pooli (ONPOOL6) by the time of registering into the Msc research seminar.

Materials

Projektitentti and Literature:

The projektitentti literature composes of about 1000-1500 pages literature that will be agreed between the teacher and the student on an individual basis. The exam can also be replaced by an essay of about 15 pages.

The projektitentti will take place in Exam or in Moodle. It is strongly recommended that the projektitentti is taken by May 2021 latest. This applies to both old and new system students.

Further information

The responsible teacher at ULap for the seminar is Prof. Rosa Maria Ballardini (rosa.ballardini@ulapland.fi).