Intellectual Property Insights

Analysis and practical guides on intellectual property.

265 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.

Intellectual PropertyTrade and Customs

Customs IP Enforcement Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Border enforcement of intellectual property rights runs on documents the rights holder supplies, and programs fail for administrative reasons rather than legal ones. This checklist covers the whole sequence: recording marks and copyrights, documenting material differences and filing a Lever-rule petition, building identification materials officers can actually use, serializing so goods can be traced, running test purchases and forensic examination, auditing the channel, and responding when Customs detains a shipment. It closes with the metrics that show whether the program is working and the errors that cause it to consume budget without reducing volume. It sequences recordation, enforcement requests, and the response to a seizure notice. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 11, 20267 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrade and Customs

Stopping Gray Market and Counterfeit Imports: A Practical Guide

Stopping unauthorized imports is an operational program with a legal layer, not a litigation strategy. This guide walks through building the program in the order that makes each step work: recording marks with Customs, documenting material differences, preparing the identification materials officers actually use, serializing so goods can be traced, and rewriting distribution agreements so diversion has consequences. It then covers the investigation — test purchases, forensic examination, and code tracing — and the enforcement channels available, from border detention through marketplace complaints to litigation. It includes a first-ninety-days plan, a budget, and the errors that cause programs to consume resources without reducing volume.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 10, 202627 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrade and Customs

Gray Market Goods and the First Sale Doctrine: Parallel Imports, Exhaustion, and Border Enforcement

Gray market goods are genuine products sold outside the channel their maker intended, and whether that is lawful depends on which intellectual property right you invoke and where the goods were first sold. This article explains the exhaustion rules for copyright, patent, and trademark separately, because they differ in ways that decide cases. It covers the Supreme Court decisions that established international exhaustion for copyright and patent, the material differences doctrine that keeps trademark law available against parallel imports, and the customs framework that determines what actually gets stopped at the border. It closes with the contractual and commercial tools that work where intellectual property law does not.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 9, 202628 min read

Intellectual PropertyPatent

Freedom to Operate and IP Clearance Toolkit: Clearing the Path Before You Launch

This toolkit is a high-level roadmap and curated library guide for clearing intellectual property risk before launching a product, brand, or codebase. It walks the full clearance process: why to clear before launch, conducting a patent freedom-to-operate search, trademark clearance, copyright and open-source clearance, the role of opinions of counsel in defusing willful-infringement exposure after Halo v. Pulse, designing around blocking rights, and ongoing risk management. At each stage it links the firm's articles and checklists alongside the search tools and primary authorities a practitioner needs—USPTO Patent Public Search, Espacenet, Google Patents, USPTO trademark search, and the willfulness/enhanced-damages framework of 35 U.S.C. § 284. It is written for product and brand teams, founders, in-house counsel, and outside clearance counsel. Read the roadmap, then drill into the linked search checklists. FTO is a risk-management exercise, not a guarantee—calibrate depth to the stakes.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 9, 202614 min read

Intellectual PropertyAdvertising

False Advertising Toolkit: Substantiation Files, Surveys, and Injunction Briefing

This toolkit collects the working documents of an advertising dispute practice, on both the compliance side and the litigation side. It includes the claim intake form and substantiation file structure that prevent claims from becoming cases, the evidence log and characterization worksheet that open a challenge, a demand letter and a self-regulatory challenge outline, a preliminary injunction brief skeleton, survey specifications for building and attacking, targeted discovery requests, and settlement terms that actually prevent recurrence. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the failure it prevents. Each template carries drafting notes on what the document is proving and to whom. Adapt everything to the claim, the medium, and the governing law.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 8, 202611 min read

Intellectual PropertyAdvertising

False Advertising Claim Checklist: A Practical Checklist

False advertising disputes are decided in the first ninety days, and the checklist below is organized to fit that reality. It runs the sequence from capturing an advertisement before it changes, through characterizing the claim as literally or impliedly false, choosing among the demand letter, the self-regulatory forum, and litigation, moving for preliminary relief, and running the substantiation and survey discovery that decide the merits. Separate sections cover the defendant's response, the advertising review program that prevents claims, and the settlement terms worth negotiating. It covers the plaintiff's proof, the defendant's substantiation file, and the survey decision. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 7, 20267 min read

