Nationally unique courses in IP research and data analytics: the Pierce Law advantage
Professor Jon Cavicchi began teaching and writing on all aspects of intellectual property research tools and strategies over a decade ago. Except for one or two occasional IP legal research courses taught at other law schools with IP programs, Pierce Law is the only law school in the country with a well established curriculum of dedicated IP information courses.
This curriculum includes
Intellectual Research Tools and Strategies has been taught in many configurations over the past decade. It has included searching patent, trademark and copyright records. But the prime focus of the IP Tools course is to teach students IP legal research information literacy. This includes all IP primary and secondary sources. These sources are both U.S. centric as well as foreign, comparative and international in nature. The course covers both traditional print materials as well as Web based services on the spectrum from free to premium licensed products.
Mining Patent Data in the New Millenium teaches a consumer based approach to cross platform patent searching. The full range of patent data applications are discussed including:
- Novelty/patentability/pre-examination search
- State of the art/collection search
- Freedom to operate/right to use search
- Validity/invalidity search
- Clearance/infringement search
- Accelerated examination search
- Design search (US only)
- Opposition search
- Patent watch
- Chemical and structure search
Most classes train students to use patent platforms including:
- USPTO seven step and advanced class and keyword strateges
- Lexis.com (the flagship legal research platform)
- Lexis total patent (being marketed as "Delphion on Sterioids")
- Patent Cafe
- Thomson ~ Derwent
- Thomson ~ Delphion
- Thomson ~ Aureka
- Thomson ~ Dialog
- Questel Orbit
Students produce prior art reports as well as give presentations on patent analytics services and software applications.
Patent Landscape Clinic at the International Technology Transfer Institute, facilitated by Professor Cavicchi and Professor Stanley Kowalski, produces advanced patent landscape analysis reports that are used by the organization PIPRA that supports agricultural innovation for both humanitarian and small-scale commercial purposes.
PIPRA brings together intellectual property from over forty universities, public agencies, and non-profit institutes and help make their technologies available to innovators around the world.
Students chosen to participate in the Clinic are chosen to have skills sets including:
- Training in patent law
- Training in patent searching
- Training in biotechnology
These skills are highly valued by corporate and law firm employers. The same skills that are used by the private sector can be used for IP in the public interest projects like PIPRA. Proactive, preventative, analysis and understanding of IP are essential for moving cutting-edge innovations to developing countries. Patent landscapes are the basic informational tool for managing these challenges. Funding organizations are increasingly requiring patent landscapes as part of the grant application process.
The 2008 Patent Landscape Team with students from Taiwan, Korea, USA and India prepared an extensive Patent Landscape Report of HIV DNA Vaccine Patents
