Companies today are only beginning to learn what intellectual property lawyers have known for years: that intellectual property - patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets - creates value in ways no other business asset can, offering profit margins well above those that can be earned from manufacturing. This is why intellectual property based companies are among the most profitable in the economy and why even old-line firms like Ford Motor Company are shedding physical assets, concentrating their patent portfolios and acquiring brand names.
Students, with the assistance of the instructor, will pick a single company and explore how the company manages intellectual property as an asset and how it monitors - and manages - the law's impact on the asset. The research can entail either literature review, field research (Silicon Valley offers rich research pickings) or both.