Legal and Human Resources

Learning Outcomes

Description
Business Law:
In this course you are offered a basic and practical understanding of the New Zealand legal system and of various aspects of commercial and business law as these relate to typical situations in which engineers are involved.

Intellectual Property Law:
In this course you are offered a basic and practical understanding of the New Zealand intellectual property law and of various aspects of intellectual property ownership, protection and trade as these relate to typical situations in which engineers are involved.

Introduction to Law
This will cover the various different fields of law, a brief explanation between the difference between criminal and civil law. We will cover the sources of law, how laws are made and interpreted, how laws are applied.

Contract Law
This will be one of the most significant parts of the course. This will cover the formation of a contracts, offer and acceptance, issues of consideration, revocation of offers, concepts of time, quasi contract, and issues when contracts go wrong. We will cover illegal contracts, mistake, misrepresentation, fundamental breach, frustration and remedies. We will also discuss agency.

Torts (the law of civil wrongs)
This is also a significant area of study, particularly for engineers. We will cover the main torts (negligence and nuisance) with a main focus on negligence including the concept of a duty of care, breach of duty, causation, proximity, forseeability and contribution to fault. We will consider warranties. We will consider product liability and the extension of liability to consultants and advisors. We will discuss remedies and limitation of liability. In nuisance we will cover the private and public nuisance, the basis of liability, defences and remedies. We will briefly discuss special issues in relation to trespass and occupiers liability.

Consumer Law
We will discuss the most common consumer laws that relate to commerce such as the Consumers Guarantee Act, the Securities Act, the Fair Trading Act, and the Sale of Goods Act. We will discuss the statutory concepts of misleading and deceptive behaviour and false representations. We will consider guaranties and warranties implied by statute into agreements for sale of goods and services and the limits on contracting out of those responsibilities.

Employment
We will consider basic obligations in relation to employment law. We will discuss the prohibitions on discrimination, a study of the principles of good faith bargaining, intellectual property in relation to employment, and health and safety in employment and holidays and leave.

Competition Law
We will consider the key concepts of the Commerce Act, including understanding the key terms of "markets" "dominant position" "substantially lessening competition" and "price fixing".
Business Structure and Commercial Organizations
We will consider the basic principles of Company law, and different trading entities including sole trader, partnership, limited partnership, trusts and joint ventures. We will consider the concept of limitation of liability and "piercing the corporate veil", directors duties, personal liability and basic principles of insolvency. We will consider registration of charges and mortgages.

Equity
We will consider the concept of fiduciary duties, concepts of trust and confidence, principles of natural justice and application of the principles. We will consider the establishment of trusts, the three requirements, limits on powers, discretionary trusts, resulting trusts, and constructive trusts

Tax
We will discuss the main taxes, including income tax, GST , withholding taxes, gift duties and capital gains taxes. We will briefly consider cross border tax issues and key tax risks.

Land
We will consider basic land law principles, such as the NZ land titles system. We will consider issues of landlord and tenant, and residential tenancies as they apply to businesses. We will discuss mortgages and charges over real and personal property and security interests in land. We will consider the principles of possession, the contractual concepts of waiver and time of the essence and rights and remedies. We will briefly consider the application of the Overseas Investment regime in relation to interests in land. We will briefly consider common land interests including licences, and profits a prendre which can be useful in mining.


Intellectual Property Law

Session 1
Overview
Protection
Patents

Session 2
Patents
Registered Designs

Session 3
Copyright
Licensing

Session 4
Copyright
Artistic

Session 5
Trade Marks
Fair Trading Act
Licensing
Protection

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge
This course develops specialised operational and technical knowledge in the area of business and intellectual property law and its application to understanding business and investment environments.  It also develops specialised operational knowledge of the preparation of intellectual property management plans.  It is the foundation course for 2 follow on courses which develop knowledge of commercialisation and strategy.  Students will demonstrate broad understanding and integrating of the knowledge via group and individual assignments that are based on information extracted from actual business situations. Specific knowledge is also demonstrated in the skills and application assessment items.

Skills
Students’ observational and analytical skills in the area will be developed through short quizzes and will be assessed through group assignments for largely unfamiliar style problems.  Students will also demonstrate skill to analyse and generate solutions to complex and sometimes unpredictable problems through individual assignments.

Application
The business law and intellectual property law sections of this course mutually complement each other while laying the foundation skills for application in project management, contracts and commercialisation.

Students will complete a series of in-class exercises, each building on its predecessor, to apply their knowledge and analytical skills to eventually be able to assess and interpret legal situations in a real-world situation.  The number of formal in-class sessions are insufficient to complete the exercise so students must manage their time and work with others to both validate and transfer knowledge.

Prerequisites

For further information see Masters in Engineering Management .