15.618  Law and Cutting-Edge Technologies

Hi folks --

I have posted on Stellar Jim Lampert's slide deck for the class on patents coming up this Monday (4/11).  The slide deck is a very comprehensive and thoughtful review of patent law issues and their strategic relevance.  And Jim's class is dense.  So you will probably find it useful to follow along with your own hard copy of his slides for note-taking.  I will bring hard copies for distribution in class for those of you who have not run off your own. And my suggestion to our remote attendees is that you try to have a set on hand. 

Also, as mentioned earlier, the textbook has a good basic discussion of patent law at pp. 542-58.  The major deficit to Bagley is that it was published before the most recent major amendments to the patent law in the America Invents Act (AIA).  You can find on Stellar a brief discussion of the main features of the AIA.

See you Monday.

Best, John

Hi folks --

A couple of items for this Monday's class:

We are going to start the class with a quick look at the NVCA sample venture capital term sheet.  You will find it helpful to have a hard copy on hand.  Hard copies were distributed in an earlier class, and it is posted on Stellar under Class 4.   I will also bring some extra hard copies to class.

Also, I have posted on Stellar a very short (4 page), interesting and important case on how software is treated under copyright law.  The case is Lotus v. Borland.  I know this is not much advance notice, but you will get more out of Monday's class if you have a chance to look at that case.

See you Monday.

Best, John

Hi folks –

Looking ahead to H2:

You can find on Stellar an updated Syllabus and Reading List (dated 03 26 16) which shows the final order of classes, guest lecturers, and recommended readings for H2 (and also H1).  All the recommended readings which are not from the text are also posted on Stellar.

As previously announced, we will have with us for our first H2 class this next Monday (3/28) Lou Rodriques, who, until his recent retirement from the practice of law, was a partner at Bingham McCutchen.  Lou will focus on two key areas of law-related risk and management:  employment, and litigation.  As for readings: The textbook has a long but solid chapter on human resource management (ch. 8), which should serve as a good reference on this topic.  I have also posted a Peanut on the US legal system, which is intended as very general background but also discusses the US system of litigation.

Looking ahead to the rest of H2:

Unfortunately, we never got to a discussion of the VC term sheet during the last H1 class.  I am hoping we will have some time to circle back to that during the class on Monday 4/4.

We will have three classes (4/4, 4/11, and 4/25) where the primary focus will be on new technologies and business models, with particular emphasis on the role of intellectual property (IP) law.  Of all the legal areas we will deal with, IP law is probably the most unintuitive and unforgiving.  So we are going to delve into quite a bit of detail.  We will have two guest practitioners helping out with that segment of the course:  Jim Lampert, who until his recent retirement from the practice of law was head of the IP practice at Wilmer Hale; and Karen Copenhaver, a partner at Foley Hoag and a leading expert on software law and open-source.

We will then have a final pair of classes (5/2 and 5/9) focused on two common endings to the story of a new venture – one happy and one not-so-happy.  The happy ending is the sale of the venture (5/2).  The unhappy ending is the winding down of the venture, including the possibility of a business or personal bankruptcy or both (5/9).  For the sale of the venture, we will have with us David Gammell, a partner from WilmerHale who is very active in the emerging company space. For the winding down of the venture, we will have with us John Whitlock, former partner and now of counsel at Locke Lord, and an expert in commercial finance and bankruptcy and reorganization.

Hope this is helpful.

See you Monday

John

Hi folks – Looking ahead to the next few classes:

As shown in the syllabus, we will not meet on Monday March 14 (because that week is “Sloan Innovation Period” during which all regular Sloan classes are suspended, and we follow the Sloan calendar), and we will not meet on Monday March 21 (because that is MIT’s Spring Break week).

So our meeting tomorrow (Class 5 --Monday March 7) will be our last meeting until Class 6 on Monday March 28.

Here is what I hope to do tomorrow (3/7).  First, I want to circle back over the discussion about setting up a new company and obtaining early financing.  I thought our guests did a terrific job of giving us the feel of what those junctures feel like like, but now I want to go over some of the key law-sensitive issues a bit more systematically (although the textbook does that very well too).  Also, to round out our discussion of financing, I want to take a quick look at a venture capital term sheet.  I will bring hard copies to class.  For those of you are attending remotely, you might want to download a copy of the term sheet from Stellar.

The class tomorrow and the class on Monday March 28 will also look at several key law-sensitive areas where managers of growing companies face opportunities and risks.  In particular, we will look at three topics:

·       Contracts;

·       Managing a growing workforce; and

·       Managing litigation risk

My hope is to cover contracts tomorrow, and focus on managing a growing workforce, and managing litigation risk during Class 6 on March 28.  For Class 6, we will have with us Lou Rodriques.  Lou was, until his recent retirement from the practice of law, a partner here in Boston at Bingham McCutchen.

There are no readings assigned for tomorrow’s class.  For further background, the textbook has good chapters on venture capital (Ch 13); contracting (ch. 9); and employment issues (ch. 8). 

See you tomorrow.

Best, John