A Happy Marriage of Interests
How BU Law’s programs and partnerships are fostering innovation in intellectual property law.
For students interested in intellectual property law, Boston University School of Law offers a singular opportunity. The program boasts a focused, inquisitive student body; a talented and dedicated faculty; an enthusiastic and successful alumni community; and a location in a city with an increasingly innovative biotech- and tech-based economy. The cherry on top: two new clinics o er students opportunities to engage with and advise researchers and scholars at both Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—two dynamic and respected centers of student innovation, discovery, and technological experimentation.
Through this unique combination of factors, BU Law’s intellectual property law program blends cutting-edge course-work with the experiential, educational, and professional opportunities that the School’s location in Boston naturally provides. The result? A program that continues to deliver strong, rigorous, analytical coursework in the classroom, supplemented by countless prospects beyond—the chance to conduct research with leading IP scholars, attend IP conferences and lectures, work on technology and IP journals, engage with Boston’s welcoming intellectual property bar, and participate in one of many IP-related externship opportunities. The two new law school clinics, a unique collaboration between BU Law and MIT, will allow BU Law students to advise student entrepreneurs and innovators from BU and MIT as they form companies, structure equity financing for start-ups, and negotiate the limits of federal cybersecurity laws and regulations as they work.
Dean Maureen A. O’Rourke, herself an intellectual property law scholar, speaks highly of the strength of BU Law’s intellectual property law program, noting that its evolution is in keeping with the economy BU Law graduates are likely to face. “We were conscious about building the intellectual property law faculty for a few reasons,” O’Rourke says. “First, location. Boston, with the pharmaceutical companies and the Route 128 corridor, is a natural location where you need a school with excellence in intellectual property law. Second, our students. It is clear that more and more wealth resides in intangible property, and innovation-based companies are really going to be the segment of the economy that will produce the most opportunity for our graduates.”
Exceptional Community
Consistently listed among the top 10 IP law programs in US News & World Report rankings, BU Law has one of the most respected intellectual property law programs in the country. Abraham and Lillian Benton Scholar and Professor of Law Michael J. Muerer, one of the School’s intellectual property law professors, attributes much of the program’s success to the School’s “long-standing commitment” to it. He notes that BU Law opened its doors to intellectual property law early, establishing its program approximately 25 years ago.
“We have credibility as a school that very early on appreciated the importance of intellectual property law,” Meurer says. “Today, the quality of our teachers is very high, scholarship is at the forefront, and we have a rich set of course offerings. We also benefit from the kind of students that we attract. We get a lot of students who are interested in learning and practicing intellectual property law. We get quite a few students who have scientific or engineering backgrounds that equip them to practice patent law; we get students who are interested in culture and the arts, with a background in music or software.”
Meurer speaks passionately about the community of intellectual property law students and faculty at BU Law. He points to the School’s Intellectual Property Concentration, a prescribed set of courses that guides its adherents to an advanced, in-depth knowledge of intellectual property law and prepares them for practice. The concentration, Meurer says, is more than an outline of knowledge; it forms the border of a community of students interested in intellectual property law. “The Intellectual Property Concentration allows our students to find each other, to find a community,” he says. That community is further strengthened by participation in several IP-centered extracurricular activities—for example, the Intellectual Property Law Society, the Intellectual Property Speaker Series, and the Journal of Science & Technology Law.
The community, Meurer continues, extends beyond Commonwealth Avenue. “Those same students look into Cambridge and they see the largest concentration of biotech start-up firms in the country,” he says. “They look into Boston and they see some of the best [centers of] academic medicine in the world. We have students who have opportunities to do externships with biotech start-ups or with medical centers. The proximity to really great lawyering opportunities in these sectors is something that makes Boston special. The industry is creating a lot of demand for legal services, which will be located here. There’s a strong local intellectual property bar that welcomes our students—this gives our students an advantage, and it’s a great opportunity for them.”
New Opportunities
Starting in fall 2015, the intellectual property program at BU Law moved forward in step with the city that houses it by launch- ing a unique partnership with MIT. The partnership consists of two clinics that provide BU Law students with an opportunity to develop real-world experience in advising student innovators, researchers, and entrepreneurs from MIT and BU, says Law Alumni Scholar and Professor of Law Stacey Dogan. “Our goal is to make sure that these students have resources available to them as they think about commercializing their innovations or engaging in research that might subject them to legal risks,” she explains.
The first clinic, the Entrepreneurship & Intellectual Property Clinic, is a transactional clinic that opened in September 2015. Under the supervision of Clinic Director Gerard O’Connor, BU Law students advise clients who want to develop their ideas or products into business opportunities. The clinic focuses on corporate formation, the drafting of founders’ agreements and other documents, and the formation of equity structure and financing plans. Students learn “the nuts and bolts of how emerging companies are formed, the considerations that are taken into account in deciding how to shape a new business, and about working with clients to help them think constructively about building and growing their business,” Dogan says. “Our hope and expectation is that students will come out of this clinic feeling competent and prepared for a robust practice in this start-up space.”
The second clinic, the Technology & Cyberlaw Clinic, opened its doors in September 2016 under the direction of Andy Sellars, formerly of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. It provides legal resources and advice in connection with clients’ research or extracurricular innovation activities, including privacy issues, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act questions, Digital Millennium Copyright Act issues, and trade secret questions. “Our students will come away with a strong sense of the cutting-edge legal issues that arise at the intersection of law and technology,” says Dogan. “For students who want to do legal or policy work in those areas, this clinic is a fabulous opportunity.”
BU Law’s location in Boston presents a distinct advantage for a school that continues to balance its traditional classroom training with exposure to real-world lawyering. Dean O’Rourke calls the clinics “a happy marriage” of interests. “Intellectual property is one of our core specialties,” O’Rourke explains. “The initiative with MIT came out of a goal to marry our transactional law program and our intellectual property law program in a way that would be helpful to our students and responsive to the needs of our location. I’ve been trying to collaborate with MIT for a long time, because it really benefits our students.”
This feature originally appeared in The Record, BU Law’s alumni magazine. Read the full issue here.