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Semester 2

Software and the law (LAWS10268)

Subject

Law

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 3 Law courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses. This course is only open to visiting students who are nominated to study with us on a Law exchange agreement. Exchange students outside of Law and study abroad students are not eligible to enrol on this course before teaching begins, with no exceptions, and spaces cannot be guaranteed to those students at any time. **Please see Additional Restrictions**

Course Summary

This course explores the legal protections and requirements applicable to the production, dissemination, and commercial exploitation of software.

Course Description

This course will examine how software is generated, protected and commercialised. It will explore the intellectual property protection afforded to software via copyright, patents or trade secrets. It will also explore more complex issues of ownership, such as in the employment context or when AI is used to generate software. The course will explore the requirements imposed on software development with respect to data protection and information security. It will also look at liability issues for software providers and risk assessments and classification of software using AI. Lastly, the course will explore competition law issues relevant to software marketplaces, the definition and compliance with interoperability requirements as well as technical standardisation.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

**All 3rd year Law courses are ONLY open to visiting students nominated on an exchange agreement within the School of Law (including Erasmus students on a Law-specific exchange). Exchange students outside of Law, and independent study abroad students, are not eligible to enrol in these courses, with no exceptions.** Please note that 3rd year Law courses are high-demand, meaning that they have a very high number of students wishing to enrol in a very limited number of spaces. These enrolments are managed strictly by the CAHSS Visiting Student Office, in line with the quotas allocated by the department, and all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. It is not appropriate for students to contact the Law School directly to request additional spaces. If there is sufficient space for other visiting students to enrol at the start of the semester (which cannot be guaranteed at all), visiting students must meet the pre-requisites listed above.

view the timetable and further details for this course