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.
Employment Law Toolkit: From Hiring Through Separation
Employment law is not one body of law but a dozen overlapping ones, and a small employer encounters them in a predictable sequence as each employee moves from applicant to alumnus. This toolkit follows that sequence. It covers what must be right before a job is posted, what an offer letter should and should not say, the classification decisions made at hire that determine years of wage exposure, the handbook and the policies that actually get litigated, the leave and accommodation machinery that trips up employers with no dedicated HR function, the documentation habits that decide termination cases long before termination, and the separation mechanics that turn a former employee into a plaintiff or into a signed release. Each stage links to the underlying articles and checklists and to the primary authority a practitioner will need.
Acquiring a Domain Name Anonymously and Safely: A Practical Guide
This guide walks a buyer through acquiring a domain name without announcing who is behind the offer, in the order the decisions actually arise. It covers clearance and dated intent records before any contact, reading the public record, choosing among a broker, a lawyer, and a stealth entity, what may and may not be said in negotiation, and how to set a price. It then moves through diligence on the seller's authority, agreement terms, escrow, the exact closing sequence under ICANN's current and newly adopted transfer rules, and the post-closing migration of DNS, email, and certificates. Two worked examples show how a small business and a public company would run the process differently. A section on common mistakes and a short section for sellers round it out. The reader should finish knowing what to do first on Monday and what to avoid saying in the first email.
Copyright Infringement Claim Evaluation Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist screens a copyright infringement claim from either side, in the order a court will test it. It starts with intake and the exact versions of the two works, then works through ownership and standing, registration timing and its effect on remedies, the protectability of the claimant's work, copying in fact through access and probative or striking similarity, and filtration of unprotectable material before comparison under the governing circuit's test. Medium-specific checks cover music, literary and audiovisual works, games, visual art and photographs, and software. Later parts address defenses and limitations, remedies and case value, forum and pleading, evidence preservation and pre-suit letters, and the first thirty days for an accused party. It closes with a scoring matrix, a table of key authorities, answers to common questions, and practical takeaways.
Business Dissolution and Wind-Down Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Closing a business is a sequence with a required order, and the rule that governs the whole exercise is that liabilities come before distributions. Owners who reverse it acquire personal liability for unlawful distributions, fraudulent transfers, trust fund taxes, and in several states wage claims, and they forfeit the statutory creditor claims procedure that would have barred later claims for the cost of a newspaper notice. This checklist runs the sequence: authorization and the wind-down budget, the employee obligations that arrive first and carry the most personal exposure, contracts and leases and asset liquidation, the known and unknown claims procedures, final tax filings and the clearance certificate that gates the dissolution filing, license cancellations and foreign withdrawals, distributions with documented solvency, and the tail coverage and records retention that outlast the entity. It assumes a solvent wind-down; where the company cannot pay its debts in full, the correct vehicle is an assignment for the benefit of creditors or a bankruptcy, and the analysis changes entirely.
Drafting and Negotiating a Joint Venture Agreement
A joint venture is two companies agreeing to do something together that neither will do alone, and the agreement's job is to answer what happens when one of them changes its mind. This guide covers the drafting and negotiation from the term sheet forward. It starts with the threshold question of structure, contractual or entity, and what each implies for liability, tax, and financing, then works through the scope and exclusivity provisions that define what the venture is and what each party may still do outside it. It covers contributions of cash, assets, and intellectual property, funding obligations and the consequences of a shortfall, and the governance architecture including reserved matters and deadlock. Later sections address intellectual property ownership and licensing, which is where technology joint ventures actually break down, antitrust constraints, transfer restrictions and exit mechanics, and termination and unwinding.
Sweepstakes, Contests, and Promotions: The Law of Prize, Chance, and Consideration
A promotion that combines a prize, an element of chance, and consideration is an illegal lottery in every state unless the government is running it. Remove any one of the three and it becomes a lawful sweepstakes or contest. This article explains the three-element framework and how to break it correctly, the federal statutes that reach lotteries through the mail and broadcast media, the state registration and bonding requirements that catch large promotions, the official rules and their required elements, the advertising and disclosure obligations that apply to how the promotion is marketed, the platform terms that operate as private law, and the tax, privacy, and international issues that follow.
