Intellectual Property Insights
Analysis and practical guides on intellectual property.
446 articles, checklists, and guides on intellectual property law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice—for a specific matter, contact the firm.
Global Patent Litigation Strategies: Navigating the Complex Web of International IP Disputes
This in-depth guide explains how to plan, coordinate, and prosecute patent litigation across multiple countries when a single product line infringes parallel patents in many markets. It begins with the bedrock principle of territoriality and the treaty architecture (Paris Convention priority, the PCT, and the European Patent Convention) that lets innovators build a coordinated multinational portfolio, then walks through the major litigation forums: the U.S. district courts and the International Trade Commission, the Unified Patent Court and Germany's bifurcated system, the United Kingdom, China, Japan, and Korea. It analyzes the standard-essential patent (SEP) and FRAND wars in detail, including the Huawei v. ZTE protocol, global rate-setting in Unwired Planet v. Huawei and the InterDigital litigation, the German Sisvel v. Haier line, and the escalating tit-for-tat of anti-suit and anti-anti-suit injunctions. The article also covers cross-border discovery tools (28 U.S.C. 1782, the Hague Evidence Convention, and the Aerospatiale comity analysis), coordination of parallel proceedings and global settlements, and the recognition and enforcement of judgments abroad. Throughout, it offers concrete worked examples and practical guidance for both patent owners and accused infringers operating on a global stage.
Trade Secret Remedies Toolkit: Damages Models, Head Start Analyses, and Injunction Briefing
This toolkit collects the working documents of a trade secret remedies case, each introduced by its purpose, its owner, and when to use it, and each followed by drafting commentary tied to the governing statutes and decisions. It begins with an early remedies assessment memo, a Rule 26 damages computation, and core damages discovery requests for both sides. The modeling templates cover actual loss, the defendant's profits with apportionment, avoided development costs worked through for a software company, reasonable royalties, a head start analysis worked through for a two-year head start on a manufacturing process, and a matrix that keeps every dollar in one bucket. The injunction templates include outlines for moving and opposing briefs, a bond worksheet, and model clauses for a proposed order that respects the DTSA's employment proviso. Later templates address the damages expert report and Rule 702 motions, a willful and malicious evidence log, a verdict form skeleton, fee motions, a post-trial deadline calendar, and settlement remedy terms. It closes with common drafting mistakes, an FAQ, and practical takeaways.
Protecting Your Mobile App: A Comprehensive IP Strategy Guide
A mobile app is a single product wrapped in four overlapping legal regimes at once: trademark in the name and icon, copyright in the code and creative assets, patent in any genuinely novel functionality, and trade secret in the algorithms you never reveal. This guide maps each regime onto the parts of an app it actually protects, explains how to secure each one in the right order and at the right cost, and flags the traps that sink solo developers and venture-backed startups alike. It is current through 2026, reflecting Google v. Oracle on API copyrightability, the Alice patent-eligibility landscape, the post-Epic v. Apple app-store world, the 2025 USPTO trademark fee overhaul, the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and the Copyright Office's refusal to register purely AI-generated material. Worked hypotheticals and a lifecycle checklist tie the doctrine to the choices a developer actually faces. Read it before you ship, not after a competitor clones you.
People-Search Sites and the Right of Publicity: Yearbooks, Data Brokers, and the Persona Class Actions
People-search sites and yearbook databases show a sliver of a real person's profile to sell a subscription, and plaintiffs have spent six years arguing that the sliver is an advertisement using that person's identity. This article reads the cases against Whitepages, Instant Checkmate, RocketReach, Spokeo, ZoomInfo, Ancestry, and PeopleConnect closely, including the Ninth Circuit's September 2026 decision affirming class certification in Nolen v. PeopleConnect. It explains how these sites work at the system level and why event logs now decide cases, then sorts the outcomes on Article III standing, Section 230, anti-SLAPP motions, arbitration, limitations periods, and personal jurisdiction. It also covers the separate legal tracks that reach the same data: the Fair Credit Reporting Act, New Jersey's Daniel's Law and the Fourth Circuit's October 2026 decision striking West Virginia's version, and California's Delete Act and DROP platform. The First Amendment runs through all of it, and the article explains why a directory and an advertisement for a directory can be treated differently. Readers get worked hypotheticals, tables of outcomes, and a candid list of what remains unsettled as of 31 October 2026.
Trademark Overview: The Subject Matter of Trademark Law
This is Part 1 of a four-part overview of United States trademark law, and it answers the most fundamental question in the field: what can actually function as a trademark? It walks through the kinds of things that can serve as marks—words, logos, slogans, trade dress, color, sound, scent, motion, plus the specialized worlds of service marks, certification marks, and collective marks—and explains the distinctiveness spectrum from Abercrombie that decides whether a designation is protectable at all. It covers the special problem of generic terms after the Supreme Court's Booking.com decision, the genericide that has killed once-famous brands, and the functionality bar that keeps useful product features (and the disadvantaging features the courts call "aesthetically functional") out of trademark. It closes with the statutory bars in Section 2 of the Lanham Act as reshaped by Tam, Brunetti, and Elster. Worked hypotheticals and plain-language definitions make the doctrine accessible to lawyers and non-lawyers alike. Read alongside the companion parts on substantive standards, obtaining protection, and infringement.
