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.
Professional Malpractice: Standards of Care, Expert Proof, and Defenses
Every professional malpractice case has the same four elements and a fifth practical requirement that decides most of them: expert testimony establishing what a reasonably careful practitioner would have done. This article covers the elements as they actually operate across professions, the procedural gatekeeping devices that dispose of claims before discovery, and the defenses that succeed. It works through legal malpractice and its distinctive case-within-a-case causation requirement, medical malpractice with its certificate of merit statutes and damages caps, accounting malpractice and the privity limits on third-party claims, and design professional liability with its economic loss rule problem. It closes with the limitations rules that are more complicated in this area than in any other tort, and with what a professional firm should do the day a mistake is discovered.
Copyright Registration Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Copyright protection attaches automatically the moment an original work is fixed, but registration is what makes the right enforceable: it is the ticket into federal court for U.S. works and the gateway to statutory damages and attorney's fees. This checklist walks a creator or adviser through the entire registration process step by step, from confirming ownership and choosing the right application type to preparing a compliant deposit, completing the electronic application accurately, and timing the filing to preserve maximum remedies. It anchors each step in primary authority, flags the most common errors that draw correspondence or refusals, and explains why accuracy matters after Unicolors v. H&M. Verify current fees and deadlines at copyright.gov before filing.
Trademark Challenges in the Metaverse and Virtual Goods
Virtual worlds, NFTs, and digital fashion have pushed trademark law into territory its nineteenth-century architects never imagined, and the Hermès v. Rothschild "MetaBirkins" litigation has become the defining case study for how the doctrine translates to digital-first commerce. This article maps that doctrinal landscape: what "use in commerce" means when goods exist only as code, how the Supreme Court's Jack Daniel's decision narrowed the Rogers v. Grimaldi expressive-works defense, how likelihood-of-confusion and dilution analysis adapt to avatars and virtual storefronts, and how the Nice Classification and competing trademark offices treat virtual goods and the physical-virtual relatedness question. It is written for brand owners, digital creators, and trademark practitioners who need the governing principles before they reach for tactics. A companion article covers the operational brand-protection playbook. This is not legal advice.
Trademark Dilution Under the TDRA: Blurring, Tarnishment, and What It Means to Be Famous
Dilution is the trademark claim that does not require confusion. It protects a small class of genuinely famous marks against uses that whittle away their distinctiveness or drag their reputation through the mud, even when no consumer is deceived about anything. This article explains the Trademark Dilution Revision Act of 2006, why Congress passed it to overrule the Supreme Court's actual-dilution requirement in Moseley v. V Secret Catalogue, and what a plaintiff must now prove: fame among the general consuming public of the United States, distinctiveness, use in commerce beginning after the mark became famous, and a likelihood of blurring or tarnishment. It works through the six statutory blurring factors with case illustrations, explains the three statutory exclusions and how the Supreme Court narrowed the parody safe harbor in Jack Daniel's v. VIP Products, and covers state antidilution statutes, TTAB dilution claims, remedies, and evidence. It closes with brand-owner and defense strategy, a worked example, an FAQ, and related reading.
Patent Basics and General Information Concerning Patents: A Practical Guide
A patent is a federal grant giving an inventor the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing a claimed invention for a limited time, in exchange for a full public disclosure of how the invention works. This guide is a comprehensive, cited reference on U.S. patent law for inventors, lawyers, founders, and anyone trying to understand how patents actually work. It walks through the constitutional and statutory framework; the three types of patents and their terms; the requirements for patentability (eligible subject matter and utility under Section 101, novelty under Section 102, nonobviousness under Section 103, and the disclosure rules of Section 112); ownership and inventorship; the application and prosecution process before the USPTO through Patent Center; publication, allowance, issuance, and maintenance; correction and post-grant proceedings before the PTAB; and the law of enforcement, defenses, and remedies. It incorporates the America Invents Act's first-inventor-to-file system and current practice, illustrates the doctrine with worked hypotheticals, and closes with topic-organized tables of leading cases and practical takeaways.
Corporate Practice of Medicine and Healthcare Transactions: MSOs, Private Equity, and Fee-Splitting
Most states prohibit a corporation from employing physicians or otherwise controlling the practice of medicine, which means a non-physician investor cannot simply buy a medical practice. The workaround the industry settled on is a two-entity structure: a physician-owned professional corporation that holds the clinical business and the licenses, and a management services organization that provides everything else under a long-term contract paying a management fee. Whether that structure is respected depends on how the documents allocate control and how the fee is calculated, and both are constrained by fee-splitting rules, the federal fraud and abuse statutes, and an increasingly active set of state transaction review laws. This article explains the doctrine, the structure and its pressure points, the regulatory overlay, and the diligence and closing mechanics that healthcare deals require.
