Legal insights
Analysis from the front lines of IP & technology law.
Our attorneys write about the developments shaping intellectual property—from the PTAB and the Federal Circuit to the practical realities of protecting fast-moving technology.
DMCA Safe Harbor Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist
The DMCA safe harbors in 17 U.S.C. 512 shield qualifying online service providers from monetary liability for their users' copyright infringement, but only if the provider satisfies strict threshold conditions and follows the notice-and-takedown choreography to the letter. This checklist walks a platform operator or counsel through the gateway requirements (a registered designated agent kept current and a reasonably implemented repeat-infringer policy), the four safe harbors and which one applies, the knowledge standards that decide most cases, the expeditious-takedown and counter-notice mechanics, and the practices that cost providers the harbor, above all the Cox trap. Confirm current law, especially fast-moving ISP-liability questions, before relying on any step.
Copyright Damages and Remedies: Statutory Damages, Profits, Injunctions, and Fees
A copyright plaintiff who registered on time can ask a jury for up to $150,000 per work without proving a dollar of loss. A plaintiff who registered late may recover only actual damages and profits, and no attorney's fees at all. That single timing rule, buried in 17 U.S.C. section 412, decides the economics of more copyright disputes than any doctrine of infringement. This article walks through the entire remedial scheme: the registration prerequisites of sections 411 and 412 after Fourth Estate and Unicolors, the two-step proof of actual damages and infringer profits with apportionment, the mechanics and constitutional limits of statutory damages, what counts as "one work," willfulness and innocence, permanent injunctions after eBay, impoundment and destruction, costs and attorney's fees after Fogerty, Kirtsaeng, and Rimini Street, the limitations period after Petrella and Warner Chappell v. Nealy, criminal exposure, and the small-claims alternative at the Copyright Claims Board. It closes with a valuation method, a worked example, an FAQ, and related reading.
Buying and Selling a Home: Contract, Financing, Inspection, Title, and Closing
A home purchase is the largest contract most people ever sign, and it is signed under time pressure with an agent explaining the paperwork. This article explains what a purchase and sale agreement actually does, why the statute of frauds means the writing is everything, how earnest money works and when it is forfeited, what each contingency protects and what happens when one is waived, the difference between caveat emptor and modern disclosure duties, how title searches and title insurance actually protect a buyer, what the different deed types warrant, what RESPA and TILA require lenders and settlement agents to disclose and when, and what remedies exist when a deal falls apart. Written for buyers, sellers, and the lawyers who close these transactions.
Business Immigration Basics: H-1B, L-1, O-1, and the Employment-Based Green Card Path
Hiring a foreign national is a scheduling problem before it is a legal one, because every category has a queue and most of them are longer than a hiring manager expects. This article maps the system for employers and for the people they hire. It covers the main nonimmigrant work categories, starting with H-1B and the registration lottery that decides most technology hiring, then L-1 for intracompany transfers, O-1 for extraordinary ability, and the treaty and country-specific options that are faster than all of them. It explains the labor condition application and public access file obligations that generate most Department of Labor findings, and the portability rules that let someone change jobs. The second half covers the employment-based green card path: PERM labor certification and its recruitment requirements, the EB-1 through EB-3 preference categories, the national interest waiver, priority dates and the visa bulletin, and the choice between adjustment of status and consular processing, with a worked timeline, a compliance checklist, and an FAQ.
TTAB Practice Toolkit: Oppositions, Cancellations, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board from Pleading to Appeal
This toolkit is a stage-by-stage roadmap through proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), the administrative tribunal that decides the right to register marks. It compares oppositions and cancellations, then walks pleadings, ESTTA filing, mandatory disclosures, discovery, the trial (testimony) periods, briefing, oral hearing, and the two routes for review—appeal to the Federal Circuit or a civil action in district court. At each stage it links mclaw.io checklists and articles plus the governing rules (TBMP, 37 C.F.R. Part 2, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1063-1071) and the leading authority on preclusion, B&B Hardware v. Hargis. It is written for practitioners filing or defending Board proceedings and for brand owners weighing the TTAB against district-court litigation. Verify current rules, deadlines, and fees at uspto.gov before filing.
