Law and Economics can be defined as the application of economic theory, ie primarily microeconomics and the basic concepts of welfare economics, to examine the formation, structure, processes, and economic impact of law and legal institutions. This approach is applied on intellectual property rights (IPRs), particularly trade marks, patents, trade secrets and copyright, to explain the economic rationale of these rights. This takes place using as tools, among other things, concepts such as "market", "the individual as rational wealth maximizer","law as incentive", "efficiency", "transaction costs", "property rights", etc. In addition these concepts are used to test whether or not economics can be utilized as an argument when applying law in IPR cases. The course ends with discussing the connection between economics, competition, business strategy and IPRs.
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