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.
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.
Patent Marking Compliance: A Practical Checklist
Patent marking under 35 U.S.C. § 287 is one of the most consequential yet most overlooked compliance obligations in patent law—failing to mark can erase years of pre-suit damages even against a deliberate copyist, and after SCA Hygiene abolished laches, marking is now the single most important limit on how far back a patentee can reach for damages. This checklist walks a patentee through earning constructive notice by consistent, continuous marking; using the AIA virtual-marking website option; policing licensees (with the Arctic Cat burden-shifting framework); handling method claims and multi-patent products; sending an effective actual-notice letter while managing declaratory-judgment risk; and avoiding false-marking liability under § 292. It closes with an auditable compliance program. Verify current fees and any deadlines at the official site.
Securities Fraud Litigation Under Rule 10b-5: Elements, the PSLRA, and Defense Strategy
A securities fraud class action is a specialized proceeding with its own pleading rules, its own gatekeeping mechanisms, and a damages model that can exceed a company's market capitalization. This article explains how these cases work from the defense side. It covers the elements of a Rule 10b-5 claim, including the materiality standard, the scienter requirement and the strong inference test, and the reliance presumption that makes class treatment possible along with the price impact rebuttal that has become the central battleground at certification. It then covers the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act's heightened pleading requirements, the automatic discovery stay, the lead plaintiff process, and the safe harbor for forward-looking statements. Later sections address Securities Act claims under Sections 11 and 12 which require no scienter, opinion statements after Omnicare, omissions after Macquarie, class certification, damages models, settlement dynamics, and directors and officers insurance.
COPPA Children's Privacy Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Children's privacy compliance turns on two documents most companies do not have: a dated audience analysis explaining why the service is or is not directed to children, and a written retention policy showing what is kept, why, and for how long. Recent enforcement has concentrated on retention and deletion rather than collection, and the amended rule now requires both documents explicitly. This checklist runs the analysis in order—classify the service, inventory every data element and every embedded SDK, map each to a lawful basis, build the consent flow where consent is required, and implement deletion that reaches derived data as well as raw records. It closes with the design defaults that satisfy the newer state and international regimes.
Wage and Hour Compliance Toolkit
Wage and hour exposure is created by systems configured once and never tested, not by decisions anyone made to underpay. The classifications were set when the roles were created, the payroll system was configured at implementation, and the rounding rule has run untouched for six years. Meanwhile the exposure compounds across the whole job classification, doubles through liquidated damages, and extends a third year on a willfulness finding. This toolkit builds and tests the program: classifying correctly and documenting close calls, configuring the regular rate so overtime is right when a bonus is paid, capturing hours including remote and pre-shift work, handling contractors and joint employment, layering state requirements, running the self-audit, and responding to a Department of Labor investigation or a collective action when one arrives.
Anti-Kickback and Stark Law Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Nearly every arrangement that gets a healthcare organization in trouble was reviewed by someone who concluded it was fine, and failed on a detail: an expired agreement under which payments continued, a missing signature, per-click rent, compensation stacked across four separate agreements, or services nobody documented. This checklist works arrangement by arrangement rather than by legal theory. It starts by building a complete inventory of every financial relationship with a referral source, then applies the Stark exception analysis and the Anti-Kickback safe harbor analysis to each, tests fair market value and commercial reasonableness, and checks the operational controls that keep a compliant arrangement compliant. Later phases cover the monitoring calendar, exclusion screening, and what to do when a problem is found, including the choice between disclosure paths.
Drafting a Trademark Cease-and-Desist Letter
A cease-and-desist letter is often the first and most consequential move a brand owner makes to stop trademark infringement, and a well-drafted one can resolve a dispute in a single envelope. This guide walks through the full strategy: clearing your own rights before you accuse anyone, honestly assessing likelihood of confusion under the multi-factor circuit tests, choosing the right tone, and building the letter section by section. It explains the serious traps that turn a routine enforcement letter into a lawsuit you did not want, including declaratory-judgment jeopardy under MedImmune v. Genentech, the first-to-file race to the courthouse, and the reputational blowback of "trademark bullying" and the Streisand effect. A complete model letter outline is included, along with guidance on deadlines, reservations of rights, the remedies the Lanham Act actually authorizes, settlement and coexistence options, and when to skip the letter and sue. The article is written for brand owners, in-house teams, and counsel alike. It closes with a detailed FAQ and practical takeaways.
Data Minimization and Avoiding the Over-Retention of Personal Information
Data minimization and storage limitation are the twin privacy principles that tell organizations to collect only the personal information they actually need and to keep it only as long as they actually need it. This guide explains where those duties come from—GDPR Article 5, the CCPA as amended by the CPRA, the FTC's expanding enforcement posture, and sectoral laws like GLBA, HIPAA, and the FCRA—and why "we might need it someday" is no longer a defensible reason to hoard data. It walks through the real-world costs of over-retention, from larger breaches and bigger fines to crushing e-discovery bills, and then lays out a practical, step-by-step program: data mapping, retention schedules, classification, defensible deletion, de-identification, and privacy by design. Worked examples and a FAQ translate the law into operational decisions a business can actually make. The throughline is simple: the data you never collected, and the data you safely deleted, cannot be breached, subpoenaed, or fined.
Transportation and Logistics Law: The Carmack Amendment, Broker Liability, and FMCSA Compliance
Freight moves under a body of law almost none of it borrowed from ordinary commercial practice. A cargo claim against a motor carrier is governed by a federal statute that preempts state law, imposes near-strict liability with four narrow defenses, and lets the carrier cap its exposure at a fraction of the shipment's value if it followed the right procedure. A freight broker occupies a different position entirely and faces a growing body of negligent selection litigation that the circuits have not resolved. This article covers the Carmack Amendment claim and defense framework, how brokers and forwarders differ from carriers and why it matters, the FMCSA safety regime that drives both compliance and personal injury exposure, owner-operator classification and the truth-in-leasing rules, and the parallel regimes governing ocean and air.