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.
The Criminal Case From Arrest to Appeal: What Actually Happens and When
A criminal case is a sequence of deadlines and decisions, most of which are made long before any trial and many of which are irreversible. This article maps the whole sequence from the first police contact through appeal and collateral review, explaining at each stage what actually happens, who decides what, and which choices cannot be undone. It covers the constitutional rules that govern police contact and interrogation, the mechanics of charging and bail, the discovery obligations that are frequently misunderstood, the suppression practice that decides many cases, the plea bargaining process that resolves almost all of them, and the sentencing framework. It closes with collateral consequences, record clearing, and the difference between a direct appeal and habeas corpus.
Franchise Toolkit: Building and Buying a Franchise System
Franchising is two businesses at once. The franchisor sells and supports a system and lives under a disclosure and registration regime with real penalties. The franchisee buys a contract drafted entirely by the seller and largely non-negotiable, secured by a personal guaranty that outlasts nearly everything else. This toolkit covers both sides. For the franchisor: whether the arrangement is a franchise at all, preparing the disclosure document and registering, designing the agreement and the economics, managing the sales process, and the relationship statutes and antitrust constraints that govern the system. For the franchisee: reading the disclosure document for the items that actually predict outcomes, conducting validation calls, modeling unit economics honestly, and understanding what the personal guaranty covers.
Winning or Opposing a Trademark Preliminary Injunction: A Practical Guide
This guide walks a trademark owner and an accused party through a preliminary injunction fight in the order the work actually happens. It starts with the first 48 hours, then covers the decision to move, whether to send a letter, forum and parties, and the choice among an ex parte TRO, a seizure order, and a noticed motion. It sets out who should sign which declaration, how to structure each side's brief around the statutory presumption, and how to write and attack a delay chronology. Sample language, a survey decision framework, bond strategy, order drafting, hearing preparation, and post-ruling steps follow. Two worked examples show a movant with a six-week runway and a small defendant with a thin budget. A section on common mistakes closes the guide for each side.
Federal Registration and Constructive Use Under 15 U.S.C. § 1057(c): A Practical Guide
The single most valuable date in a trademark owner's life is often its application filing date, and the reason is a doctrine called constructive use. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1057(c), filing a federal application that later matures into a registration is treated as use of the mark everywhere in the country as of the filing date—conferring a nationwide right of priority against almost everyone who comes later. This guide explains, in plain language for lawyers and business owners alike, exactly what constructive use does and does not accomplish. It distinguishes constructive use from the older concept of constructive notice, explains why the priority is "contingent" on registration and relates back to the filing date, walks through the crucial "except for" carve-outs that protect prior users, prior applicants, and foreign-priority claimants, and analyzes how the doctrine interacts with the Tea Rose-Rectanus common-law framework. It covers Zirco, WarnerVision, Allard, and Sengoku, the burden of proof, the Madrid Protocol's earlier-still constructive-use date, and closes with worked examples, a litigator's playbook, and an FAQ.
Social Media Law Basics
Social media sits on top of a surprisingly deep legal stack: federal immunity statutes, copyright law, advertising regulation, labor law, constitutional doctrine, and a patchwork of privacy rules. This article maps that stack for anyone who posts, markets, hires, moderates, or governs online. We explain Section 230 and its limits, the 2023-2024 Supreme Court decisions in Gonzalez, Taamneh, Moody v. NetChoice and Lindke v. Freed, the FTC's endorsement rules for influencers and its 2024 fake-reviews rule, the Consumer Review Fairness Act, the line the National Labor Relations Act draws around employee venting, the state laws protecting employees' account passwords, who owns a work account when an employee quits, the rules for content ownership and DMCA takedowns, and how defamation, anonymous-speech unmasking, impersonation, and contests actually work. Plain-language explanations and worked examples throughout, with cross-links to deeper articles. It closes with an FAQ and the usual reminder to get real counsel before you act.
Business Records Toolkit: Rule 902 Certifications, Foundation Scripts, and Hearsay Response Charts
This toolkit gives litigators and records teams working papers they can copy and adapt. It includes certifications under Rule 902(11), (12), (13), and (14), a combined notice of intent, a custodian request letter, a stipulation, and requests for admission. It also has foundation scripts, a hearsay response chart, a custodian deposition outline, and a technical questionnaire for system data. For summaries, it provides a Rule 1006 chart template, a preparer's declaration, and a Rule 107 legend. Each item states its purpose, its owner, and its timing, followed by drafting notes tied to authority.