Intellectual PropertyAdvertising

Bringing or Defending a False Advertising Claim: A Practical Guide

False advertising cases are decided in the first ninety days, which means the work that matters happens before and immediately after a complaint is filed. This guide walks through the sequence for both sides: capturing the advertisement before it changes, characterizing the claim as literally false or implied, deciding among a demand letter, a self-regulatory challenge, and litigation, moving for preliminary relief, running the survey and substantiation discovery that decide the merits, and evaluating remedies honestly. It includes a timeline, a division of labor, budget guidance, and the errors that most reliably lose an otherwise good case on either side. A worked dispute follows a competitor claim from demand letter through preliminary injunction. It also covers the NAD alternative and when it is the better forum.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 6, 202627 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrademark

Filing a USPTO Trademark Application Checklist: A Practical Checklist

A phase-by-phase checklist for preparing and filing a federal trademark application with the USPTO, current to the January 18, 2025 fee overhaul that retired the TEAS Plus/Standard tiers in favor of a single base application plus surcharges and moved filing into Trademark Center. It walks through clearance, register and basis selection, owner and domicile fields, goods-and-services drafting from the Trademark ID Manual to dodge surcharges, standard-character versus special-form drawings, specimens, the verified declaration, and post-filing docketing. WHY notes and trap warnings accompany each phase, with a common-mistakes list and primary authority. Educational, not legal advice; confirm current fees at USPTO.gov.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 5, 20268 min read

Intellectual PropertyAdvertising

False Advertising Under the Lanham Act: Literal Falsity, Materiality, and Competitor Standing

Section 43(a)(1)(B) of the Lanham Act gives businesses a federal claim against competitors who lie in advertising, and it is one of the most useful and least understood tools in commercial litigation. This article explains the five elements of the claim, the crucial distinction between literal and implied falsity and what each requires in proof, and the doctrine of puffery that removes most sales talk from the statute's reach. It covers who may sue after the Supreme Court replaced the old standing tests with a zone-of-interests analysis, how false advertising claims interact with federal regulatory schemes, and the remedies that make these cases worth bringing. It closes with the self-regulatory and regulatory alternatives that resolve most advertising disputes without a courthouse.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 5, 202627 min read

Intellectual PropertyCopyright

Contributions to a Collective Work

A "contribution to a collective work" is an independently copyrightable piece—an article, photo, poem, cartoon, or chapter—that an author lets a publisher gather into a larger whole such as a magazine, anthology, journal, or website. Under 17 U.S.C. 201(c), the contributor keeps the copyright in their own piece, and absent a written transfer the publisher acquires only a narrow privilege to reproduce it as part of that particular collective work, a revision of it, or a later work in the same series. The Supreme Court's decision in New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483 (2001), held that loading freelance articles into searchable electronic databases that retrieve them as standalone items exceeds that privilege, while later cases such as Faulkner and the en banc Greenberg v. National Geographic held that context-preserving digital replicas of whole issues do not. This article explains the statutory definitions, the default rules that allocate rights, how Tasini and its progeny reshaped publishing, the work-made-for-hire doctrine, how to register contributions, and how termination and reversion can let authors recapture their work decades later. It is written for writers, editors, publishers, and the lawyers who advise them.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 5, 202650 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrademark

Domain Name Toolkit: UDRP Complaints, ACPA Pleadings, and Portfolio Management

This toolkit collects the documents a domain dispute practice actually produces, from the evidence log built in the first week through the portfolio register that prevents the next dispute. It includes a UDRP complaint skeleton organized around the three elements, an ACPA complaint outline with the nine bad faith factors mapped, a registrar abuse report for active fraud, a domain purchase agreement with the transfer mechanics that make or break a deal, and the contract clauses that stop former agencies and distributors from keeping names. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the failure it prevents. Each template carries drafting notes on the elements a panel or a court actually decides. Adapt everything to the registrar, the registry, and the governing law.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 4, 202612 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrademark

Domain Name Dispute Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Domain disputes are won on preparation done before anything is filed and lost on a step skipped in the first week. This checklist runs the sequence: diagnosing which of five situations you actually face, establishing the two dates that decide most cases, building the evidentiary record before contact tips the registrant, choosing among the UDRP, the URS, federal litigation, and purchase, and prosecuting the chosen route. It includes a respondent-side section for registrants receiving a complaint, and a prevention section covering the portfolio hygiene that stops the next occurrence. It sequences the choice between a UDRP proceeding and an ACPA action before either is filed. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 3, 20267 min read