Diploma in Law

1. 
   Register online with the LEC (see page 26 of the Course Information Handbook for detailed instructions). Once you have registered, you will have access to all the facilities on the LEC Webcampus.
   

2. 
   Then go into the Webcampus, select the Course Materials section and click on the link to the assignment questions for this subject.
   

In May of this year, the Carlington Blues Football Club sacked its embattled coach, Mike Barleyhouse. Carlington had been sitting at the bottom of the ladder with only one win in eight games.

Megan Hale, a computer programmer (and part-time model), is one of Carlington’s biggest supporters. She is fed up with Carlington’s recent string of unsuitable coaches and wants to see Carlington win a flag so badly that she develops BLUES CLUES, a computer program for rating potential coaches. BLUES CLUES works as follows:

(a) it receives from members of a selection panel (via an online evaluation form), for each coaching candidate, assigned values from 1 to 10 for the following categories: playing experience, coaching experience, emotional intelligence, humility, ingenuity, vision, ability to look fashionable in a navy blue tracksuit and ability to charm journalists at a press conference (something the often rude and condescending Barleyhouse was incapable of doing);

(b) it inputs the values into an algorithm with an assigned weight for each of the categories (the last two set out above being rated the highest) which calculates a total score from 1 to 100 for each coaching candidate; and

(c) it generates a list of the coaching candidates from highest to lowest scores in a spreadsheet, which also provides information such as the coaches’ current positions and salaries.

While she was developing BLUES CLUES, Megan read an article from last year about how a Japanese soccer team selected its coach according to a computer-generated ranking that was based on the results of an online fan survey. The fans were provided a list of potential coaches and were asked to assign a value from 1 to 10 for each coach based on his/her perceived suitability. The coaches were then ranked according to their total scores (from highest to lowest). At the time Megan also recalled the 2011 movie “Honeyball” in which an algorithm used to determine the true value of baseball players assigned more weight to non-traditional statistics such as the player’s speed and “NERD” (i.e., quantitative measure of the aesthetic appeal of the player), as opposed to, for example, the player’s batting average.

Megan files a provisional patent application for BLUES CLUES.

A week later, upon learning of BLUES CLUES at Megan’s photo shoot for Carlington’s new line of licensed swimwear, the Carlington President hands Megan a list of the twenty candidates (the “Candidates”) that have confidentially applied for Carlington’s vacant coaching position, as well as contact information for the members of the selection panel. He asks her to provide to each of the members an online evaluation form that includes all of the Candidates and to have the values received from the members input to BLUES CLUES. He further asks her to present the results generated by BLUES CLUES at the next meeting of the selection panel. However, he instructs her to find an interesting way to present the results so that the members remain engaged during the presentation.

Megan modifies BLUES CLUES to include an additional feature (the “Add-On”) that produces, on a big screen and in video game style, an animated version of each of the Candidates kicking a ball at the goal from 50 metres out. The program corresponds the Candidate’s success at kicking the goal to the Candidate’s rating; for example, a 95-rated Candidate’s ball will go straight through the centre posts and into the crowd (with cheering sound effects) and a 60-rated Candidate’s ball will fall short and wide (with a collective sigh sound effect).

For the Add-On, Megan has uploaded photos of the Candidates from their current clubs’ web sites and has utilised cut-outs of their faces for the animated figures. She has also uploaded a photo of a Carlington cap from the official club web store and placed copies of it on the heads of the animated figures. She has also included recordings of crowd sound effects that she obtained from a broadcast of a recent game on the FOXY FOOTY channel.

Megan files a standard patent application (including BLUES CLUES in its original form plus the Add-On) which claims priority from the provisional patent application.

A day before the meeting, after all of the evaluation forms have been completed and the received values have been input to BLUES CLUES, BLUES CLUES generates a list of the Candidates ranked from highest to lowest. At the top of the list are the words “Confidential – property of the Carlington Football Club – for the eyes of authorised recipients only”. Megan intends to send an advance copy of the list to the Carlington President (Mark LoBlue) but accidentally emails it to the wrong “Mark”, i.e., Mark Robinhood, a renowned football journalist. Robinhood immediately publishes a story entitled “No More Blues About Carlington’s Coaching Dilemma” that identifies the top five Candidates on the list.

Megan wants to present each member of the selection panel with an action figure of the top Candidate at the end of the presentation. She orders an action figure depicting a player wearing a black and white guernsey and holding a ball as if just about to kick it from the online store of Collingbark (a competing football club). She has exact replicas (except wearing the Carlington guernsey and bearing the facial likeness of the top Candidate) made in China and shipped to her. Collingbark has a registered design in Australia for its action figure. The members of the selection panel are so impressed by Megan’s action figure that they then arrange for a replica of the action figure (except depicting the likeness of Carlington’s top player) to be specially made and available for purchase.

If the design drawings for the registered design were created by one of the staff at the marketing company that Collingbark contracts to do marketing work for the club: