Intellectual Property Rights and ICT [DTICM315]

Learning outcomes

Specific competences
- Integrate and explain the impact of the digital environment on the content and exercise of key intellectual property rights.
- Explain and critically appraise the reasoning of the Court of Justice on these issues and the consequences thereof.
-Identify and deal in a balanced way with situations where intellectual property rights conflict with other fundamental rights on digital networks.
-Solve as many practical cases as possible concerning the exercise of intellectual property rights in a digital environment
- Understand the legislative and jurisprudential evolutions, as well as the societal stakes in a context where intellectual property rights are confronted with significant technological evolutions and competition with other fundamental rights.
Cross-cutting skills
- Conduct a rigorous and reasoned analysis of jurisprudential solutions, adding a personal and critical viewpoint.
- Demonstrate a sense of synthesis, precision and discernment.
- Build a structured, supported and convincing argument, both in writing and orally.
- Project themselves into concrete situations, devise judicious examples, identify the advantages and disadvantages of different solutions.

 

Objectives

 - The course aims to enable the student to understand the legal and jurisprudential mechanisms attached to the content and exercise of intellectual property in a digital environment.
- It invites the student to discuss the material in a reasoned and critical manner, and to take a position with regard to the themes addressed.
- It helps students to project themselves into concrete situations that require a rigorous and creative application of theoretical rules.
- It offers the student a global reflection on the evolution of the subject and on the margin of progress offered to it with regard to technological, economic and societal challenges.

Content

Subject to changes and additions, the course covers in whole or in part the following topics copyright protection in the digital environment; adapting copyright to digital freedoms; survival and exhaustion of copyright in a digital context; the emergence of new rights and exceptions in the digital world; rules relating to computer programs and databases; the protection of computer inventions by patent law; liability issues related to trademark law in a digital context; works and inventions created by artificial intelligence in the face of intellectual property; the issue of data ownership in a digital context and Big Data; trade secrets in the digital environment.
Belgian law is addressed, but above all it is placed in a European and international context. The evolution of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union is given particular attention.
The course includes highly practical aspects. The rights discussed are placed in a global context in order to illustrate their confrontation with other fundamental rights, and in certain cases with the general interest. Current debates on intellectual property are also discussed in order to reveal the economic and societal issues involved.
Research opportunities are proposed, particularly in the field of robotics, artificial intelligence and the data economy. As far as possible, the course comments on certain aspects of the research conducted within the CRIDS (Centre de Recherches Informatique Droit et Société) attached to the University of Namur.
In general, the course is based on a community and international perspective. It is largely based on European Union legislation and case law, without neglecting national sources.
 

Table of contents

The list of topics depends on the relevant issues at the time (see above).

Exercises description

Subject to change, students are invited to make oral presentations with visual aids (ppt type), devoted to the themes indicated by the teacher (see above).