Postgraduate Course: Hardware and the Law: intellectual property, safety, sustainability and sovereignty for tech devices (LAWS11540)
Course Outline
| School | School of Law |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course explores the regulatory frameworks applicable to innovative technical devices such as computer microchips, solar panels, batteries or medical implants. The aim is to engage with all the legal and regulatory protections and obligations relevant to the financing, invention, deployment and commercialisation of such tech devices. |
| Course description |
Tech devices such as microchips, solar panels, batteries or medical implants are the engines of the digital and data revolutions. As such, the way in which they are regulated has a significant impact on the nature and function of the technology available to society. Also, innovation in technology both shapes and enables policy goals such as economic growth or sustainability. The course will tackle all the main applicable principles of an increasingly holistic regulatory framework. We will tackle innovation (mostly through the protection afforded by Intellectual Property, mainly patents and trade secrets), safety (and security, including in the context of health), sustainability (including the right to repair and the prevention of planned obsolescence) as well as sovereignty/industrial policy issues (how states attempt to regulate the creation and access to innovation, notably through subsidises and export controls).The course will start and finish with sessions on the past, present and future of the regulatory frameworks for tech devices. The course will be structured around of few cases studies where legal themes and regulatory frameworks will be explored through the lifecycle of particular devices.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Spaces on this course are allocated to students based on their chosen programme pursuant to following priority list:
LLM in Innovation, Technology and the Law (On Campus)
LLM in Law (On Campus)
All other eligible On Campus LLMs (check the course selection for your LLM programme to see whether this course is listed) |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 25 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by:«br /»
«br /»
¿ Mid-semester 1,000-word essay worth 20% of the final mark«br /»
¿ End-of-semester 4,000-word essay worth 80% of the final mark«br /»
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| Feedback |
Individual participation via electronic voting during seminars:
During seminars, students will be asked, via the electronic voting system Wooclap, to answer questions relating to the seminars and their associated reading lists. Although some of those questions will assess factual knowledge, most questions will be on general policy issues or on essay-writing techniques and will allow for multiple correct answers. The main aim of this assessment is to elicit class discussion and to help develop critical analysis skills. So, although students will be marked individually both for participating in the vote and on the correctness of their answers, the assessment is designed to enable learning not only from the course organiser¿s feedback but also through class discussion. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of the substantive European Intellectual Property, sustainability and safety regulations and standards applicable to the design and deployment of innovative technology devices.
- Explore the wider themes of competition in technology both between private entities but also between states, through the analysis of the laws for strategic investment and export controls
- Think critically about the rules and regulation applicable to the design of innovative devices
- Participate in the contemporary debates surrounding the regulation of hardware
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Reading List
| Reading lists will be made available in due course on a weekly basis. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Students will develop their skills and abilities in:
1. Research and enquiry, through e.g. selecting and deploying appropriate research techniques;
2. Personal and intellectual autonomy, e.g. developing the ability to independently assess the relevance and importance of primary and secondary sources;
3. Communication, e.g. skills in summarising and communicating information and ideas effectively in written form;
4. Personal effectiveness, e.g. working constructively as a member of an online community;
5. Students will also develop their technical/practical skills, throughout the course, e.g. in articulating, evidencing and sustaining a line of argument, and engaging in a convincing critique of another¿s arguments. |
| Keywords | Innovation,Intellectual Property Law,Engineering,Patent Law,Trade Secrets,Sustainability |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Nicolas Jondet
Tel: (0131 6)51 4528
Email: nicolas.jondet@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Hannah Ackroyd
Tel: (0131 6)50 2008
Email: hackroyd@ed.ac.uk |
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