Private practitioner's pragmatic approach fits the business minded student's requirements

The private practitioner uses and construes the law with a high dose of pragmatism which is helpful for students wanting to anticipate their professional life. Indeed, opting for an IP module, which is an applied subject, shows that one is keen to prepare for a corporate environment. A patent lawyer teaches the indispensable skills to promote innovation within the existing legal framework; moreover, he or she experiences first hand on a constant basis that the issues are not limited to a single subject, but rather that several areas of law come into play, in particular of IP and quasi-IP law. Therefore, the teaching is steeped in realism as it cannot ignore that various legal aspects interact. Students recognize how crucial innovation management skills, based on a high awareness of the IP rules, might be in building their careers. However, as conflicts of interests often restrain private practice, even when sharing experience acquired with many different clients, the lectures will be inherently biased. Students need to be aware of this bias, in order to overcome it by digesting the methods and analytical tools in view of adapting and applying them to any industry and company size. At the end of the innovation management module in the BSc Business Management at City, University of London, students are required to gather information on a company's innovation strategy, do a critical analysis of the information, and come up with advice. Having understood the business and technological drivers, they are motivated to use the IP legal framework to define the right innovation strategies. When students take a closer look at e.g. Tesla Motors Inc's patent pledge for example, they analyse the overall innovation strategy and the IP rules allowing it, stressing that Tesla has not chosen to open-source all their IP, they identify the risks and clearly explain the business incentives.