Removal Proceedings and Humanitarian Relief: Asylum, Withholding, Cancellation, and CAT
Immigration court is an administrative system inside the Department of Justice where the stakes approach those of a criminal case and the procedural protections do not. This article maps removal proceedings from the notice to appear through federal appellate review, explaining what the government must prove, how detention and bond actually work, and the forms of relief that exist and what each requires. It covers asylum and its deadlines and bars, withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture, cancellation of removal for permanent residents and non-permanent residents, adjustment of status and waivers, and voluntary departure. It closes with the criminal grounds that determine most outcomes and the review that follows an order.
Insurance Coverage Toolkit: Placing, Tendering, and Litigating Claims
Insurance is the risk-transfer mechanism every business relies on and almost no business reads until it needs to. This toolkit covers the whole arc, because the outcome of a claim is usually determined at placement rather than at tender. It starts with reading a policy in the order that matters and understanding the difference between occurrence and claims-made coverage, then works through the placement decisions that determine what will be covered, the additional insured and indemnity architecture that decides whose policy responds in a construction or vendor relationship, and the notice mechanics that forfeit coverage more often than any exclusion. Later stages cover the tender letter, the duty to defend and the reservation of rights, independent counsel, settlement and consent, allocation among policies and periods, first-party claims and proof of loss, bad faith, and coverage litigation.
Patent FAQs: Answers to Common USPTO Patent Questions
A comprehensive, citation-rich guide answering the procedural questions inventors and businesses actually bring to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, organized by theme and grounded in current statutory and regulatory authority. The guide explains what a patent is and what can be patented, walks through the application types and the prosecution process, and covers costs, provisional applications, international filing through the PCT, post-grant proceedings, term and maintenance, ownership, and enforcement basics. It modernizes the USPTO's own FAQ answers with citations to 35 U.S.C. and 37 C.F.R., explains the America Invents Act's first-inventor-to-file rule and its narrow grace period, and adds worked hypotheticals throughout. This is the procedure-focused half of a two-part hub: its consumer-friendly companion answers the "should I even patent this?" questions, while this article is the "now how do I actually do it" reference. It closes with a short FAQ and a list of related in-depth guides from mclaw.io.
How to Write an Employee Handbook
An employee handbook is the single most-read legal document most workers ever encounter, and a poorly drafted one can quietly hand away the at-will defense, violate federal labor law, or become Exhibit A in a discrimination suit. This guide walks through how to write a handbook that informs employees, reflects your culture, and protects the company. It covers the at-will/disclaimer balance and the implied-contract trap, the essential policies every handbook needs (EEO and anti-harassment, ADA accommodation, FMLA and other leave, wage-hour, PTO, code of conduct, social media, confidentiality), the National Labor Relations Board's shifting standard for facially neutral work rules after Stericycle (2023), acknowledgment forms, multistate complications, arbitration agreements, and how a handbook becomes evidence. Plain-English throughout, with worked examples and current authority through 2026. It closes with an FAQ and links to related mclaw.io resources.
Contesting a Property Tax Assessment: A Practical Guide
Property tax is the largest recurring cost of owning real estate, it is assessed by a local official using mass appraisal methods, and it is wrong often enough that a review is worth doing every year. The appeal process is administrative first and judicial second, the deadlines are short and jurisdictional, and the standard of review favors the assessor through a presumption of correctness that the owner must overcome with evidence rather than argument. Two distinct grounds exist and they require different proof: that the assessment exceeds market value, and that it exceeds what comparable properties bear, which is a uniformity claim available in most states. This guide covers how assessments are produced, how to evaluate whether one is wrong, the evidence that actually persuades, the procedural sequence, and the exemptions and classifications that are frequently more valuable than a valuation appeal.
Strategic Responses to Requests for Admission: A Comprehensive Guide for Legal Practitioners
Requests for admission under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36 are a distinct discovery device aimed not at gathering facts but at narrowing the issues for trial, authenticating documents, and eliminating the need to prove undisputed matters. This guide explains the rule's mechanics in plain language: the unforgiving 30-day deadline and the automatic-admission trap, the four permissible forms of response (admit, deny, qualified, and lack of knowledge after reasonable inquiry), the limited grounds for objection, and the special category of requests that ask a party to apply law to fact. It examines the conclusive effect of admissions under Rule 36(b), the demanding two-part standard for withdrawing or amending them, and the rule that a Rule 36 admission binds the party only in the pending action. It walks through the three motions unique to admission practice—the motion to determine sufficiency under Rule 36(a)(6), the motion to withdraw or amend under Rule 36(b), and the cost-shifting sanctions motion under Rule 37(c)(2)—and closes with strategic drafting guidance and fully worked model requests and responses. Throughout, the article uses concrete hypotheticals and primary authority so that judges, practitioners, and non-lawyers alike can follow the analysis.