Intellectual Property and Nonprofit Organizations Clinic

Faculty:    Professors David Deal and Peter Ruger 
Founder:  Professor Charles McManis

THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS CLINIC presents law students with unique opportunities to address transactional matters and provide advice to clients on a full spectrum of intellectual property and nonprofit law issues.  Students address a wide range of patent, copyright, trademark, and general business formation matters.  Clients range from small startup entities to community and educational groups to international organizations.  Professors David Deal and Peter Ruger co-direct this clinic.

Students in the Clinic collaborate in interdisciplinary experiential learning activities with students from the School of Medicine, Olin Business School, the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Arts & Sciences, and the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to provide legal services to clients who might otherwise not have access to competent legal counsel.

The Clinic’s activities are devoted to four program areas, each of which involves teams of students, who:

• Participate in interdisciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship courses, such as the Olin Business School’s Hatchery course;
• Work with St. Louis-area IP attorneys to provide early stage legal advice to other innovators and entrepreneurs, especially with business incubators in the St. Louis area;
• Assist nonprofit organizations with entity formation, obtaining tax-exemption status, and other matters in the course of representation. 
• Work with two area research organizations — the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center — on international projects involving genetic resources, biotechnology, and the protection of traditional medicinal and agricultural knowledge;

Intellectual Property & Nonprofit Organizations Clinic students and faculty recently:

• Worked with organizations such as the Missouri Botanical Garden and The International Center of Indigenous Phytotherapy Studies to protect traditional knowledge of indigenous groups;
• Investigated two potentially ground-breaking innovations and the related intellectual property issues for two national biotechnology firms;
• Helped secure a collection of traditional ecological knowledge owned by a group of Canadian First Nations; 
• Assisted intellectual property clients with securing a distinctive name and obtaining a well-known singer’s permission to use her song in an informational DVD;
• Developed articles of incorporation for four charter schools and for a nonprofit that provides hospice care in Thailand;
• Analyzed animal rights legislation and created a whistleblower policy.

Read about Washington University Law’s Intellectual Property and Technology Law program at this link, http://law.wustl.edu/IPlaw/.

For more information or questions about the Clinic, contact David Deal, Co-Director, by email at drdeal@wulaw.wustl.edu or by telephone at (314) 935-7960; or Peter Ruger, Co-Director, by email at pruger@wustl.edu or by telephone at (314) 935-8815.