With each passing year, intellectual property (IP) seems to play an even more vital role in today’s economy. But despite being ubiquitous, knowledge of how IP works, its laws and the challenges it faces in the digital world are limited to a relatively small group of legal professionals.

Luke Dauchot, partner at Kirkland & Ellis, however, is hoping to change that through teaching a novel course, “The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Intellectual Property,” at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Marshall Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.