Defending a Professional License Before a State Board
A professional license is frequently a person's entire livelihood, and a board complaint threatens it through a process that resembles litigation only partially. The board is investigator, prosecutor, and adjudicator; the rules of evidence are relaxed; the standard of proof may be lower than in civil court; and the collateral consequences of any discipline—database reporting, reciprocal action in other states, exclusion from federal health programs, loss of privileges and insurance—frequently exceed the sanction itself. This guide walks the process from the arrival of the complaint through judicial review, explains what to do and what not to do in the investigative phase where most cases are decided, covers settlement and the terms that matter, and addresses the collateral consequences that should shape every strategic decision. It closes with rehabilitation and reinstatement, and with the practices that prevent a complaint from becoming a career-ending event.
People-Search Listing Response Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns a people-search listing into phased, check-off tasks for the person named on the page, the lawyer advising that person, and the operator receiving the request. It begins with a safety screen and then moves through evidence capture, account and deadline checks, removal, California's DROP platform, covered-official notices, and re-checking. Later phases cover the decision to pursue a right of publicity or Fair Credit Reporting Act claim and the pre-filing diligence that avoids known traps. A separate phase gives operators the tasks that follow a removal request, Daniel's Law notice, or demand letter. Every task names its authority, with notes and red flags where a step commonly goes wrong. The law is stated as of 31 October 2026.
Copyright Registration of Photographs
Photographs are among the most-copied and least-registered works on earth, and the gap between those two facts is where photographers lose money. This guide explains why a photograph is copyrightable at all (the answer traces to an 1884 Supreme Court case about an Oscar Wilde portrait), who actually owns the copyright in a wedding shot or a corporate headshot, and how to register hundreds or even thousands of images at once using the Copyright Office's group-registration options for published and unpublished photographs. It covers the deposit rules, the all-important title list, registration timing and its dramatic effect on damages, and the metadata and copyright-management-information protections of DMCA Section 1202. It closes with the frontier questions—who owns a monkey's selfie, whether an AI can be an author, and how to deal with stock-photo demand letters—plus a practical FAQ. The goal is a single, plain-English roadmap a professional photographer, a marketing manager, or a curious lawyer can all follow.
Construction Contracts and Payment Disputes: Change Orders, Delay Claims, and Mechanics Liens
Construction disputes are rarely about whether work was done. They are about whether a change was authorized, whether a delay was excusable, and whether a notice was given within the time the contract required. This article explains the machinery. It covers project delivery methods and pricing structures and how each allocates risk, then the payment chain from schedule of values through payment application, retainage, and the pay-if-paid clauses that decide who bears the risk of an owner that does not pay. It works through changes and the constructive change doctrine, differing site conditions, and delay claims including critical path analysis, concurrent delay, and no-damages-for-delay clauses. Later sections cover the implied warranty of plans and specifications, completion and warranty obligations, mechanics liens and their unforgiving notice deadlines, payment bonds and the Miller Act, and dispute resolution, with a worked example, a claims checklist, and an FAQ.
Laying the Foundation for Business Records and Defeating Hearsay Objections: A Practical Guide
This guide walks through getting records admitted, and keeping them out, in the order the work actually happens. It starts with an exhibit-by-exhibit theory of admissibility, then covers choosing between a live witness and a certification, locking down foundations in discovery, serving Rule 902 notices, and handling exhibits at trial. Sample question-and-answer scripts cover ordinary records, third-party documents, system data, email, and missing entries. A separate track explains what self-represented people can do in a smaller court, and another shows the opposing side how to attack a weak foundation. Costs, timing, trade-offs, and common mistakes are set out for each stage.
Indemnification and Limitation of Liability: The Risk Allocation Engine of Every Contract
Two clauses decide what a contract is actually worth when something goes wrong: the indemnity and the limitation of liability. Everything else describes the deal; these two describe the consequences of the deal failing. This article explains both from the ground up. It covers what an indemnity actually does, the difference between third-party indemnification and the first-party indemnity that many drafters intend but fail to create, the duty to defend and why it is separate from and often broader than the duty to indemnify, and the procedural terms that determine whether an indemnity is usable in practice. It then covers limitations of liability: the direct-versus-consequential distinction and why it is harder than it looks after Hadley v. Baxendale, cap structures including super caps and unlimited categories, the standard carve-outs and how to negotiate them, the failure of essential purpose problem under UCC section 2-719, and the state law limits on exculpation including fraud, gross negligence, and public interest doctrines. A long section covers the specific indemnities that matter in technology transactions: intellectual property infringement, data protection, and open source. It closes with drafting language, a negotiation playbook, a worked example, an FAQ, and related reading.