To be honest, when I first signed up for this class, I had no idea of what I was getting into. I didn't quite understand the syllabus initially, I didn't understand if there would be any technical material in this course, and I didn't understand how a business major with no intention of going to law school would ever really need to use patent law and an understanding of patents for my future career. For me this class initially sounded very vague and I was quite hesitant about whether this was the right class for me to take. Having gone through over 12 weeks of IEOR 190G, my mindset has undergone a full 360.
I believe the beauty of this class lies in its ability to connect to all the different spheres of the tech world and the individuals involved to showcase how patents truly dictate the evolution of our society. Coming in and leaving this class, my immediate ambition after graduation lies working with technology services and institutions in either a consulting or investment banking analyst role. While these industries are indeed number driven and focus a lot on the quantitative and qualitative nature of their businesses, I never realized how patents drive the existence of these tech companies first and foremost. When I recently went to a conference a few weeks ago for individuals interested in investment banking, speaking to professionals in the industry, one of the key components they spoke about when it came to the valuation of companies was about the patent portfolio of these tech companies. The importance of patents for so many people in so many separate industries really surprised me throughout this course and for someone who desires to be involved in the tech industry in my future, this course taught me that the foundational structure of any tech company revolves around that company's patent portfolio.
The reason I would suggest this class to my peers is because of its cross-functional utility for so many different industries. It doesn't matter whether your an engineer, business major, or pre-med, patents apply to so many different fields of study and I feel that this is definitely a course useful for whatever field of study a person is in. But I would not recommend this course simply because of the usefulness of the course for future careers. There are many courses at Berkeley that are offered that are useful for our future careers, but what separates this course is the learning experience. We are consistently challenged in class when answering questions, pushed in our homework to provide clear analysis and understanding of patent law, and have our work critiqued by our own peers. This learning experience is eye-opening and forces you to learn in a new style that improves your sense of interpreting patents and using deductive reasoning to come to conclusions. That is why I would suggest this class to my peers. The unique experience behind it differentiates it from so many courses offered at our great university.
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