Many undergraduate and postgraduate paralegal programs offer a course that serves as an overview of all four major areas of intellectual property: copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets. For example, Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan offers one such course that focuses on intellectual property as it pertains to inventors, artists and other creatives.
Some graduate programs offer intellectual property courses that include patent law. New Jersey's Montclair State University even offers a Master of Arts in Legal Studies with a concentration in intellectual property. It includes an advanced patent, trademark and copyright law course, which is a continuation of its undergraduate intellectual property course.
A nonprofit professional association is one source of continuing paralegal education courses in intellectual property, including patent law. For example, the National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA) offered two live, online continuing legal education courses addressing patent law for paralegals in Fall 2010: "Intellectual Property: What Every Paralegal Should Know" and "Patent Prosecution."