You can start the specialisation studies in either the summer or winter semester (the former is relevant, for example, if you are studying abroad or taking a semester off). The coordinated courses take place in the same semester, i.e. the summer semester is independent of the winter semester and vice versa.
You can write your seminar paper during the lecture-free period after your first semester of specialisation – so if you start in October, you can write your seminar paper between February and April; if you start in April, you can write your seminar paper between July and October. However, you are also allowed to take the seminar at a later date – this will then extend your study period accordingly. It is not possible to start the seminar before the lecture period (i.e. before you have attended any lectures).
You may only take the oral examination after you have registered for the seminar (regardless of whether you pass the seminar or only submit a seminar paper).
You must have completed both the seminar and the oral examination by the end of the 14th semester at the latest. If you do not succeed, the first attempt is considered to have been assessed as ‘unsatisfactory (0 points)’ and you only have the repeat attempt if you fail, which must be completed by the end of the 16th semester at the latest. In exceptional cases, individual semesters cannot be taken into account; the examination board decides on this – please ask the dean of studies for details!
| SPB 9 - Privates Wirtschaftsrecht | SPB 10 - Öffentliches und Privates Wirtschaftsrecht | SPB 24 - Digitalwirtschaft | SPB 26 - Legal Tech | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter semester | Lauterkeitsrecht (Beurskens) Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz (Beurskens) | Wirtschaftsverfassungs- und Wirtschaftsverwaltungsrecht (VHB-Kurs Kramer, Vorlesung Schröder) Lauterkeitsrecht (Beurskens) Kapitalmarktrecht (Huthmacher) oder Europäisches Wirtschaftsrecht (Abel) | Lauterkeitsrecht (Beurskens) Datenrecht (Bomhard)
| Datenbanken, Netzwerke, Sicherheit und Kommunikation (Schafft) Programmierung mit Skriptsprachen für Juristen (Beurskens) Ringvorlesung Legal Tech (Riehm) Variante 1: Rechtsanwaltliches Berufs- und Haftungsrecht (Lewinski - "große" Vorlesung) |
| Summer semester | Kartellrecht (Beurskens) Praxis des Kartellrechts (Linsmeier) Urheberrecht (Beurskens) Wirtschaftsrechtliche Verfahren (Kalbfus/Röckrath) (Seminar: writing the seminar paper during the semester break before the semester) | Vergaberecht (VHB-Kurs Kramer) Regulierungsrecht (VHB-Kurs Kramer) Kartellrecht (Beurskens) (Seminar: writing the seminar paper during the semester break before the semester) | Kartellrecht (Beurskens) Urheberrecht (Beurskens) Internetrecht (Bräutigam) (Seminar: writing the seminar paper during the semester break before the semester) | Grundzüge des IT- und Datenrechts (Bomhard/Rücker) Algorithmen und Recht (Valerius) Variante 2: VHB-Kurs Rechtsanwaltliches Berufsrecht (Lewinski - "Kompaktkurs") |
All lectures on private commercial law (Privates Wirtschaftsrecht) are supported by an Ilias course. There you will not only find (fully formulated) lecture notes, an outline with key questions (which could also be asked in the oral exam), sample cases and exams from previous years, court rulings and essays, as well as the slides from the lecture and a recording of the last series of events (if necessary from the previous year), but (above all) a forum in which you can anonymously (!) ask all the more or less uncomfortable questions that were left unanswered in the lecture. The courses remain open across semesters and are each supplemented with updated documents - so there is no ‘old’ course that you could accidentally access.
The following courses are available:
Lauterkeitsrecht https://ilias.uni-passau.de/ilias/goto.php?target=crs_76789_rcodeHEL4jPS4Vv&client_id=intelec
Kartellrecht https://ilias.uni-passau.de/ilias/goto.php?target=crs_72514_rcodeCAQ6BX267J&client_id=intelec
Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz https://ilias.uni-passau.de/ilias/goto.php?target=crs_76788_rcodeNFdRrgrqRT&client_id=intelec
Urheberrecht https://ilias.uni-passau.de/ilias/goto.php?target=crs_72508_rcode2hWB7Mes76&client_id=intelec
No. The oral exam is a ‘final examination’. This means that you must at least be officially registered for the seminar (i.e. the registration period must have expired so that withdrawal is no longer possible).
The registration deadlines for seminars and oral exams are not determined by the chairs, but by the dean of studies - currently at https://www.jura.uni-passau.de/studium/pruefungen/juristische-universitaetspruefung. If no deadlines are yet listed there, they have not yet been set - please refrain from asking..
The seminar is the only scientific course in your studies. It resembles a small doctoral procedure (to acquire a doctoral degree) and consists of two elements:
A seminar is a group session, which means that you should read all the other papers, come to the lectures and participate in the discussions.
| Points | 18 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Generally, you should sign up for your seminar after the first semester of your specialisation studies (i.e. not after the second semester of specialisation, but also not before you have even started your specialisation studies). This means:
If you begin your specialisation studies in the winter semester (i.e. in October), the registration period that ends in February or April applies to you, rather than the one that ends in August or October. A preliminary discussion for the seminar usually takes place in January or early February at the latest. You write the paper in the semester break between February and April or at the beginning of the lecture period of the summer semester (i.e. April/May) – you determine when exactly you want to take the six weeks via an online portal (so you can start right after the registration deadline, but you can also take a vacation, do an internship or write a term paper first). The lectures are towards the end of the summer semester, i.e. in June or July, after your work has been corrected.
