The goal of this lecture is to gain an understanding of the most important business laws (company law, contracts, e-commerce, IP laws, data protection, Unfair Competition Act), of intellectual property rights, especially patents and patent research, as well as of (software) licensing.
IMPORTANT: This lecture is only for students assigned to the supplementary curriculum "Diploma Supplement on Innovation" offered by the Innovation Incubation Center (i²c)! For further information, please visit http://i2c.ec.tuwien.ac.at/home/are-you-a-student/how-to-apply/
***ECTS Breakdown***
2 ECTS = 50 hours
25 Lectures (prüfungsimmanent)
25 Group work and case studies
***Content decription***
Part I: Business Law (lecturer: Wolfgang Graf)
In the first part of this lecture, the following topics will be worked through:
1. Company law: corporations, partnerships, entrepreneur; foundation of corporations, companies register; financial assistance rules; shares, vesting of shares, transfer of shares
2. Contracts: conclusion of contracts; form requirements; securities; specific IT-related contracts like SLA Service level agreement or Software licenses agreement; breach of contract; warranties; damages; product liability
3. E-commerce: overview and case studies
4. IP laws (trademarks, copyrights und design patents): overview and case studies
5. Data Protection: overview on European and national rules; cases
6. Unfair competition act: overview and case study
Part II: Patent Right and Patent Research (lecturer: Bernhard Voith)
The second part of the lecture is targeted at creating a basic but well-founded understanding of intellectual property and all types of related rights. There is a specific focus on patent protection, though, in particular addressing questions on patentability of computer implemented inventions (CII) (software patents) in different legislations around the world. In addition, international patenting procedures and strategies as well as issues in intellectual property related contracts and in open innovation will briefly be referred to.
Patent documents are an indispensable resource for information on the latest technologies. All patent applicants are obliged to disclose the details of their invention in the patent application, which is then published. Searching patent databases can help you to find out what already exists and build on it, keep track of who is doing what and avoid infringing other people's patent rights. This module will focus on the freely available patent databases and explain what a good patent search involves. It will cover some key features of patents, such as patent families and patent classification and show how understanding these can help engineers and scientists to gain more from patent data.
Part III: Licensing (lecturer: Wolfgang Graf)
The third part will deal with the Austrian legal situation concerning licensing, especially software licensing. The most commonly used types of (software) licenses are discussed. The lecture will be completed with practical exercises.
***Lecturers***
Dr. Wolfgang Graf is an attorney-at-law in the Viennese law firm Graf Patsch Taucher. Mr. Graf holds degrees from the University of Vienna law school (Mag.iur., Dr. iur.) and the Pennsylvania State University (LL.M.). He is admitted to practice law both in Austria and New York. Mr. Graf specializes mainly in corporate and mergers & acquisitions. He is a lecturer at the University for Applied Sciences Wr. Neustadt and author of a book on data protection law and several articles on corporate law. Mr Graf is vice-president of the Institute for Forensic Analysis, a private institute analyzing capital market related publications and the prevention of business and capital markets related white collar crime.
Dipl.-Ing. Bernhard Voith is a European Patent and Trademark Attorney at Weiser & Voith Patentanwälte in Vienna. He holds a degree in electrical engineering from the Vienna University of Technology. After a 10-year professional experience in engineering, sales and marketing in industrial automation and telecommunications industry in Austria, Switzerland, France, US and UK, he started working as a patent and license manager in the Austrian promotional environment. Bernhard Voith also studied European management at the Ashridge Business School as well as patent and license management at the Management Center Innsbruck. He lectured on intellectual property rights at the Medical University of Vienna, the University of Veterinary Medicine and the University of Vienna and is member of GRUR, AIPPI and ECTA.
