Intellectual Property and Technology Insights

Analysis and practical guides on intellectual property and technology.

17 articles, checklists, and guides on intellectual property and technology law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice — for a specific matter, contact the firm.

Intellectual Property and TechnologyIP and IT in Corporate Transactions

Drafting Software License Agreements: Key Terms and Negotiation Points

Software runs modern business, which makes software license agreements among the most consequential contracts companies sign—and among the most misunderstood, with vendors presenting forms as non-negotiable and customers fixating on price while ignoring the terms that carry far greater risk. This article explains how to understand, draft, and negotiate these agreements across SaaS, on-premise, and hybrid deployments, following a fictional SaaS vendor and an enterprise customer through a single negotiation. It works through the copyright foundation, the license grant and its scope and exclusivity, the consequential covenant-versus-condition line drawn by MDY v. Blizzard, service levels, data rights and privacy, open source, warranties and disclaimers under UCC 2-316, IP-infringement indemnification, limitation of liability under UCC 2-719, audit rights, and the source-code escrow and Section 365(n) protections that keep a customer afloat if the vendor fails. The throughline: the best agreements allocate each risk to the party best able to manage it rather than letting one side extract maximum advantage.

Casey Scott McKaySeptember 29, 202451 min read

Intellectual Property and TechnologyPrivacy

Biometric Data Privacy Laws and Their Impact on AI Development

AI systems that read faces, voices, and other biometric identifiers have collided with a fast-growing body of privacy law that imposes strict written-consent rules and, in Illinois, statutory damages large enough to threaten a company's survival. This article explains that landscape in plain language and follows two fictional companies—a gym chain deploying biometric check-in and a facial-recognition vendor selling to enterprises—through the rules that govern them. It covers the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act and the litigation wave it unleashed, the 2024 amendment that defused the per-scan damages theory, the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act and the record $1.4 billion Meta settlement, Washington's enrollment-based statute, the spread of comprehensive state and local laws, and the European framework under the GDPR's Article 9 and the EU AI Act. It incorporates the EU's 2026 Digital Omnibus, which defers the AI Act's high-risk obligations while leaving the biometric prohibitions in force, and it closes with a practical, life-of-the-data compliance approach written for both developers and deployers.

Casey Scott McKaySeptember 15, 202445 min read

Intellectual Property and TechnologyInternet

NFT Marketplaces and Secondary Sale Royalties: Smart Contracts, Copyright, and Contractual Expectations

NFTs promised artists something the traditional art market never delivered: an automatic royalty on every resale, enforced forever by code. The promise collapsed when marketplaces made royalties optional in 2023, and this article explains why—and what creators can actually do now. It separates the token from the underlying copyright (17 U.S.C. § 202), traces why U.S. law supplies no resale-royalty right (the first-sale doctrine of § 109, the failed California Resale Royalties Act, VARA's narrow reach), and works through the contract theories that founder on privity. It analyzes the two landmark NFT decisions—Hermès International v. Rothschild (the MetaBirkins verdict) and Yuga Labs v. Ripps—to show how trademark, not royalty law, has done the real doctrinal work, and it weighs the Howey securities risk that aggressive royalty marketing invites. It closes with concrete, drafting-level guidance for creators and a detailed FAQ. The throughline: code can execute, but code is not law.

Casey Scott McKayAugust 7, 202446 min read

Intellectual Property and TechnologyCopyright

Copyright Infringement Claims Against Generative AI: The New York Times, Getty, and What Comes Next

Generative AI has triggered what may become the most consequential copyright litigation in decades, as publishers, photographers, authors, music rightsholders, and film studios sue the companies whose models were trained on their works. This article delivers the definitive, current-as-of-mid-2026 account of that fight: the first wave of merits rulings in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS, Bartz v. Anthropic, and Kadrey v. Meta; the record $1.5 billion Bartz settlement; the Getty UK judgment; and Germany's landmark GEMA v. OpenAI decision. It explains every legal theory in play—direct and secondary infringement, the four-factor fair use test as courts are actually applying it after Warhol v. Goldsmith, the intermediate-copying line that runs from Sega to Google Books, derivative-works and DMCA Section 1202 claims, and substantial similarity on the output side. It distinguishes the input (training) question from the output (memorization) question, surveys the emerging licensing market and the EU's divergent opt-out regime, and maps the realistic end-states. Written for content owners, AI developers, and the counsel advising both.

Casey Scott McKayJuly 28, 202450 min read

Intellectual Property and TechnologyIP and IT in Corporate Transactions

Employee Invention Assignment Agreements: Drafting for Enforceability Across Jurisdictions

Companies routinely assume they own whatever their employees invent—and routinely discover, at the worst possible moment, that they do not. This article explains how to draft invention assignment agreements that courts will actually enforce, following a fictional startup through the title problems that surface in financings and acquisitions. It covers the default rule that inventors own their inventions, the shop-right and hired-to-invent doctrines that fill part of the gap, the decisive difference between a present assignment and a mere agreement to assign that the Supreme Court applied in Stanford v. Roche, the FilmTec line of Federal Circuit cases that made "hereby assigns" magic words, the state carve-out statutes that limit what employers can claim, the consideration that existing employees must receive, holdover and prior-invention provisions, the gap between copyright's work-made-for-hire doctrine and patent law, and the chain-of-title defects that derail transactions and standing. The throughline: the cheapest moment to secure clear title is at hiring, and the most expensive is when a deal or a lawsuit depends on it.

Casey Scott McKayApril 3, 202451 min read