Overview
This unit introduces you to the innovation ecosystem and the place of intellectual property (IP) within that ecosystem. In the first half of the unit, you will learn about Australia’s statutory IP rights, including copyright, patents, designs, and trademarks, and the associated international IP conventions and treaties. You will also consider other rights regarding confidentiality and passing off. IP is an important business asset, and in the second half of the unit, you will investigate the commercialisation of IP. To set the scene, you will look at the regulatory context – how government incentivises innovation and commercialisation. You will then consider the foundational components of commercialisation, including the concept of IP due diligences, business structuring and funding issues, negotiations, and options to monetise IP. You will spend the final two weeks of the unit investigating IP licensing, which lies at the heart of IP commercialisation. Major licensing terms, and the associated risks of anti-competitive conduct will be canvassed. Students will have the option to design their own end-of-term research assessment to cater for their particular interests, or to complete a set final paper.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Co-requisite LAWS11057, LAWS11059, LAWS11066 for Law students. Pre-Req of LAWS11030
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 2 - 2026
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - Domestic Students
- Monitoring Academic Progress (MAP) Policy and Procedure - International Students
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Student Feedback - Compliments and Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Student evaluations
The content was excellent and real world relevant, particularly the Licensing modules. A text covering the fundamentals of IP (not just commercialisation) would be good but sounds like it doesn't exist. Sometimes the Business Law book wasn't available from max users in the library online.
Content continues to remain real-world relevant. There is no text that will cover the fundamentals of IP in an introductory fashion that is up to date, so the study guides continue to be the best option. Consider putting the Graw/Business Law relevant chapters into an e-Reading list.
Feedback from Student evaluations
Feedback given on Assessment 2 was dismal. The marking criteria for the last assessment was not made available.
The casual marker will not be engaged again for this unit. There is no formal marking criteria for the final assessment, because the students are allowed to choose their own topics, and in addition to these 'design your own' final assessments, there are a mix of problem and essay questions for the students to choose from and complete. For next iteration, I will provide a general rubric framed around the learning objectives for the unit to provide some assistance, but a detailed rubric is not possible for this particular assessment given the disparity in topics and formats which change each time the unit is offered.
- Identify and apply legal principles relating to confidential information, copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and the protection of business reputation.
- Assess the legal and practical steps needed to ensure that intellectual property rights remain valid and enforceable.
- Analyse and evaluate intellectual property protection issues and/or commercialisation issues, potential business and competition law risks.
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) - 20% | |||
| 2 - Written Assessment - 30% | |||
| 3 - Written Assessment - 50% | |||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Communication | |||
| 2 - Problem Solving | |||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | |||
| 4 - Information Literacy | |||
| 5 - Team Work | |||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | |||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | |||
| 8 - Ethical practice | |||
| 9 - Social Innovation | |||
| 10 - First Nations Knowledges | |||
| 11 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | |||