The Oxford Diploma in IP Law and Practice is a postgraduate vocational course for people embarking on a career in IP law and practice. It is a one-year, part-time course designed to give junior practitioners a grounding in the fundamentals of IP law and practice. It is taught by senior practitioners and academics, and represents a unique collaboration between the Oxford Law Faculty and the Intellectual Property Lawyers’ Association.
If you wish to attend just the two-week residential programme rather than the full degree, please look under ‘Non Degree Students’ for more information.
The Diploma is an intellectually rigorous academic and professional development programme in an area of enormous national and international importance. It will suit anyone seeking to build a career specialising as a lawyer in IP, whether or not they have previously studied IP.
It comprises a two-week residential programme in Oxford, and a series of weekend workshops held from October to June which are usually held at London law firms. It is taught by a mix of practising and academic lawyers, and covers the full range of IP subjects (including Patents, Trade Marks, Unfair Competition and Passing Off, Trade Secrets, Designs, Copyright and Moral Rights) as well as key aspects of litigious and non-litigious IP practice and procedure.
The Diploma is unique in many respects. But two are particularly important, and these reflect the challenges of contemporary intellectual property law and practice. First, the course is comprehensive in scope. Intellectual property law is increasingly complex, putting pressure on practitioners to specialise in narrow fields of the discipline. Yet, problems in practice rarely arise so neatly. The Oxford Diploma offers coverage of all the substantive IP regimes. And it treats the material in a variety of important contexts (domestic and international, litigation and transactional). Second, it is both designed and taught in close collaboration between leading academics and practitioners. The growing complexity of intellectual property law makes a fundamental appreciation of the underlying legal principles essential to top-level practice. And the fast-changing commercial and technological environment in which intellectual property operates makes exposure to practice significant for any proper academic understanding of the subject-matter. The Oxford Diploma facilitates this essential interaction of law and practice through the close involvement of leading members of the legal profession in the design and teaching of the course. The result is a course in intellectual property law and practice that is second to none.
Teaching is usually undertaken in Oxford and London in intensive periods, primarily during the two-week residential programme in Oxford and a series of Saturday workshops usually held in London between October to June. The residential programme provides students a unique Oxford experience, including college life and interaction with Oxford faculty, practitioners and fellow students.
The degree is not designed for distance learning but for people who will attend the residential programme and workshops in Oxford and London in person.
