Last year’s inaugural offering of The Intellectual Property Law and Technology Intensive Program (IP Intensive) was a great success.  We are excited to be offering the IP Intensive again this year and are anticipating another successful year.

The IP Intensive is a unique program that gives students practical, experiential education in a workplace setting for an entire term in lieu of being in the classroom.

The IP Intensive begins with 2 weeks of class seminars, which will be led by IP Intensive Students currently enrolled in the IP Intensive, will feature presentations and workshops by experts prominent in the IP community. The seminars will cover a wide variety of topics, from “Patent Prosecution” to “Copyright Reform Process”, from “Biotechnology Focus -Pharma” to “Reflections on the Copyright Pentalogy”.  Our IP Intensive students will be interacting and engaging in stimulating discussions with the Chair of the Trade-marks Opposition Board, a senior policy analyst from Canadian Heritage (Copyright Policy Branch), counsel from the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner’s Office, in-house counsel and top executives from a broad range of industries, start-ups and blue chip companies, practitioners from the major Canadian law firms, and academics.

Then IP Intensive Student Interns will participate in an 11-week internship. We have a wonderful array of placement partners from government agencies to music and media organizations to hi-tech companies and innovation centres. Our placement organizations for the Fall 2012 term are Canadian Heritage, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, Industry Canada (Copyright and International IP Policy Branch), the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), Stanford Centre for Legal Informatics (CodeX), The Globe and Mail, TEVA Canada Limited, and ventureLAB.

Throughout the term the students will be meeting with me periodically to discuss topics relating to intellectual property law, to share their experiences in the work environment, and to participate in a cross-pollination of ideas. The students will also be maintaining a reflective journal and blog on the IPilogue. They are also responsible to lead their own seminar presentations, which will occupy the wrap-up week of the course.

We thank Osgoode and York University for its financial support through the Academic Innovation Fund. We also thank the members of our Advisory Board and our sponsors.

If you are interested in attending any of our sessions or participating as a placement, please do not hesitate to be in touch with me directly.

Giuseppina D’Agostino is the Founder and Director of IP Osgoode, an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, and the Founder and Director of the IP Intensive.