3 Lessons From Teaching IP To High Schoolers

//

(Image via Getty)

One of my great joys is the ability to teach an IP survey course to high schoolers. I have been doing so since 2016, long enough ago that I now have the privilege of offering advice to former students who are now going through law school OCI. This year, I had a curious and motivated group of 16 sophomores, many of whom had schedules packed with other challenging courses, including AP courses. But still they came to our weekly lunchtime session, armed with questions about how IP works in the real world. Thankfully, we were able to get through the year without any COVID-related disruptions, which helped not only keep the class on track in terms of sticking to the syllabus, but also added to our group’s camaraderie in a very favorable way. In terms of course content, we spent most of the first half of the year focused on patents, culminating in a very intense and well-contested midterm mock trial project, where the students were split into groups taking on venue, infringement, validity, and damages arguments from a real prior patent litigation.

googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Enable lazy loading. googletag.pubads().enableLazyLoad({ renderMarginPercent: 150, mobileScaling: 2 }); // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-top-300x250" ); googletag.enableServices(); });

The second half of the year was just as productive. From discussions on hot-button issues like the interaction of IP law and NFTs — aided by a great guest appearance from former interviewee on these pages, Jeremy Goldman — to an in-depth set of sessions on counterfeiting as part of the trademark module, it was a privilege to see how much the students were able to absorb. In addition to Jeremy’s appearance, we were also fortunate to have a discussion with Amazon’s Kebharu Smith on the challenges posed by global counterfeiting networks. All told, we covered a lot of the material you would expect to encounter in an IP survey course.

Sponsored Is Your Firm An Internet Ghost? Digital Logic’s Proven Method Can Make You Real To Potential Clients Recently, the folks at Digital Logic met with Above the Law to walk us through the company’s Search Engine Optimization strategies, techniques, and the core… From Stephanie Wilkins

All said, it was a great year — and as usual, I feel like I learned just as much from teaching as the students got from the material that was conveyed. And as I get older, the differences in how young people process and handle information become ever more apparent to me. In fact, I have come to believe that attempting to engage and persuade young people — whether they be employees or on a jury or anywhere else — using the tactics that would be effective on people of my generation would be a mistake. To that end, I humbly share three IP practice-related tips that I gleaned from teaching this year’s hearty crew.

First, I was very impressed, but mainly surprised, by the facility the students had with making visual presentations to complement their arguments during the mock trial project we did. In fact, I did not even require that the students draw up written materials to accompany their oral arguments, but nearly to a group, they did so anyway. With the students falling squarely within the phone-bearing YouTube and TikTok generation, it should perhaps not have been such a surprise to me that they would lean heavily on visual aids in support of their efforts. That said, it is also now clear to me that many of today’s youth have developed innate graphic design and visual presentation skills, which I think speaks to a very important lesson for us older lawyers as we think about the audiences we present to. In short, today’s youth depend on visual stimuli, particularly when presenting complex information, which puts a premium on lawyers making sure that the visual accompaniments to our presentations are as well-thought through and crafted as our verbal arguments. Show, don’t tell, is a timeless lesson that my teaching experience served to remind me of.

googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Enable lazy loading. googletag.pubads().enableLazyLoad({ renderMarginPercent: 150, mobileScaling: 2 }); // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-middle-300x250" ); googletag.enableServices(); }); googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Enable lazy loading. googletag.pubads().enableLazyLoad({ renderMarginPercent: 150, mobileScaling: 2 }); // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-storycontent-440x100" ); googletag.enableServices(); }); googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Enable lazy loading. googletag.pubads().enableLazyLoad({ renderMarginPercent: 150, mobileScaling: 2 }); // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-in-story-youtube-1x1" ); googletag.enableServices(); });

Second, to the extent anyone believes that the moral compass of today’s youth is oriented in favor of large corporations — think again. Time and again, my students were keenly attuned to perceived bullying by larger companies in asserting IP claims against smaller ones or individuals. In fact, even when the merits of such claims favored the larger company, there was often still an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the larger company standing on its rights, rather than letting things slide. Moreover, even when it came to our discussion of Amazon’s anti-counterfeiting efforts, which the students understood and felt were both justified and necessary, they also had a strong sense that larger companies like Amazon had a corresponding responsibility to smaller players not to go about things in an overbearing or unfair way. Here again, IP lawyers, whether in-house or outside counsel, operating for large companies should think very hard about the potential fall-out in a marketing sense — particularly among the younger demographic — when it comes to pursuing IP claims. Striking a balance between protecting IP rights while not alienating younger customers will be an important task for IP lawyers going forward.

Finally, I was perhaps most surprised by the interest of the class in anything to do with cryptocurrency or NFTs. As a tech-savvy generation, it is clear that the idea of digital assets having value, whether they be currency, NBA highlights, or just pictures of computer-generated apes, is one that today’s youth are comfortable with. The ease with which they accept the concept of digital assets having value, coupled with a general lack of faith in the dollar as the truest measure of worth, lent itself to some very interesting classroom discussion around hot-button topics like crypto or NFTs. In addition to feeling comfortable with the market setting the value of digital assets, the students were also very accepting of the idea that NFT ownership could differ in kind from ownership of the underlying IP rights. In short, comfort with the distributed ownership of digital items, coupled with a sense that goodwill and value were not intrinsically tied to the dollar value of the underlying asset, were key drivers of the ease with which the students grasped the concepts and IP implications of NFTs — even as such concepts can seem very foreign to IP lawyers of my generation. For IP lawyers therefore, it is important to remember that younger minds can be quicker to see opportunity in newly emerging asset classes, but will often still require help understanding how IP law can apply to the suite of products or services that is of great interest to them. At bottom, teaching this class was a healthy reminder that even though different generations may think differently about things, each generation still can have a lot to learn from the other.

Sponsored Sponsored Is Your Firm An Internet Ghost? Digital Logic’s Proven Method Can Make You Real To Potential Clients Recently, the folks at Digital Logic met with Above the Law to walk us through the company’s Search Engine Optimization strategies, techniques, and the core… From Stephanie Wilkins Sponsored Just How Frivolous Is That 'Frivolous' Malpractice Suit? Join us for this free webinar with CLE credit presented with our friends at Embroker. Our expert panel will explore what steps lawyers should consider… From Embroker and Above The Law Sponsored Why This CRM Is Different From The Others The legal CRM software designed entirely by lawyers is now available to the public. See what it can offer your practice. From Matterly and Above The Law Sponsored Why This CRM Is Different From The Others The legal CRM software designed entirely by lawyers is now available to the public. See what it can offer your practice. From Matterly and Above The Law

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at [email protected] or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

googletag.cmd.push( function() { // Enable lazy loading. googletag.pubads().enableLazyLoad({ renderMarginPercent: 150, mobileScaling: 2 }); // Display ad. googletag.display( "div-id-for-bottom-300x250" ); googletag.enableServices(); }); Sponsored Sponsored Meet LINK: The Easy Way To Handle All Your Document Workflows On Your Mobile Device In A Single App LINK offers the single-app workflows you need to fully work on your documents and manage your email from your mobile devices, anytime and anywhere. From Above the Law Sponsored 3 Ways To Make The Legal Department More Effective And Agile Concrete steps to transform your team into a strategic force. From Conga and Above The Law Topics

Gaston Kroub, Intellectual Property