Breaking a Deadlock in a Two-Owner Company: A Practical Guide
A fifty-fifty company works until it does not, and when it stops working there is no mechanism inside the company to restart it. Every decision requiring a majority fails, the board cannot act, the annual meeting cannot elect directors, and the business keeps operating on inertia while the owners stop speaking. This guide covers what to do when that has already happened and how to prevent it in the first place. It works through the contractual deadlock-breaking devices and their failure modes, the statutory remedies including judicial dissolution, custodians, and provisional directors, the practical mechanics of a negotiated buyout from valuation through the release of personal guaranties, and the drafting that would have avoided the problem. It closes with candid advice about timing and cost.
Running a Rebrand: A Practical Legal Guide
This guide walks a company and its counsel through a rebrand from the first conversation about why the name must change to the year after launch, with a parallel track for the senior user whose objection forces a rebrand. It starts with the decisions that shape the project: the reason for the change, its scope, whether it is a refresh or a replacement, and the budget and timeline. Twelve numbered steps follow, each with what to do, why, the governing authority, pitfalls, timing, and cost: inventorying the existing brand estate, setting legally sound naming criteria, knockout and full searches, resolving conflicts, filing intent-to-use and foreign applications, securing domains and handles, planning the transition, changing corporate names and notifying counterparties, launching and perfecting registrations, deciding the legacy mark's future, and monitoring after launch. A separate section covers rebrands required by a demand letter, settlement, or injunction, from both sides. A timeline and cost table, a worked example following a pet food company from PAWSOME BITES to KINDLEWOOD, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways close the guide.
Filing an International Trademark Application Under the Madrid Protocol: A Practical Guide
This guide takes a U.S. trademark owner through an international application under the Madrid Protocol, from choosing the basic mark to renewing the international registration ten years later. It begins with the decisions to make before filing: eligibility, whether Madrid suits the target countries, which U.S. application or registration to rely on, the Paris priority window, and the goods and services specification. Twelve numbered steps then cover building the specification, choosing designations, computing fees in Swiss francs, preparing the USPTO's TEAS international application, answering USPTO and WIPO irregularity notices, docketing the registration, handling provisional refusals through local counsel, surviving the five-year dependency period, and managing subsequent designations, changes, replacement, and renewal. Separate sections address foreign owners extending protection to the United States and third parties who want to oppose a designation or mount a central attack. A timeline and cost table, a worked example following a skincare company's filing, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways close the guide.
Commercial Loan Agreements: Covenants, Defaults, and What Borrowers Should Negotiate
A loan agreement is not primarily about the interest rate. It is a set of promises about how a business will be run for the next five years, backed by the lender's right to demand immediate repayment if any of them is broken. This article explains what those promises are and which ones are negotiable. It walks the term sheet and commitment letter, the conditions precedent that decide whether the loan ever funds, and the representations that become continuing obligations through the bring-down mechanic. It then covers affirmative, negative, and financial covenants in detail, including how the EBITDA definition quietly determines whether a company is in default, and the events of default and cross-default provisions that let one small failure trigger everything at once. Later sections cover guaranties, intercreditor and subordination arrangements, what happens in a default, the anatomy of a forbearance agreement, SBA-specific issues, a worked example, a negotiation checklist, and an FAQ.
Business Immigration Toolkit: Visas, PERM, and I-9 Compliance
An employer that hires foreign nationals runs three parallel systems: a nonimmigrant program that determines who may work and for how long, a permanent residence process that takes years and depends on a queue determined by country of birth, and a verification and recordkeeping regime enforced by audit. This toolkit runs all three. It covers selecting the right nonimmigrant category and the compliance obligations each carries, the labor certification and immigrant petition sequence with its unforgiving deadlines, the I-9 and E-Verify process and how an audit actually proceeds, and the internal program—a tracker, a policy, and a set of calendared milestones—that keeps a sponsored population from falling out of status. It closes with the audit posture that ties the three systems together, since the same records support a visa petition, a labor certification file, and an I-9 inspection.
Sponsorship, Endorsement, and Influencer Agreements: A Practical Guide
Paying someone to talk about a product creates two distinct legal problems, and companies usually address only one. The commercial problem is the agreement—what the endorser must deliver, what the brand may do with it, for how long, on what exclusivity, and what happens when the endorser does something embarrassing. The regulatory problem is that the resulting content is advertising, subject to substantiation requirements, disclosure obligations, and enforcement that now reaches the endorser and the agency as well as the brand. This guide covers both. It works through the FTC's revised Endorsement Guides and the disclosure standard they impose, the fake reviews rule and its penalties, then turns to the agreements themselves—sponsorship, endorsement, and influencer deals—and the terms that determine whether the arrangement produces value or liability.