Employee Departure Trade Secret Protection Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Employee departures are the single highest-risk moment for trade secret loss, and what a company does in the window between notice and last day often matters as much to a future case as everything it did in the preceding years. This checklist guides counsel, HR, and IT through a disciplined offboarding: triaging the risk level, securing return of company property and a written deletion confirmation from personal devices, revoking access across every system, conducting an exit interview that captures a signed acknowledgment of continuing obligations, sending a continuing-obligations letter with proof of delivery, and—where the departure looks suspicious—preserving forensic evidence the right way before it is lost. It explains the legal line between an employee's portable general skill and the company's protectable secrets, why the inevitable-disclosure doctrine is a poor foundation, and how clean offboarding builds the documentary record (access logs, signed agreements, the Section 1833(b) notice) that wins or loses the case. Each step is paired with the reason it matters and the evidence it creates, so the checklist doubles as a record-building exercise rather than a compliance formality.
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.
Overcoming an Obviousness Rejection: A Practical Checklist
Obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is the single most common and most consequential ground on which patent claims are rejected. This checklist walks you through dismantling a § 103 rejection: confirming claim construction, testing whether the examiner actually made out a prima facie case (differences, a reasoned motivation to combine, and a reasonable expectation of success), and deploying the substantive rebuttals—attacking the motivation, negating the expectation of success, teaching away, non-analogous art, change in principle of operation, and the full set of objective indicia of nonobviousness with the all-important nexus requirement. It explains the KSR rationales and their hidden factual predicates, the role of Rule 1.132 declarations and examiner interviews, and the different burdens before the examiner, the PTAB, and the district court. The goal is to overcome the rejection while keeping claims broad enough to be worth owning.
Deposition Conduct and Objection Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist puts deposition conduct rules on one desk-ready list for the defending lawyer and the questioning lawyer. It starts with identifying the governing rules and the judge's procedures, then moves through preparation, the opening record, and question-by-question decisions on objecting and instructing. Separate phases cover breaks and conferences, remote sessions, witnesses who misbehave, unrepresented people, and the decision to suspend or call the court. The closing phases cover the follow-up letter, the motion to compel, sanctions requests, and review. Red-flag boxes mark the errors that most often produce waiver or fee awards. Quick-reference tables on waiver and short deadlines finish the list.
Choosing the Right Domain Name Dispute Procedure: A Practical Guide
This guide walks brand owners, registrants, and their lawyers through the choice among the procedures available in a domain name dispute, in the order the decisions actually arise. It starts with triage of active fraud, then shows how to identify the registry and the governing policy, line up the three dates that decide most cases, find the registrant, and test whether a U.S. court can reach it. It then matches objectives and facts to the UDRP, the Uniform Rapid Suspension System, country-code policies, an in personam or in rem action under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, and a negotiated purchase, with timelines, fees, filing requirements, and the sequencing patterns that combine them. A separate part takes the registrant's side: calendaring the response, building the record, asking for a reverse domain name hijacking finding, and suing within the ten-business-day window under 15 U.S.C. § 1114(2)(D)(v) when a transfer order is wrong. A worked example follows a medical device company through five problem domains in five different forums, and the guide closes with common mistakes, an FAQ, and practical takeaways.
What Constitutes Patent Infringement?
Patent infringement is, at its heart, a simple question dressed in intimidating clothing: does the accused product or process include every element of at least one patent claim? This article walks judges, lawyers, and non-lawyers alike through the full anatomy of an infringement analysis under 35 U.S.C. 271—from direct, induced, contributory, and divided infringement, to the all-elements rule, claim construction, and the doctrine of equivalents (with its Warner-Jenkinson and Festo guardrails). It explains literal infringement versus equivalents, the two-step infringement framework, and what makes infringement "willful" enough to triple the damages under Halo. It surveys the often-overlooked infringement varieties under Section 271(e), (f), and (g), the major defenses (non-infringement, invalidity, inequitable conduct, exhaustion, and licenses), the remedies a patentee can win, and the special role of the International Trade Commission for imported goods. Throughout, plain-English examples turn abstract doctrine into something you can actually picture, and links to deeper resources let you go as far down the rabbit hole as you like.
Deposition Conduct Toolkit: Objection Scripts, Record-Making Language, and Rule 30(d) Motions
This toolkit collects the working papers a lawyer needs when a deposition goes wrong or may go wrong. It includes a rule-set worksheet and local-rule tracker, a stipulation clause bank that replaces "the usual stipulations," and objection and instruction language organized by forum and ground. It gives examiners scripts for challenging instructions, responding to coaching, and describing what a transcript cannot show. It also provides a remote conduct protocol, an obstruction log, a call-to-chambers script, a meet-and-confer letter, and outlines with proposed orders for a Rule 30(d)(3) motion, a Rule 37 motion to compel, a sanctions request, and an opposition. Every tool states its purpose, owner, and timing, with drafting notes tied to authority. A one-page handout for witnesses closes the set.