LAW 7771 - Biotech Law and Ethics

Biotechnology is an exceedingly promising tool from progress in medicine, agriculture and industrial products. Yet this young technology is highly controversial and fraught with legal and religious/ethical implications, particularly in human reproduction, cloning and bioengineered food and animals. The course is designed to cover broadly legal and ethical issues such as intellectual property, stem cell research, bioengineered food, gene therapy, drug law (especially the tension between branded and generic drugs) and criminal law/DNA finger printing). Students will not be expected to bring in-depth understanding of the legal or scientific principles involved. Students primarily interested in intellectual property law can expect to learn how biotech uniquely affects patent law. Students not primarily interested in patent law should lean how biotech broadly affects legal issues while learning some of the fundamentals of intellectual property.