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.
Commercial Leasing Toolkit: A Roadmap for Tenants and Landlords
A lease is a five- or ten-year contract that most small businesses sign in a week, using a form drafted entirely for the other side. This toolkit walks the transaction from site selection through surrender, written so that either side can use it. It covers the diligence that should happen before the letter of intent, the economics that a stated rental rate conceals, the operating expense provisions that quietly determine the real cost, the construction and delivery mechanics that decide whether the space is usable on time, and the transfer and guaranty provisions that matter years later when the business is sold or fails. Later stages cover the landlord's perspective on credit and remedies, the administration practices that catch a missed renewal window, what to do when a tenant stops paying or a landlord stops performing, and the end-of-term obligations that generate the most post-lease litigation.
Deciding Whether Your Website or App Must Verify Age: A Practical Guide
This guide takes an operator from the first question, whether any age law reaches the product, through the decision to redesign, exclude minors, block a state, or verify. It gives coverage tests for each family of law, a method for measuring adult-content share, and a way to check whether an injunction actually protects you. It compares verification methods by cost, accuracy, and legal exposure, and gives sample language for notices, consent, and privacy policies. It explains how to run parental consent, minor defaults, and app store signals. It sets out a low-cost path for small operators, a response plan for attorney general inquiries and private suits, and the mistakes that cause the most trouble. Worked examples follow a recipe community, an audio publisher, and a small game studio.
The Battle of the Forms Under UCC Section 2-207: Purchase Orders, Acknowledgments, and Whose Terms Govern
Two businesses agree on price, quantity, and delivery, exchange preprinted forms whose terms contradict each other, and perform the deal without anyone reading the back pages. Section 2-207 exists to decide what happened, and it produces answers that surprise both parties, because the common-law rules it replaced would have given everything to whoever sent the last form. This article works through the section clause by clause, explains the difference between additional and different terms and why the knockout rule usually decides it, covers the narrow escape hatch for acceptances expressly conditional on assent, and addresses the very different result when contract formation happens through conduct rather than through matching documents. It closes with drafting and process changes that keep a company out of the problem entirely.
Online Brand Protection Toolkit: A Strategic Roadmap and Resource Library
This toolkit is a high-level roadmap for protecting a brand across the digital ecosystem, from the foundational federal registration that makes online enforcement possible through domain disputes, marketplace and app-store takedowns, social media and metaverse strategy, anti-counterfeiting and customs recordation, monitoring services, DMCA practice, and influencer compliance. Each stage links to mclaw.io articles and checklists plus the controlling external authorities, including WIPO's UDRP, ICANN, the USPTO, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Lanham Act. It is written for in-house counsel, brand managers, and outside trademark practitioners who need to navigate the whole field rather than a single dispute. Use it as a research guide: read the narrative for orientation, then follow the resource links to do the actual work. The toolkit reflects the post-January 2025 USPTO fee and filing changes and flags areas where the law is unsettled, such as virtual-goods trademark scope. Verify all fees and deadlines at the official sources before relying on them.
Reporting or Receiving a Security Vulnerability: A Practical Guide for Researchers and Companies
This guide follows a vulnerability report from both ends: the researcher who found the flaw and the company that receives the report or a payment demand. Track A takes the researcher from the moment of discovery through stopping and documenting the testing, finding the right channel, getting advice, drafting the report, asking for compensation without conditioning silence, and publishing on a fixed timeline. Track B takes the company from intake and verification through evidence preservation, classifying the sender, the notification analysis, law enforcement and insurer decisions, response letters, and the difference between paying a bounty and paying an extortionist. Each step explains what to do, why, the governing authority, pitfalls, timing, and cost. A timeline and cost table, an extended worked example involving a pharmacy refill portal, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways close the guide.
Preliminary Injunctions and Temporary Restraining Orders: Emergency Relief in Federal Court
An emergency motion is the most consequential piece of paper many litigators ever file. It is written in days rather than months, decided on an incomplete record, and often determines the outcome of the case regardless of what happens later. This article explains how temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions actually work in federal court: the four factors of Winter v. NRDC and how the circuits differ in weighting them, the difference between prohibitory and mandatory injunctions and why the label matters, the strict limits Rule 65(b) places on ex parte relief, the bond requirement of Rule 65(c) and how to argue about its amount, and the specificity and binding-scope rules of Rule 65(d). It addresses irreparable harm as the factor that decides most motions, including the statutory presumption restored for Lanham Act cases by the Trademark Modernization Act and the Supreme Court's insistence in Starbucks v. McKinney that statutory injunction provisions be read against the traditional equitable backdrop. It covers the practical mechanics of moving and opposing, expedited discovery, evidentiary hearings, consolidation under Rule 65(a)(2), appeal under 28 U.S.C. section 1292(a)(1), and the recent narrowing of universal injunctions. It closes with drafting guidance, a worked example, an FAQ, and related reading.
