Law schools teach intellectual property in silos. A student takes Patent Law, then Copyright Law, then Trademark Law – each as a separate course with its own casebook, its own doctrinal framework, its own exam. Trade secrets, if covered at all, appear as an afterthought.

In A Systems Approach: Teaching Intellectual Property in Our Interconnected World, I argue that this fragmented approach fails students because it does not reflect how IP actually works in practice.

The interconnection problem

A single product can be protected by patents (the mechanism), copyrights (the software), trademarks (the brand), and trade secrets (the manufacturing process) simultaneously. A lawyer advising a client on IP strategy must understand how these regimes interact – where they overlap, where they conflict, and where choosing one form of protection forecloses another.

A student who has taken four separate IP courses may understand each doctrine in isolation but lack the ability to see the system. They can answer exam questions about patent validity or copyright fair use, but they cannot advise a startup on whether to patent an innovation or keep it as a trade secret – a decision that requires understanding both regimes and the strategic tradeoffs between them.

The systems approach

I propose an integrated curriculum that teaches IP as a connected system rather than four separate subjects. The model draws on systems thinking – the idea that understanding components in isolation is insufficient when the behavior of the system depends on the interactions between them.

The article uses UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law’s Hybrid JD program as a case study. Franklin Pierce has historically been one of the top IP law programs in the country, and its hybrid format – combining online and in-person instruction – creates opportunities for curricular integration that traditional formats do not.

Practical barriers

The article is honest about the institutional obstacles. Law school curricula are organized by subject, faculty are hired by specialty, and accreditation standards reinforce the silo model. A systems approach requires not just new course designs but new ways of thinking about how the curriculum fits together – a challenge that goes beyond any single professor’s classroom.

The argument is not that separate IP courses should be abolished. It is that students also need at least one experience that forces them to think across doctrinal boundaries – to see IP as a system, not a collection of parts.

Read the full article: A Systems Approach: Teaching Intellectual Property in Our Interconnected World (forthcoming 2025).