| University | University of Auckland (UOA) |
| Subject | LAWCOMM 795 Copyright and Design |
LAWCOMM 795 Copyright and Design Final Assessment: Semester 2, 2026
| Course | LAWCOMM 795 Copyright and Design |
| Institution | University of Auckland, Faculty of Law |
| Assessment | Final assessment: letter of advice |
| Weighting | 50% |
| Word Limit | 3,250 words |
| Due Date | 23 October 2026, 12:00pm (Week 12) |
| Referencing | New Zealand Law Style Guide, hyperlinked footnotes, no bibliography |
The LAWCOMM 795 final assessment is a 3,250-word letter of advice to a baby products company that wants to protect an AI-assisted bath product design in New Zealand and Australia. The letter has to apply copyright and design law to the facts, deal with a design created with the help of a generative AI model, and set out a clear protection strategy for an impatient CEO.
Instructions
- Prepare a letter of advice to your client in response to the scenario below.
- Include an executive summary, an introduction and a conclusion; use headings and subheadings, and a numbered format if you wish (e.g. 1 Heading, 1.1 Subheading).
- You may refer to materials on the TALIS reading list, in class, on the lecture slides or elsewhere, but you must reference in compliance with the New Zealand Law Style Guide using footnotes, hyperlink every footnote to a working link, and make sure every cited material exists and supports the point made.
- The letter will be marked against the University of Auckland Law Grading Guide for Research-based Work.
- Generative AI (e.g. Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT) is permitted with disclosure in a paragraph at the end, covering generation of ideas, searching for materials, generating or rewriting text, and any other use.
- Include the signed declaration confirming responsibility for all content, including the risk of significant mark reduction for hallucinated cases or statutory sections.
- No bibliography is needed.
Scenario
Design 200103605 is on the Australian Designs Register. However, assume that this design was never registered on the Australian Designs Register or anywhere else in the world, and that the design drawings listed in that registration (the Drawings) have never been made publicly available anywhere in the world.
Smuggle Ltd makes baby products, including baby bath products. Smuggle wants to register the design set out in the Drawings in New Zealand and Australia. The Drawings were produced by Tyrone Thompson, a designer in Smuggle’s baby product design team.
Tyrone’s standard method is to put a prompt into Smuggle’s generative AI model, AFly, and use the output as “inspiration” before drafting a drawing by pen and later with computer-aided design tools. He looks at the AFly “inspiration” drawings once and then draws from there. Tyrone then uploads his drawings back into AFly for a “tidy-up”. The final drawings used to create production prototypes and supplied to contract manufacturers are the drawings AFly has “tidied up”.
In 2023, Smuggle’s then leading baby bath product (a different product with a different design) was slavishly copied by several competitors. One competitor imported poor-quality replicas from China and sold them in Australia and New Zealand at much lower prices, and Smuggle lost significant market share. Smuggle’s global CEO, Miranda Melendez, has vowed that Smuggle will make better use of intellectual property law to protect its designs.
Task
Miranda asks your IP firm for advice and a coherent strategy on how best to protect the design in the Drawings under the copyright and design laws of New Zealand and Australia. Advise her on the most important copyright and design law issues likely to arise in both countries and outline a clear and compelling course of action for Smuggle. Miranda wants advisers to get to the point, so the advice must focus on how the law applies to these facts, with very little description of the law by itself.
- You are expected to conduct any searches of the New Zealand and Australian design registers you consider necessary.
- The prior art base does not include anything not on the design registers in New Zealand and Australia.
- Include any further information you would need to cement or confirm your advice.
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The LAWCOMM 795 copyright and design final assessment rewards advice that goes straight to the facts: who owns copyright in an AI-assisted drawing, whether the Smuggle design is new and distinctive against the NZ and Australian registers, and what filing and enforcement plan protects the next bath product from copycat imports. Our intellectual property law assignment help supports University of Auckland law students with issue spotting, NZLSG footnotes and structuring a letter of advice, and our Auckland assignment helpers know the faculty grading guide. If you are also taking trade mark practice, see the related LAWCOMM 782 trade mark letter of advice.
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