UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE -- INFORMATION & COMPUTER SCIENCE
INFORMATICS 264 -- SPRING QUARTER 2005

Computer Law -- Course Reference

Instructor: David G. Kay, 406B Computer Science. Office hours: Officially Wednesdays after class, but feel free to drop by any time or send electronic mail to kay.
Meeting place and times: Wednesdays from 9:00 to 11:50, in IERF B011.
Course requirements: Reading and attending class to discuss the course materials; a term project on a computer law topic of your choice, presented orally (half talk, half discussion); one take-home final exam (out at the end of the ninth week, due at the start of finals week).
Readings: I'll assign readings as we go. Some will be on-line; others will be available in the ICS grad course handout file, in the filing cabinet outside the ICS kitchen. The course home page is http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/courses/264/. The course Email list is 37110-s05@classes.uci.edu; feel free to post questions or comments.
Approximate course outline:

Week	Date	Topics
1	April 6	Overview of computer law and the course Background on the legal system, legal principles and reasoning Sources of law Courts and jurisdiction
2	April 13	Protecting intellectual property rights in computer software: Copyright, patent, trade secret
3	April 20	Current intellectual property issues
4	April 27	Contracting for computer systems and services Free speech and other constitutional issues in cyberspace Privacy protection Fair information practices and fair credit reporting legislation
5	May 4	Liability for system malfunction Computer-related litigation and computer-based evidence
6	May 11	Computer crime and computer abuse Professional ethics Transborder data flow and international information policy Electronic fund transfer systems Computer applications in law practice
7	May 18	Project presentations
8	May 25	Project presentations
9	June 1	Project presentations
10	June 8	Project presentations and epilogue

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 -- 1:11 PM