LL4BM Half Unit
The Legal Protection of Inventions
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Dr Shiva Thambisetty Ramakrishna
Availability
This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Law and Finance and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
How to apply: Priority will be given initially to LLM, MSc Regulation and MSc Law and Finance students on a first-come-first-served allocation.
Spaces permitting, requests from all other students will be processed on the same first-come-first-served allocation from 10am on Thursday 2 October 2025
By submitting an application, students are confirming that they meet any pre-requisites specified. Providing an additional written statement will not aid a student's chances of being accepted onto a course, and statements are not read.
Deadline for application: Not applicable
For queries contact: Law.llm@lse.ac.uk
Students interested in this subject are encouraged to consider enrolling onto Innovation, Technology and Patent Law (LL4BN) in the Winter Term.
This course has a limited number of places and we cannot guarantee all students will get a place.
Course content
Legally defined inventions are everywhere - in the tap or touch of a smartphone, in the food we relish, the medicines we need, the clothes we want, and in the buildings we choose to live in. Despite the vast differences in the subject matter of patents and the constant rise of unprecedented technologies, the legislative architecture of patent law remains on the face of it, technology neutral. The normative justifications for patent rights overwhelmingly focus on the incentive effect of these monopoly rights even as they raise issues such as inequities in access to medicines and essential technologies, socialisation of the risks of research and development, bioethical concerns around biotechnology or fears about food security raised by patents on genetic modification technologies.
The aim of this course is to develop a sound critical approach to the general principles of the legal protection of inventions and gain familiarity with widely different contexts of innovation. The course will cover patent prosecution, patentability criteria, patent eligibility and exceptions in sectors as diverse as software, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. A comparative approach based on UK, EU and US patent law will be adopted where relevant. Dominant narratives around the justification of patents in different sectors will be examined through carefully chosen cases.
Students do not need a scientific background and will be supported in understanding technical aspects.
Topics covered include: Novelty, inventive step, person skilled in the art, industrial applicability, sufficiency of disclosure, patent eligibility of computer implemented inventions and biotechnology, and exceptions (such as animal varieties, diagnostic methods, on grounds of morality). We may also look at special issues that frame patentability questions - such as vaccine inequity during the pandemic, and the use and circulation of biodiversity in public international law.
Teaching
20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.
Two hours of teaching each week, part lecture and part seminar in Autumn Term. There will be a Reading Week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.
Formative assessment
All students are expected to produce one 1,500 word formative essay during the course.
Indicative reading
Bentley, Sherman, Gangiee and Johnson Intellectual Property Law Oxford University Press 2018
Tanya Aplin Intellectual Property Law: Text, Cases and Materials (Oxford University Press 2013)
Justine Pila The Requirement for an Invention in Patent Law (OUP 2010)
Assessment
Exam (100%), duration: 150 Minutes in the Spring exam period
Key facts
Department: LSE Law School
Course Study Period: Autumn Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: Unavailable
Average class size 2024/25: Unavailable
Controlled access 2024/25: NoCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.