Engineering Law
Engineering Law covers patents, trade secrets, contracts, NDAs, employment agreements, and product/professional liability to help engineers avoid legal issues in projects and organizations.
Summary
Past student reviews · Joseph Barich
The course was rated as difficult, covering a complex subject that required significant effort to understand.
What you’ll be able to do
Apply the basics of patent law including how to obtain patents, how to analyze patent claims, how patents are infringed or infringement can be avoided, how to recognize and capture patentable innovation, how to approach international patents, and the differentiation between trade secrets and patents.
Appraise the innovation IP infrastructure at their organization in order to become more effective in interacting with it.
Apply the basics of contract law including some key contract terms and often-encountered agreements such as Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and Employment Agreements.
Engage the legal contractual infrastructure within their organization in order to become more effective in proactively interacting with it.
Gain an improved ability to avoid legal liabilities by identifying commonly-occurring legal issues that may give rise to liability, and how to address them.
Source: UW Guide
Grade history
↗All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors
Prerequisites
Course mapGraduate/professional standing
- Graduate/professional standing
This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.
Prerequisite text tree
- Graduate/professional standing
Professors
Spring 2027No instructors recorded for this selection.
Historical instructors & teaching patterns
JOSEPH BARICH is recorded teaching in Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
Calendar & sections
Spring 2027Schedule loads here as you scroll.
| Section | Mode | Enrolled / capacity | Waitlist |
|---|
Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.
Meeting source records
Student experience
the class
Past student reviews · Joseph Barich
Professor Barich taught Engineering Law with enthusiasm and passion, making a potentially dry and complex subject engaging for students.
Recent recorded grades — Fall 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=8 letter grades).
difficulty & workload
Past student reviews · Joseph Barich
The course was rated as difficult, covering a complex subject that required significant effort to understand.
Past student reviews · Joseph Barich
Students found the instructor knowledgeable and affable, noting his genuine desire to help them grasp the material.
Topics
- Patents, trade secrets, contracts, employment and non-disclosure agreements, product and professional liability.
- Innovation IP infrastructure within organizations.
- Legal contractual infrastructure within organizations.
Skills
- Apply the basics of patent law, including obtaining patents, analyzing claims, avoiding infringement, and differentiating trade secrets from patents.
- Apply the basics of contract law, including key terms and agreements like NDAs and Employment Agreements.
- Identify and address commonly-occurring legal issues to avoid legal liabilities.
- Avoid legal problems that often affect engineering projects and organizations.
Grades
Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.
Grade distribution · % of letter grades
More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data
Not enough comparable courses for Spring 2027 in UW–Madison.
Sources & history
Catalog & offerings
Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.
Catalog observation history
Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.
Selected offering source records
No offering records for the selected term.
Raw records
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Student reviews
Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.
Read original reviews
Grade history
Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.
Explore recorded gradesRecorded 2026-10-14
Model outputs & technical records
LLM outputs across runs
Full model traces
Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.
Model & dataset provenance
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"model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
"task_version": "17",
"output_id": "ec4e4c9ae87e90fb617db99f1cd85229b1d46f8aeaf8964555d889b2ce95d52f",
"requirements_status": "valid",
"dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
"observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}