Useful links
Unit of study_
LAWS5180: IP: Copyright and Designs
2025 unit information
This unit covers copyright and designs law, both recognised branches of intellectual property law. Their existence is often justified on the presumption that they encourage the exercise of creative innovative skill and labour. The protection these areas of law provides is said to enable commercial exploitation of the resulting creations or designs. This unit focuses on the requirements for the copyright and design protection and investigates the bases upon which infringement action can be brought. Although the unit of study will emphasise copyright and design legal doctrine (legislation and case law), it is also recognised that the deployment and regulation of intellectual property have their basis in policy rationales, seek to promote certain policy goals and inevitably have substantial cultural, technological and economic consequences, which in turn inform and shape the development of legal doctrine. So, for example, Gone With The Wind, as a literary work still under copyright, is simultaneously an asset with a monetary value, a cultural object to which people have deeply emotional responses, and the focus of a civil rights activism which demands the right to engage with, and critique the work. There will, accordingly, be some attention paid in this unit to the cultural, technological and economic consequences of intellectual property laws, to the significance of access to the public domain and the the effects if industry interests and international trade pressure in the area. Australian Indigenous Intellectual and Cultural Property and Indigenous perspectives on IP are also discussed.
Unit details and rules
Managing faculty or University school:
Sydney Law School
| Study level | Postgraduate |
|---|---|
| Academic unit | Law |
| Credit points | 6 |
|
Prerequisites:
?
|
None |
|---|---|
|
Corequisites:
?
|
None |
| Prohibitions:
?
|
LAWS3033 or LAWS3423 or LAWS3480 |
| Assumed knowledge:
?
|
None |
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:
- LO1. describe the structure of the Australian copyright system
- LO2. describe the policy goals of copyright law, evaluate how well copyright serves those goals, and analyse how those policy goals apply in the context of technological and economic change
- LO3. apply the legislation and case law relating to copyright in Australia to new fact scenarios
- LO4. resolve questions of interpretation in copyright drawing on legislation, case law, and copyright's policy goals
- LO5. describe the structure and policy goals of registered design law in Australia
- LO6. apply the legislation and case law relating to designs in Australia to new fact scenarios
- LO7. describe and apply to new fact scenarios the rules relating to the overlap between copyright and design law in Australia
- LO8. describe the system of international intellectual property treaties and how they impact on Australian intellectual property laws (in particular, copyright and designs)
Unit availability
This section lists the session, attendance modes and locations the unit is available in. There is a unit outline for each of the unit availabilities, which gives you information about the unit including assessment details and a schedule of weekly activities.
The outline is published 2 weeks before the first day of teaching. You can look at previous outlines for a guide to the details of a unit.
| Session | MoA ? | Location | Outline ? |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Semester 2 2025
|
Normal day | Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney |
Outline unavailable
|
Find your current year census dates
Modes of attendance (MoA)
This refers to the Mode of attendance (MoA) for the unit as it appears when you’re selecting your units in Sydney Student. Find more information about modes of attendance on our website.
