Assignment: Team Live IRAC Case Analysis
Goal - Each team prepares and presents the IRAC case (following the IRAC case method) to the professor in a virtual meeting.
Overview of the Assignment - Throughout the semester you will refine your critical thinking skills by analyzing cases using the IRAC case method. You will schedule a time for your team to meet with the faculty through a Google sheet (information provided in Blackboard). During this live session, in Module 6, your team will present the IRAC case for the week and be prepared to discuss content covered in the assigned chapters, as noted in Blackboard.
Although you will attend as a team, this exercise is graded individually, so each student is expected to follow the IRAC case method and be fully conversant with the facts, issues, rule, court's application of the law and the conclusion (holding) as well as information from the assigned textbook chapter(s).
Required Resources
Scenario1
Ava is a fashion design student. She took a college course called "Fashion for Safety," where students worked in teams to develop clothing designs that improve the wearer's safety. Ava's team considered how clothing could help wearers hide from attackers. Their professor suggested the students create an apparel item that appears normal but, with manipulation, converts into a camouflage design. The student team designed a reversible sweater where one side had an abstract camouflage pattern using colors typically found in urban settings. At the semester's end, the team posted the sweater's design specifications to the Internet.
After the semester's end, Ava continued thinking about camouflage clothing and how a person could "hide" in urban settings. This prompted Ava to develop a skirt that can convert into a fake vending machine. She calls it the "Vending Machine Skirt."
For the vending machine depicted on the skirt, Ava initially hand-drew an image of a vending machine. However, when she tested the skirt in public, she found that her drawings undermined the camouflage effect and drew unwanted attention from passersby. Therefore, she asked her friend Jerry, an amateur photographer, to photograph a specific Coca-Cola vending machine Ava found on a public street. To maximize its camouflage capacity, Ava gave Jerry very specific instructions about how and when to take the photo. Ava created the final skirt version using the photo taken by Jerry. Her subsequent public tests of the photo-based design indicated that the photo worked better as camouflage than her hand-drawn image.
Here is a series of four photos of the skirt being unfurled into the fake vending machine:
Question 1: Discuss Ava's possible patent, copyright and trademark protection (if any) for the Vending Machine Skirt.
Question 2: Discuss any potential copyright or trademark risks that Ava may face commercializing the Vending Machine Skirt.
Scenario taken from Professor Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University School of Law, course on Intellectual Property Law.