Technology & Entrepreneurship Law Certificate - JD
USC Gould School of Law

Earning a certificate in Technology and Entrepreneurship Law in addition to your JD degree gives you a thorough grounding and hands-on preparation for practice at the intersection of intellectual property and business law. It also offers you a credential that demonstrates your specialized training in this vibrant field.

You may concurrently earn multiple certificates offered by USC Gould. Some courses count toward more than one certificate.

No science or other technical background is required to complete the certificate or any of the qualifying courses.

Certificate Requirements

To earn the certificate, you must take at least 21 units of mandatory courses, core electives and other electives as outlined below:

• 11 units from the Mandatory Courses
• At least 4 units from the Core Electives

No more than 4 units counted toward the certificate may be taken CR/D/F.

Our Technology and Entrepreneurship courses emphasize the importance of acquiring both strong legal skills and familiarity with business concepts. The curriculum features a combination of lecture-style and skill-based courses taught principally in a workshop format. The courses go beyond the doctrinal and policy-oriented offerings in a traditional curriculum to provide you with experiential training that prepares you for practice.

Mandatory Courses

• Patent Law
• Business Organizations
• Taxation

Core Electives (at least 4 units required)

• Business Planning
• Counseling the Startup
• Dealmaking in the Entertainment Industry
• Deal Strategy, Structure and Negotiation
• Deals
• Digital Media Transactions
• Intellectual Property Licensing
• Intellectual Property Litigation
• Patent Drafting and Prosecution
• Technology Transactions
• Television and Digital Media: Business and Production Issues
• Intellectual Property Litigation
• Transactional Planning in Digital Media
• Venture Capital and Emerging Companies
• Venture Capital Law and Finance

Electives

• Antitrust
• Business Bankruptcy
• Business for Lawyers
• Communications Law
• Computer Crime Law
• Computer Science for Lawyers
• Contract Drafting, Analysis and Negotiation
• Contract Drafting and Negotiation
• Contract Drafting and Strategy
• Contract Negotiation and Strategy
• Corporate Finance
• Corporate Taxation
• Cyber Crime and Policy
• Cyberlaw: Legal Issues Impacting Providers and Users of Internet Services
• Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Online Dispute Resolution
• Fundamental Business Principles
• General Counsel Practicum
• Information Privacy Law
• Intellectual Property
• Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic
• Legal Innovations Lab
• Legal Technology
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Negotiation Skills
• Partnership Taxation
• Partnerships and LLCs
• Secured Transactions
• Securities Regulation
• Small Business Clinic
• Transactional Due Diligence
• Topics in Corporate Law: Legal Negotiation
• Video Game Law in Practice

Not all courses are offered every year.

Other courses at USC Gould or other schools at USC or other universities may count as electives or may substitute for mandatory courses with approval from the associate dean for Academic Affairs.

This past summer I worked in Palo Alto, California, at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati in the intellectual property litigation department. I will return to Wilson and Sonsini as an associate after graduation. I am hoping to work with copyright and trademark, and learn more about those areas of law. With the internet and the law constantly changing, I expect this to be an exciting practice to pursue.

Ava Miller, JD 2017

With a BA in physics and material sciences, I wanted to become a patent practitioner. I passed the patent bar very easily after completing Patent Law. In class, we practiced drafting motions and mock court filings. I have taken Patent Litigation, Entertainment Law, Business in Media, Entertainment and Technology classes. The professors are all very well-known, and working in the real world full time, not just somebody who teaches it. This was very valuable to me. I have accepted a full-time job offer from the firm where I worked in the summer, assisting in all kinds of patent prosecution and litigation.

Alexander Kappner, JD 2017
Associate, Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear

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