UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
IRVINE — INFORMATION & COMPUTER
SCIENCE
INFORMATICS 269 — SPRING QUARTER
2008
Computer Law
— Course Reference
Instructor: David G. Kay,
5056 Donald Bren Hall. 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 ICS 243.
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. Most will be on-line; I'll arrange access to the others. The course home page is http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/courses/269/.
The course Email list is 37230-s08@classes.uci.edu;
feel free to post questions or comments.
Approximate course outline:
Week 1 |
April 2 |
Overview of computer law and the course |
Week 2 |
April 9 |
Protecting intellectual property rights in computer software: Copyright, patent, trade secret |
Week 3 |
April 16 |
Current intellectual property issues |
Week 4 |
April 23 |
Contracting for computer systems and services Free speech and other constitutional issues in cyberspace Privacy protection Fair information practices and fair credit reporting legislation |
Week 5 |
April 30 |
Liability for system malfunction Computer-related litigation and computer-based evidence |
Week 6 |
May 7 |
Computer crime and computer abuse Professional ethics Transborder data flow and international information policy Electronic fund transfer systems Computer applications in law practice |
Week 7 |
May 14 |
Project presentations |
Week 8 |
May 21 |
Project presentations |
Week 9 |
May 28 |
Project presentations |
Week 10 |
June 4 |
Project presentations and epilogue |