Legal Aspects of Managing Technology

by Lee B. Burgunder, Southwestern Educational Publishing

Legal Aspects of Managing Technology is designed for managers who work with innovations in any technological field. The book focuses substantial attention on the wide range of controversial issues regarding intellectual property rights, but covers all other key technology law topics as well, such as privacy, biotechnology, e-commerce and antitrust. The text examines legal policies from managerial and social perspectives, and it addresses strategic decisions within the international context. The book also uses hypothetical and real-world thread cases to show students how to critically think about legal choices as new topics are introduced. The result is a text that provides a seamless combination of critical elements: It focuses on integral technology law topics, analyzes the most current and interesting issues, engages readers in controversial and important social issues, and demonstrates the public policy process.

656 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Muneel Zaidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in its entirety for an intellectual property class, and it helped my understanding of the subject greatly. That said, it's not an ideal textbook for a university class for two reasons.

First, it's outdated. The 5th edition was written before the America Invents Act (Patent Reform Act) was signed into law, so it has a lot of outdated info about patents in it. The US is no longer a "first to invent" country, it is a "first to file" for example. The chapters on software patents, business methods, and the internet are all as outdated as a 5-year-old computer. No mention of digital currency, online legal services, or other things a contemporary manager needs to know.

Second, it approaches law developmentally. As an engineer taking a law class, I'm not going to be tested on the history of how the law developed. I will be tested on how to apply the law. I don't need to read outdated, long-winded passages about how the courts finally settled on a way to define what can be patented, I just need to know what can be patented. For the most part, the book puts this applicable information in text boxes throughout, but it could do better.

It would also help if after every case brief, writ, opinion, etc... there was a text box outlining what was important about this particular case, and how it affects case law. It would be an easy way to get info at a glance when referencing. Overall, a good book for its time, but outdated and written more for budding lawyers than engineers who haven't "read" a textbook since high school.

[Anna]

As a software engineer and IT professional with no legal background, I really appreciated the clear and easy to understand text and case breakdowns. I was expecting something much more dense and difficult, but was very pleasantly surprised

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great overview / introduction to the tremendously complex topic of intellectual property law from a well-grounded business perspective.