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.
International Patent Filing Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs the international patent filing sequence date by date, from the disclosure that precedes the priority filing to the annuities that outlive everyone who approved them. It opens with the pre-filing disclosure audit and the foreign filing license, then covers the priority document, the priority year, the twelve-month fork between Paris and PCT routes, and the international phase. Later sections handle national phase entry and pruning, translation review as a legal step, the jurisdiction-specific deadlines that fall in the quiet years, and the annual reconciliation that keeps a portfolio alive. A closing section collects the recovery options when something has already gone wrong. Every item is written so a "no" tells you what to do next.
International Arbitration Toolkit: Clauses, Procedural Orders, and Enforcement Petitions
Working templates for an international commercial arbitration. It includes a model arbitration clause with clause-by-clause drafting notes, an arbitrator vetting questionnaire, a draft Procedural Order No. 1, a Redfern Schedule with model entries, a witness statement skeleton, an expert conferral direction, a cost submission outline, and a petition to confirm a Convention award in a United States district court. Each carries notes explaining what the language does and where it commonly fails. Adapt everything to the institution, the seat, and the governing law.
International Arbitration Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A working checklist for an international commercial arbitration from clause review through cross-border enforcement. It covers the pre-filing enforcement map, the request, tribunal constitution and arbitrator vetting, the first procedural conference, the memorial schedule, document production under the IBA framework, witness and expert evidence, hearing logistics, the award, and the parallel enforcement campaign. A separate section covers drafting the clause so none of the preventable problems arise. Each item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.
International Arbitration and the New York Convention: Enforcing Awards Across Borders
The New York Convention is the most successful private international law treaty ever written, and it is why cross-border commerce can be arbitrated at all. This article explains what the Convention actually requires, how Chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act implements it, and why a foreign arbitral award is easier to enforce in the United States than a foreign court judgment. It covers the seven Article V defenses, the difference between the seat and the hearing venue, the divergent treatment of awards annulled where they were made, the Panama Convention, sovereign parties, and what ZF Automotive did to discovery in aid of foreign arbitration. It closes with the drafting decisions that determine whether an award will be enforceable.
Interim Relief Toolkit: Emergency Applications, Security Requests, and Court Assistance Motions
This toolkit supplies the documents used to obtain and resist urgent relief in arbitration. It opens with a forum decision matrix and a triage sheet that settle in the first hour whether an emergency arbitrator, a court, or a standstill letter is the right instrument. The application materials include a full emergency application shell, a holding direction request that is routinely omitted and frequently decisive, a chronology exhibit template, draft operative orders for each category of relief, and a security undertaking proposal. Respondent materials include an opposition outline built around urgency and scope, and a narrower counter-order. Later tools cover a court motion in aid of arbitration, a security for costs application, a request to the constituted tribunal to confirm emergency relief, an enforcement petition, a client briefing note, and the clause provisions to add afterward.
Inter Partes Review Strategy: Discretionary Denial, Estoppel, and the Parallel District Court Case
An inter partes review is cheaper and faster than district court invalidity litigation, and choosing one can cost you the other. This article explains the strategic architecture of PTAB practice: the one-year bar, the institution decision and the discretion the Board exercises over it, the estoppel that attaches on a final written decision, and how the parallel district court case shapes every one of those questions. It covers what SAS Institute did to partial institution, what Cuozzo and Thryv held about reviewability, the constitutional foundation Oil States settled, the appointments problem Arthrex fixed, and why motions to amend so rarely succeed. It closes with a decision framework for petitioners and a defensive playbook for patent owners.
Infrastructure Agreement Toolkit: SLA Schedules, Power Commitments, and Exit Provisions
This toolkit supplies the drafting language for the provisions that carry an infrastructure deal. It opens with a requirement specification template that states capacity in the unit the market actually prices, followed by a power commitment schedule with usable continuous load, redundancy, metering, and a bounded escalation mechanism. The service level materials include an availability definition, a maintenance clause with capped windows and preserved redundancy, a root cause obligation, a credit schedule, and the chronic-failure termination right that gives the commitment force. Interconnection, access and suspension, and remote hands clauses follow. Cloud provisions cover committed spend with roll-forward, price protection, egress waiver, capacity reservation, and change-of-terms rights. The toolkit closes with legal process and data export clauses, a full exit and transition schedule, a lien carve-out, a credit claim letter, and a one-page agreement summary.
Indemnification Toolkit: Charter and Bylaw Provisions, Indemnity Agreements, and Undertakings
This toolkit provides the drafting-ready documents that make indemnification and advancement work, with annotations identifying the failure each provision prevents. It includes a full bylaw article granting mandatory rights with a vesting clause and fees-on-fees language, an individual indemnification agreement with the presumption and deemed-approval mechanisms worth negotiating, an undertaking, a demand letter, and a standing resolution designating subsidiary board service at the corporation's request. It also supplies an advancement administration protocol, a merger agreement survival covenant with tail insurance terms, indemnitor-of-first-resort language for sponsor designees, and a board determination resolution for use at resolution. The annotations focus on the handful of words that decide contested matters.
Indemnification and Advancement for Directors and Officers: The Fight That Starts Before the Merits
Advancement is the right to have your legal fees paid while a case is pending, and it is decided long before anyone knows whether you did anything wrong. That is the point, and it is why advancement disputes are litigated summarily, aggressively, and on a record that has nothing to do with the merits. This article separates indemnification from advancement, explains what Delaware makes mandatory and what it leaves to the charter and bylaws, and works through the doctrinal questions that decide real cases: whether a proceeding is brought "by reason of the fact" of the person's corporate role, what counts as success on the merits, whether fees incurred pursuing advancement are themselves recoverable, and whether a company can amend away rights after the conduct occurred. It closes with the drafting that makes the answer certain and the interaction with D&O insurance that determines who actually pays.
Indemnification and Advancement Checklist
Advancement and indemnification questions are answered by documents, and the failures come from documents nobody read, notices nobody sent, and determinations nobody made. This checklist opens with the drafting review a company should complete before any claim arises, including the vesting clause and the fees-on-fees language that decide contested matters. It then covers the day-one steps for an individual who receives a claim, and the honest four-question analysis a company should run before refusing. Later sections set out the administration protocol that keeps a multi-year payment stream out of court, the insurance coordination that must run in parallel, and the transaction covenants that preserve rights through an acquisition. It closes with the indemnification determination at resolution, a nexus worksheet, and the special situations that recur—insolvency, sponsor designees, investigations, and shared coverage towers.
Importing Lawfully and Managing Tariff Exposure: A Practical Guide
A step-by-step operational guide to building an import compliance program and reducing tariff exposure lawfully, written for in-house counsel, supply chain leaders, and outside counsel advising importers. It runs from the product database and classification process through valuation and assists, origin determinations, the tariff programs layered on top, supply chain tracing for forced labor, recordkeeping, and broker management. Later parts cover responding to a CBP inquiry or audit, quantifying and filing a prior disclosure, protests and rulings, and lawful duty mitigation. It includes a worked program build with named parties, a calendar, budgets, staffing, and the mistakes that turn a small error into a seven-figure assessment.
Import Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A working checklist for an import compliance program, from the product database through the response to a CBP audit. It covers the reasonable care standard, the classification process and when to seek a binding ruling, transaction value with its additions and exclusions, the assist identification process that procurement must own, origin determinations for both preferential and non-preferential purposes, the tariff programs layered on top, forced labor supply chain tracing, recordkeeping, and broker management. Later sections cover the change trigger that prevents the most expensive errors, responding to a CF 28 or an audit, quantifying and filing a prior disclosure, protests and duty recovery, and lawful mitigation. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.