Innovative Businesses and Breakthrough Technologies - The Legal Issues

Assignments

Take-home Exercises

There are two take-home exercises (see pdf links below). Students have three hours for an exercise, and some choice as to the particular three-hour period. The exercises have been tentatively scheduled to be available during the periods shown below. For each exercise, each student will make arrangements with the TA to receive the exam by e-mail at a mutually determined time during the availability period, and will e-mail back the completed exam within three hours of receiving it. The first exercise will cover lectures 1-8. The second exercise will cover only material not covered by the first: lectures 9-19.

During the period the exercises are available, students may not consult any other person about the content of the course.

The exercises heavily emphasize the required readings. The questions and format will be similar to previous years (although the exercises from some past years were of different lengths.) Past exercises and a sample answer will be made available to students.

It is not expected that students will need the full three hours to complete the exercise. I use this format so that a student does not have to write fast to do well. This may be of special importance to students for whom English is a second language.

LEC #	TOPICS	assignments
Module I - Basic Building Blocks
1	Introduction
2	The Law of Duties
3	The Hard Edge of Regulation
4	Contract I
5	Contracts II
Module II - Launching, Growing, and Exiting a Venture
6	Setting Up a New Venture Guest: Joe Hadzima, Main St. Partners
7	Financing the Venture I - Venture Capital Guest: Kenneth Gordon, Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault
8	Financing the Venture II - Going Public Guest: Kenneth Gordon, Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault
9	Joint Ventures and M&A	1st exercise available two days after lecture 9 at 9 a.m. and is to be completed the next day at 9 p.m. (PDF)
10	Employment; Module Wrap-up
Module III - Innovation, Commercialization, and Intellectual Property
11	Introduction to Technology Transfer
12	Copyrights and Software
13	Patents I: The Basics of Patent Law Guest: Bo Pasternack, Choate Hall
14	Patents II: Breakthrough Technologies - The Example of Biotechnology Patents Guest: Anita Meiklejohn, Fish & Richardson
15	Antitrust, JVs and IP
16	IP Rights and Business Strategies I Guest: Sarah Cabot, Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky & Popeo
17	IP Rights and Business Strategies II Guest: Joe Hadzima, Main St. Partners
18	Shifting Business Models and the Law: The Example of the Internet Guest: Jorge Contreras, Hale & Dorr
19	International IP Protection; Licensing; Wrap-up
Module IV - Innovation: The Regulatory and Liability Risks
20	Litigation
21	The Inside Counsel’s Perspective Guests: Tom DesRosiers, Genzyme	2nd exercise is available the day after lecture 21 at noon (PDF)
22	Bankruptcy and Reorganization Guest: Jeanne Darcey, Palmer & Dodge	2nd exercise is due one day after lecture 22 (which is two days after it was made available) at 9 p.m.
23	National Security and Dealing with Government
24	Products Liability Guest: David Geiger, Foley Hoag