Engineering Law: The Skill That Sets Engineering Leaders Apart

As artificial intelligence and software systems continue to evolve, engineers are increasingly expected to understand more than just technical systems. Questions around intellectual property, liability, and ethical responsibility are becoming central to how technology is built and deployed. Yet many professionals enter the field without a clear understanding of how the law applies to their work. UIC’s MENG 400: Engineering Law helps bridge that gap. Offered within UIC’s Online Master of Engineering with a concentration in AI and Machine Learning, the course focuses on how legal systems intersect with engineering practice, particularly in fast-moving areas like AI.

Professor Maurine Neiberg, an attorney with a background in software development and intellectual property law, teaches this course. She wrote software and worked in the applied AI research center at the MITRE Corporation, where she saw that engineers creating software didn’t understand the legal underpinnings, and lawyers didn’t understand the technology. She saw a niche and, as she says, she blew up her life and went to get her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. She went on to practice law in Chicago, and has worked extensively in intellectual property law, while also teaching internationally in places such as Beijing, Shanghai, Turkey, Ukraine, and the Republic of Georgia. She currently is the Intellectual Property Counsel for Jane Freedman Law, LLC, a boutique law firm that specializes in start-up companies.

In this course highlight, Neiberg shares how MENG 400 prepares engineers to navigate legal complexity in today’s evolving technology landscape.

Understanding AI Law Uncertainty

One thing students need to understand is that we don’t know precisely where the outlines of the law concerning artificial intelligence are. Students are in this brave new world, where they’re creating AI systems and don’t know how the courts will treat certain issues as AI regulation continues to evolve.

There are three major AI legal issues. The first is who owns the intellectual property created when it’s the output of a generative AI system. The Copyright Office has been clear that if an AI system entirely creates a work, it is in the public domain because for copyright purposes, the author of a copyrighted work must be human. There have been cases working their way through the courts, including a decision where the D. C. Court of Appeals affirmed the Copyright Office’s refusal to grant an AI system authorship of a work. Since the work was created entirely by an AI system and not created by a human, copyright in the work could not be registered. At this point, that is one of the only areas where the law is settled.

The second issue is one of fair use. Has the copyright been infringed when a copyrighted work is used as a training example without the permission of the copyright owner? U.S. Copyright law contains a provision called “fair use” which allows for some uses without permission. When the use is fair, there is no copyright infringement. So, when does fair use apply in AI cases? It’s too early to know.

There are cases that have been working their way through trial courts. Two cases that were decided in the same week in the same U.S. District Court by two different judges reached different conclusions on the fair use issue. The outcome was similar in terms of who won and who lost, but the legal reasoning was almost exactly the opposite. Living with that uncertainty when you are the creator of an AI system is something students need to understand.

The third issue is legal liability. What happens when an AI system hurts somebody? We are now starting to see cases where those harms are real and tangible. This isn’t only the situation where a self-driving car crashes. There are situations where a system tells somebody that they don’t deserve to live, and the question becomes whether anybody is liable when that person takes their own life.

What Students Learn in MENG 400: Engineering Law

One of the key things students learn is that laws change over time. Sometimes laws change because a new law is passed by Congress or a state legislature, but more often laws our understanding of the law evolves through lawsuits that address new challenges. In a common law system, that’s how the system works. We are a common law jurisdiction, and we rely on precedent and stare decisis. That is how the legal system works in the U.S., and understanding that foundation helps students make sense of how legal decisions develop over time.

From there, students focus on intellectual property and its practical application. They learn what the different forms of intellectual property are, when a trademark protects you, when you need copyright, what’s worth patenting, what’s not, and how to use trade secrets if you’re not going to pursue a patent. You have to understand these concepts to make business decisions. This helps students recognize when something in an agreement may require closer attention or legal input, and when to say, I need to talk to my lawyer. They also learn the legal structures needed to form a business or enter into a licensing agreement or other contract.

Students also learn how to interpret legal information in context. When you read something in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, what does that mean? How do I understand this? Does this affect me? It is important to understand what this really means and not listen to loud voices with an agenda. Critical thinking is key.

How the Course Is Structured for Real-World Relevance

To make these concepts practical, the course is structured as a discussion-based course. Each week, students are given five or six topics from the learning materials to consider and respond to. These are not just abstract ideas. Students need to be able to connect those topics to their personal and professional experiences. This is not a theoretical case study. How does this affect you? Do you have experience related to this?

In addition to discussions, there are two live hours each week. Typically, one of those hours is reserved for a guest, an expert in a particular field, to share. In the past, guest speakers have included a patent lawyer to talk about his experiences with recent patent issues, an attorney whose practice focuses on technology start-ups to walk through business formation, and an eminent legal scholar with expertise in e-contracts to discuss the difference between contracts in the real world and contracts online. Other guests have included a scholar focused on computer science ethics and a privacy expert to discuss how changes in privacy laws affect software businesses.

Understanding and Avoiding Common Legal Mistakes

For many of these students, they have been the smartest person in the room for a long time. Founders of start-ups are often focused on reducing costs. One of the biggest mistakes among entrepreneurs, especially in the technology space, is thinking they don’t need to hire anyone to do their legal work. They believe they can start their company on their own, which gets them into trouble. It is much more expensive to fix those issues later, and sometimes you can’t fix them at all.

I had a client who decided to incorporate their business in a state they had never been in and had no connection to, not realizing they also had to file corporate documents and pay taxes in the state where they actually operate. Fixing that required shifting contracts, intellectual property, and business registrations. When that level of work is required, it often entails additional legal time and costs and sometimes means the company cannot operate at all for a period of time.

These types of issues become even more important as engineers take on greater responsibility. To succeed and to make good business decisions, it is vital to know the legal basics before making decisions. One of the things we are seeing with AI systems is that companies have decided they are not going to worry about the law and get their products to market. Now we have many lawsuits, and many authors and artists are really angry. For people creating software and AI systems, they need to understand their risks and know when they’re in over their heads and need legal advice. Ironically, some knowledge is necessary in order to understand when professional advice is needed.

In MENG 400, students learn to recognize when legal considerations may impact their work and when to seek guidance, helping them avoid these issues before they arise.

Advice for Professionals Considering UIC’s Online MEng Program

One of the things that is convenient about UIC’s Online MEng program is that the schedule is less structured than in an in-person program. At the same time, the caution is that when you are completing a four-credit course in eight weeks, there is a lot of material in a short period of time, and it can get away from you.

The number one piece of advice for this course is that if you have a problem or foresee an issue, you have to reach out to your professor. It is simple to grant extension if warned ahead of time. It’s almost impossible to fix blown deadlines after the fact.