Oil, Gas, and Mineral Rights: Ownership, Leases, Royalties, and the Rule of Capture
Under most American land, the minerals are a separate estate that can be owned, sold, leased, and inherited apart from the surface, and the mineral estate is generally dominant over the surface. This article explains that structure and what follows from it: the rule of capture and the conservation regulation that limits it, the oil and gas lease and the clauses that determine how much a landowner is actually paid, the post production cost fight that consumes a large share of royalty litigation, pooling and unitization, the implied covenants that fill the lease's silences, division orders, and the surface use and accommodation rules that govern what an operator may do to land it does not own.
Understanding Patent Marking Requirements: A Practical Guide for Practitioners and Entrepreneurs
Patent marking under 35 U.S.C. 287 is one of the most consequential yet most overlooked compliance obligations in patent law, because failing to mark can erase years of pre-suit damages even against a deliberate copyist. This in-depth guide explains the difference between constructive notice (marking) and actual notice (a specific charge of infringement against a specific product), why the marking statute limits recovery rather than validity, and how the America Invents Act's virtual marking option lets a patentee mark with a website URL. It examines the patentee's burden to ensure licensees mark, including the Federal Circuit's decision in Arctic Cat Inc. v. Bombardier Recreational Products, Inc. and its burden-shifting framework, the special rules for method and process claims, and the post-AIA collapse of false marking liability under 35 U.S.C. 292 into a competitive-injury claim. With the Supreme Court's abolition of laches in SCA Hygiene, marking is now the single most important limit on how far back a patentee can reach for damages. The article closes with worked hypotheticals and an auditable compliance program, and is written for practitioners, in-house counsel, entrepreneurs, and judges alike.
Trust Administration Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Most trustee liability arises not from bad investments but from administrative steps nobody explained—a concentrated position held without a written analysis, distributions made without documented reasoning, and annual reports never sent, which leaves the trustee exposed for years instead of one. This checklist runs the administration: the first ninety days from reading the instrument through the statutory notices and the initial portfolio review, then the recurring obligations that make up the job. It covers the investment discipline the prudent investor rule requires, the impartiality tools available when income and remainder interests diverge, the distribution protocol that makes a discretionary decision defensible, the reporting that starts a one-year limitations clock, the tax elections that are worth real money, and the protections available to a trustee who wants finality. It closes with the protections available to a trustee who wants finality—beneficiary consents after full disclosure, nonjudicial settlement agreements, virtual representation, and petitions for instructions.
Chapter 11 Reorganization: How a Business Restructures and What Creditors Should Expect
Chapter 11 is not a going-out-of-business sale; it is a court-supervised negotiation in which a company keeps operating while it restructures obligations it cannot pay. This article explains the process from both sides of the table. It walks the filing and the automatic stay, the first-day motions that determine whether the business survives its first month, cash collateral and debtor-in-possession financing, and the treatment of executory contracts and leases under Section 365 that decides whether a counterparty is paid in full or holds a rejection claim worth pennies. It then covers claims administration and the priority waterfall, Section 363 asset sales and credit bidding, and the plan process itself, including disclosure, voting, cramdown, and the absolute priority rule. Sections on avoidance actions, subchapter V for small businesses, and what a creditor should actually do in the first two weeks follow, along with a worked example, an FAQ, and related reading.
Responding to a Trademark Cease-and-Desist Letter Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A calm, strategic checklist for what to do when a trademark cease-and-desist letter lands in your inbox: the first-72-hours housekeeping (conflicts check, no off-the-cuff reply, check PACER for an actual suit, holding letter, information request, insurer notice, litigation hold), decoding the letter, sizing up the sender and yourself using the free public record, the likelihood-of-confusion analysis, the defenses toolbox, the realistic menu of responses from rebrand to preemptive declaratory judgment, and the landmines. WHY notes, trap warnings, a common-mistakes list, and primary authority are included. Educational, not legal advice. The through-line is that the first written response sets the tone and the record for everything that follows, so it is worth the two days it takes to get right.
Negotiating a Trademark Coexistence Agreement: A Practical Guide
This guide walks both sides of a trademark conflict, the party that needs permission and the party asked to give it, through negotiating a coexistence agreement from first contact to signed document and USPTO filing. It begins with the threshold decisions: whether coexistence is realistic, what each side's alternatives are, and which clocks are running at the USPTO, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, or in court. Thirteen numbered steps then cover mapping rights, valuing the litigation alternative, opening talks under Rule 408, building a term sheet, negotiating field-of-use, presentation, channel, and territorial terms, screening for antitrust and naked licensing risk, protective covenants, duration and successors, drafting a consent the USPTO will accept, closing and filing, and administering the deal afterward. Each step states what to do, why, the governing authority, pitfalls, timing, and cost. A timeline and cost table, a worked example in which a scheduling-software company settles an opposition brought by a chain of physical therapy clinics, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways close the guide.