Nordic Intellectual Property Law (NIP) Moot Court Competition (10 - 15cr)

Objective

The purpose of this elective course is to give an insight into substantive intellectual property law and procedural issues in relation to intellectual property law litigation.

The course will enable students to:
— deepen their understanding of IP law and practice their skills outside of the lecture halls of the university and in an international environment,
— build a professional profile and prove their skills during their studies,
— demonstrate depth and breadth of understanding how intellectual property rights are litigated,
— draft Statements of Claim and Statements of Defence in IP-related cases.

Content

The course takes place as a moot court competition, which means that three-person teams from Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway compete against each other. The competition focuses around one case only. First all teams shall draw up a Statement of Claims, whereafter each team replies to another team in the form of a Statement of Defence. The best team from each country goes on to the final, which is held in the form of an oral hearing.

Each team is provided with coaching of no more than 8 hours by IP attorneys from top-notch Helsinki based law firms specialising in IP law. The competition starts in mid-September and ends in mid-December. The winning team is announced on the day of the final by a panel consisting of IP judges from all Nordic countries. The winning team is chosen on the basis of best overall performance. There is also a prize for best written submissions.

The case will be published in the first two weeks of September and the deadline for the Statement of Claims will be in the end of September/beginning of October. The deadline for the Statement of Defence will be in the end of October/the beginning of November. The winning teams from each country will be announced shortly thereafter. The final round consisting of an oral hearing will take place in the end of November/beginning of December.

The teams are supposed to know and use Nordic and EU legal materials. Participation in the competition requires therefore that at least one team member is able to read legal materials in Scandinavian languages and/or Finnish.

Conduct
The Nordic IP Moot Court course is divided into two parts:
1) writing and submission of Statement of Claims and Statement of Defence (approximately 20-30 pages each) in accordance with the given directives and schedule; and
2) preparing for and taking part in the oral hearing in accordance with the given directives and schedule (the final).

Both parts include coaching by Finnish IP attorneys.

All those who pass the first part receive 10 ECTS. The best Finnish team reaches the second part (the oral hearing) and receives thus an additional 5 ECTS.

Students will be graded based on their written submissions (the first part) and oral presentation (the second part).

Qualifications

Compulsory studies in commercial law (for example at ULap the mandatory commercial law pooli ONPOOL6) or equivalent knowledge.

Further information

The competition is open to students from all Finnish universities. The total maximum of students accepted (students from all Finnish universities) is 24, i.e. 8 teams of 3 students each. As a starting point no more than 12 students from the University of Lapland may participate. The teacher may however make an exception and accept more students from the University of Lapland, if students from other Finnish universities do not fill up the quota.

Registration via Weboodi.

Examples of previous years’ competitions:
https://blogs.helsinki.fi/nipcomp2017/(201 7)
http://www.juridicum.su.se/IFIM/nip/nip.aspx(201 6)
https://www.uio.no/studier/program/jus/nip-2015-practical-information.pdf(201 5)

Target Group
This course is part of the course OTMVA0032 Essee tai Oikeustapauskilpailut.

This course is open to all students from the Finnish Masters of Laws programmes, the Bachelors of Laws degree, as well as to exchange students.

Responsible teacher Professor Rosa Maria Ballardini

Language of instruction
English

Other
This course is part of the Law and Technology package.