Intellectual Property Law

An airplane engine

In a dynamic culture where a great idea or a great performance can (still) change the world, you need practical experience to step up your legal game. The Intellectual Property (IP) Venture Clinic gives you a chance to work with visionary new companies from their start in a garage, dorm room or lab. You’ll gain expertise in commercialization, intellectual property transactions, venture finance and design and innovation.

Here’s a Bright Idea

Our IP Venture Clinic represents early-stage entrepreneurs—many of them CWRU students. Student teams learn how to create IP protection strategies, structure corporate entities and charter documents, prepare investment diligence, and write private placement memos.

Study and Work Abroad

Participate in the Transatlantic Intellectual Property Summer Academy, featuring leading IP scholars and researchers in CWRU’s joint summer program with Italy’s Bocconi University. Or spend a summer as an extern at the World Intellectual Property Organization, in Geneva, Switzerland, working on cutting-edge IP issues.

Comprehensive Curriculum

Our Fusion curriculum does what it says, melding the law, business and tech aspects of commercializing new ideas. The three-course sequence covers patent law, venture finance and transactions and commercialization and IP management. Other on-point courses include:

  • Business Associations
  • Commercialization & IP Management
  • Copyright Law
  • Cyberspace Law
  • Law of the Music Industry
  • Museum Law
  • Patent Law
  • Patent Preparation and Prosecution I & II