If you start your studies in the specialisation area in the summer semester (i.e. in April), the registration period that ends in July/August or in October applies to you (and not the one that already ends in February or April). The preliminary discussion is usually in June or at the latest in July. You write the paper during the semester break between July and October or at the beginning of the lecture period of the winter semester (i.e. October/November). Since this seminar is supervised by the Chair of Data Law, I cannot say where the writing period lies within this framework - please consult with him. The presentations are towards the end of the winter semester, i.e. January or February.
However, you may also start the seminar paper at a later point in time – this will only extend your studies accordingly (because you are not allowed to take an oral exam beforehand and have to retain all the knowledge of the specialisation area in your head until that point!).
The timing of the seminar does not necessarily mean that only topics from the previous semester will be covered. You can also choose a topic from the material covered in the second semester of the advanced training area, which you will then have to familiarise yourself with independently. The topics have deliberately been chosen so that they can easily be covered in six weeks.
In the summer semester (registration in February/April, writing a paper in an online freely selectable 6-week period until April/May, presentations in June/July), there is a seminar with Prof. Beurskens (if necessary together with the Chair of Data Law) in which topics from
are awarded.
In the winter semester (registration until July/October, writing the paper until October/November, presentations in January/February), the Chair of Data Law offers a seminar for the above-mentioned specialisation areas.
So you can attend a seminar in every semester!
In addition, students in the SPB 10 - Öffentliches und privates Wirtschaftsrecht can also register for the seminars of the professors in public law that are open to these specialisations.
All digital or paper sources may (and should) be used to prepare the seminar paper. You may also use any aids you like for the presentation.
At https://learn.jura.uni-passau.de/seminar/hilfe/recherche you will find a directly linked list of online journals, handbooks, commentaries, etc.
I offer a video course on this at https://learn.jura.uni-passau.de/seminar/hilfe/video and a fact sheet (https://learn.jura.uni-passau.de/seminar/Content/Merkblatt.pdf) an. In addition, there is material on important aspects (citation, formalities, etc.) in Stud.IP.
What is important to me is
I have provided a document template (with instructions) at https://learn.jura.uni-passau.de/seminar/hilfe/vorlage. You are welcome to use it (but you don't have to)
The dates for the oral exam are set by the examination board in consultation with the student secretariat for all specialisations (see https://www.jura.uni-passau.de/studium/studiendekan/aktuelles). The dates are usually at the end of the lecture period and also extend into the lecture period (in the winter semester 2022/2023, for example, from 9 January 2023 to 28 February 2023).
I try to conduct the exams exclusively during the lecture period (i.e. until the last week of lectures). In this case, only the material up to the hour before the oral exam is covered - so you do not have to independently study the material not yet covered. Depending on the number of people to be examined (up to 40 at the last count!), however, it may exceptionally not be possible to do so.
Unfortunately, I am not allowed to set the dates for the exam myself, so I cannot take any special requests into account – the dates are set by the examination office (usually in alphabetical order). If you have any questions, please contact the dean of studies.
You have to register separately for the oral exam from the seminar and the specialisation. Unfortunately, it is not possible to take an exam without registering! You cannot register for the oral exam before the mandatory withdrawal period for the seminar has expired. Once the mandatory withdrawal period has expired, you are not obliged to register in the same semester – you can also postpone this to the following semester. However, this is not advisable, as you must retain knowledge from the entire specialisation area until the oral exam!
The exams always take place as group exams. This means that you will be examined together in groups of two or even five.
Each student is allocated 25 minutes of examination time. As a rule, you will not experience this in one go, but will be tested again and again. It is rather unusual to speak up when it is not specifically asked for.
It is an ‘examination interview’. This means, on the one hand, that it is not a mere round of yes/no questions, but on the other hand, that the conversation can develop in very different directions depending on the answers. As a rule, the examiners try to help you by pushing you in a certain direction.
The examination is conducted by at least one examiner – in particular in SPB 10 (public commercial law), usually by two examiners (Prof. Kramer and Prof. Beurskens), sometimes also by lecturers and professors together (e.g. Dr. Linsmeier and Prof. Beurskens). If there are several examiners, the examination is conducted in two parts, each lasting 12.5 minutes per candidate, and each part is graded separately. If there is only one examiner, they are supported by an assistant – this is a research assistant who is not allowed to ask questions themselves, but who takes notes and ensures that the procedure is fair.
All topics of the respective specialisation are covered. Lecturers also act as examiners (e.g. in the area of antitrust law in practice), so that the contents of their lectures must also be mastered. Topics that were not discussed in the lecture are not covered (even if they appear in the lecture notes, textbooks, etc.) – but conversely, current issues are also covered that were only discussed orally in the lecture but cannot be found on slides, in lecture notes or in textbooks.
I offer an exam simulation as part of my lecture ‘Competition Law’ in the summer semester, where you can get an impression of what to expect. In addition, you can obtain protocols of previous exams from the student council (https://www.jura.uni-passau.de/fachschaft-jura/schwerpunktprotokolle/).
So far, there is no administrative practice for this. However, we will find out before the exam which one of the two courses you have chosen and will only examine this (in addition to the other courses without an option).
So you do not have to
– either master the material from both courses,
– or assume that the course you have selected will not be examined.
Rather, the course you have selected (and only that course) may also be examined in the oral exam
This is stated in the respective announcement of aids. In principle, the following applies:
