15.618  Law and Cutting-Edge Technologies

Hi folks – Here is what is planned for tomorrow (Monday 5/12), our last class.

1.      - Employment law. We have already talked about changing jobs and trade secret protection, but there are some interesting employment issues we haven’t touched yet, especially around:  hiring and firing; privacy in the workplace; and the use of social media at work.

3.      - Finding and using lawyers. We have talked about this a bit too, but let’s try to bring it into clearer focus.

4.      - Transnational law, especially in the context of patents.

Also, we will work through the second exercise which you did a few days ago.

We will be setting aside some time in class for you to do the on-line course evaluation, so please bring your computer.

Hi folks -

Exercise 2 is coming up towards the end of next week. The syllabus describes the exercise, and the format and rules will be the same as for exercise 1.  Also, the Stellar postings include 2^nd exercises from past years.

Let me provide some additional guidance, and (hopefully) make your preparations a little easier and more productive and useful to you. The syllabus says that the exercise will cover the materials in classes 1-10.   Let me cut back on that, mostly because for some of the classes (including some which were, in my view, the most informative) there were not good readings to back up the lectures.

Your preparation should focus on the materials in classes 6 and 7, in which we discussed setting up a new company and selling it (in the reverse order). The exercise will not draw on Jack Turner’s presentation in class 6 on licensing by MIT. So, with respect to readings, you need to focus on the readings assigned from Bagley chapters 4, 5 and 16. 

Hope this is helpful. Best, John