Competitor Hire Trade Secret Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns a competitor hire into phased tasks that fit on a desk: recruiting, screening, offer, resignation, onboarding, monitoring, and dispute response. Each task names its owner and its authority, with notes on why the step matters and red flags that call for counsel immediately. It separates the tasks of the recruiter, hiring manager, HR, IT, and counsel, and adds a short final phase for the former employer evaluating a claim. It reflects the law as of its last modified date, including the FTC's February 2026 removal of its noncompete rule and the 2026 appellate decisions in Insulet v. EOFlow and Comet v. XP Power. Use it with the companion article, guide, and toolkit.
Trade Dress Protection Toolkit: From Product Design and Packaging to Registration, Functionality, and Enforcement
This toolkit is a roadmap to protecting the look and feel of a product or its packaging as trade dress. It explains what trade dress is, the crucial distinction between product packaging (which can be inherently distinctive) and product design or configuration (which always requires secondary meaning after Wal-Mart v. Samara), the functionality bar that defeats protection, how to register trade dress at the USPTO, how trade dress compares to and complements design patents, and how to enforce it. At each stage it links mclaw.io articles and checklists alongside the governing Lanham Act provisions and the Supreme Court's foundational trade dress cases. It is written for product companies, brand counsel, and litigators. Verify current USPTO requirements and fees before filing.
Artificial Intelligence and Inventorship: Global Perspectives on Machine Contributions to Innovation
Patent systems around the world now agree that an inventor must be a human being, yet they disagree—sharply, and in ways that change real filings—about how much a person must contribute when an AI system does much of the creative work. This article explains the global state of play in plain language, anchored by the DABUS litigation that forced the question and a realistic mid-spectrum example of a scientist inventing with AI assistance. It covers the United States (including the USPTO's November 2025 rescission of its 2024 guidance and its return to the traditional conception test), the European Patent Office, the United Kingdom, and the major Asian patent offices. It also tackles the twin problem of disclosure—written description and enablement for "black box" inventions—and distinguishes the settled formal rule from the unsettled practical question. Throughout, it maps the spectrum of human involvement and offers concrete documentation, drafting, and cross-border strategies, with worked hypotheticals a judge, a patent lawyer, and a curious founder can all follow.
Trademark Injunction Toolkit: Evidence Declarations, Proposed Orders, and Delay Chronologies
This toolkit collects nineteen working papers for a trademark preliminary injunction fight, ready to copy and adapt. Movants get a clock memo and chronology, brand and harm declarations, test purchase and web capture declarations, and an attorney certificate for a TRO without notice. Opponents get a rebuttal matrix, buying-process and cost declarations, an opposition outline, and an alternative narrow order. Both sides can use the survey decision memo, bond calculator, proposed order, schedule of identifiers, findings skeleton, standstill letter, delay cross outline, and compliance report. Each paper states its purpose, owner, and timing, and ends with drafting notes tied to authority.
Patent Venue and Transfer Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns the law of patent venue into tasks for a desk. It runs in phases, from pre-suit forum selection and pleading for the patent owner to first-response steps, footprint audit, Rule 12 preservation, and venue discovery for the accused infringer. Later phases cover section 1404(a) evidence, factor by factor, mandamus decisions, and post-ruling steps. Each item names its authority, with notes on common problems and red flags that signal a waived defense, a weak record, or a theory the Federal Circuit has rejected. Special items address foreign defendants, Hatch-Waxman cases, and declaratory judgment actions.
How to Prepare an Invention Disclosure for Your Patent Attorney
An invention disclosure is the single document from which a patent application is built, and its quality sets the ceiling on the protection an inventor can ever obtain. This guide explains what patent claims actually require, how to describe a technical problem and solution in language that translates into claims, why documenting alternative embodiments matters more than most inventors expect, and how to identify prior art in ways that help rather than harm an application. It works through the legal machinery that the disclosure feeds—conception and reduction to practice, inventorship under the Pannu standard, the duty of candor under 37 C.F.R. § 1.56 and Therasense, the enablement and written-description requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112, and the on-sale and public-use bars after Helsinn—and explains why lab-notebook discipline and confidentiality protect a patent's foundation. It includes a reusable disclosure-form template and annotated examples contrasting effective and ineffective disclosures. The aim is a disclosure that lets counsel claim the full scope of the invention, support every claim, and survive both examination and later challenge.
Building a Trade Secret Protection Program from Scratch
Every company holds information that is valuable precisely because it is secret, but trade secret law protects that information only if the owner takes reasonable measures to keep it confidential. This guide explains, in plain language, how to build a protection program that satisfies that requirement, following a fictional robotics startup as it identifies its secrets and secures them across physical, technical, and administrative dimensions. It covers what qualifies as a trade secret under the DTSA and UTSA, how to inventory and classify confidential information, the contractual protections that supplement the statutes, the easily-missed Section 1833(b) whistleblower-immunity notice that can forfeit a plaintiff's punitive damages, employee training, and the high-risk moment of employee departures. It incorporates the 2025-2026 collapse of the FTC's nationwide non-compete ban and explains what that means for protection strategy, and it closes with how trade secret protection coordinates with patents, copyrights, and open-source obligations.