Intellectual property research requires skills that are not commonly taught in generalized legal research classes. Even an upper-level advanced legal research class will have a limited amount of time to devote to intellectual property. Researching the law of intellectual property is not necessarily more challenging than other areas of law—the familiar sources of law are all there, from case law to statutes to administrative agency materials.

But intellectual property practice also requires locating intellectual property itself—registered copyrights, trademarks, and patents. Patents and trademarks each have elaborate classification systems to group like IP with like, but these systems can be difficult to navigate for novices. A specialized upper-level course can help prepare law students with an interest in IP to hit the ground running as practicing attorneys.

Topics Covered in IP Research

The topics covered in an IP research class may vary depending on the length and format of the course. Some law schools offer IP research as a condensed class that is completed in half a semester. Such a class might require a general advanced legal research course as a prerequisite so that it can focus on IP-specific skills, like searching for patents and trademarks.

I taught a full-semester course with no prerequisites, so the first few weeks of class had to cover more general advanced legal research skills, such as legislative history and regulatory research. I am indebted to John Cannan, who developed the IP research course at Drexel Kline School of Law, for coming up with the basic structure of the class. Each year I taught it, I ended up dedicating more and more time to general legal research topics, as I found the students needed more practice with them, but your mileage may vary.

Depending on the format of your course, you may want to consider covering the following topics:

  • Statutory research tips for IP (Consider that patent and copyright statutes have been enacted as positive law titles in the U.S. Code, while the Lanham Act is located in a non-positive law title.)
  • Administrative law research with a focus on the USPTO and its quasi-judicial tribunals, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).
  • Searching the Copyright Office catalog for registered copyrights.
  • Patent searching and classification.
  • Trademark searching, with classification by goods and services (Nice Classification) and design elements.
  • International IP research, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the treaties it administers.
  • If you include a review of basic legal research techniques, consider using trade secrets as an example, since this topic is harder to cover in terms of searching for IP. (Hat tip to Heather J. E. Simmons!)

Challenges of Teaching IP Research

Educational materials for an IP-focused research class are hard to come by. To my knowledge, there is no textbook on the market aimed at instructing law students in intellectual property-focused legal research. Coverage of intellectual property searching in a general advanced legal research text will be minimal, if covered at all. To craft an IP research syllabus, you’ll have to get creative and select appropriate reading materials for different research topics.

Consider incorporating instructional materials produced by IP offices, such as USPTO’s Conducting a Trademark Search and Multi-Step U.S. Patent Search Strategy (formerly the Seven-Step Strategy). Penny Hazelton’s Specialized Legal Research, with chapters on copyright law and patent and trademark law, is an excellent reference for instructors, if not an ideal text to assign to students. Think outside the box and consider materials like blog posts and bar journal articles as reading assignments.

Resources for Teaching IP Research

AALL members can take advantage of shared teaching materials contributed by other law librarians from across the United States. Both the RIPS-SIS Teach-In Kit and the ALL-SIS Sourcebook for Teaching Legal Research collect syllabi, lesson plans, assignments, and other materials. The Sourcebook can be searched by topic for IP materials. There is also an IP-focused community within AALL, PLLIP-SIS’s Intellectual Property Caucus, which can be a valuable networking resource for librarians from across library types with an interest in IP.

Outside AALL, the Patent Information Users Group (PIUG) is a professional organization dedicated to patent information professionals that provides webinars and educational content.

Teaching a specialized legal research course is a rewarding challenge. I find that preparing to teach a topic invariably deepens my own understanding as I anticipate questions. Students in an IP research class often come with their own niche interests and knowledge to share. As law librarians, we often have to be generalists, ready to research any question that comes our way. But it’s nice to have a specialty, and teaching a subject-focused research class is a great way to establish yourself as a specialist.