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.

TransportationMotor Carrier

CDL and Motor Carrier Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist covers the decisions that determine whether a commercial driver keeps working. It leads with the citation, because the plea available to every other driver is prohibited for a CDL holder and taking it anyway is how careers end. It sets out the disqualifying offenses at both tiers, the medical certificate whose lapse downgrades a license by operation of law, and the annual two-hour records review that catches errors while they remain fixable. It covers the testing regime including refusal and the return-to-duty sequence that must be performed in order, roadside inspections and out-of-service orders, the free DataQs challenge, and the whistleblower and coercion complaints with their ninety and one hundred eighty day deadlines.

Casey Scott McKayJune 28, 20269 min read

HousingSubsidized Housing

Subsidized Housing Application and Hearing Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist runs subsidized housing from the waiting list application through the hearing that saves a tenancy. It covers applying to every list including the shorter project-based ones, claiming preferences with documentation, and requesting the informal review that reverses discretionary denials. It walks the voucher search with the arithmetic to check before signing, then the annual routine of recertification and the reporting obligations that produce most terminations. It closes with the hearing sequence — requesting it within the deadline, demanding documents, auditing the rent calculation line by line, and arriving with a specific proposal — plus the reasonable accommodation requests that change outcomes at every stage.

Casey Scott McKayJune 26, 20268 min read

Labor and EmploymentDiscrimination

Pregnancy Discrimination in the Workplace

Pregnancy discrimination law changed more between 2023 and 2025 than in the four decades before it, and this guide brings the whole picture current. It explains the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and its "treat-her-like-everyone-else" command, the Supreme Court's accommodation framework from Young v. UPS, and the landmark Pregnant Workers Fairness Act of 2023 with the EEOC's 2024 final rule that finally created an affirmative duty to accommodate pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions. It covers the PUMP Act's lactation protections, how the FMLA and ADA fit alongside these statutes, and the patchwork of stronger state laws. Worked hypotheticals show how the doctrines play out for real employers and employees, and a practical walk-through covers the EEOC charge process, remedies, damages caps, and prevention. Written so a judge, an HR director, and a worried expectant employee can all follow it, the guide is current to 2026 and flags where the law is still moving.

Casey Scott McKayJune 25, 202643 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrademark

Trade Dress Protection Toolkit: From Product Design and Packaging to Registration, Functionality, and Enforcement

This toolkit is a roadmap to protecting the look and feel of a product or its packaging as trade dress. It explains what trade dress is, the crucial distinction between product packaging (which can be inherently distinctive) and product design or configuration (which always requires secondary meaning after Wal-Mart v. Samara), the functionality bar that defeats protection, how to register trade dress at the USPTO, how trade dress compares to and complements design patents, and how to enforce it. At each stage it links mclaw.io articles and checklists alongside the governing Lanham Act provisions and the Supreme Court's foundational trade dress cases. It is written for product companies, brand counsel, and litigators. Verify current USPTO requirements and fees before filing.

Casey Scott McKayJune 24, 202612 min read

EstateDeath Care

Final Arrangements Toolkit: Disposition Directives, Price Comparisons, and Benefit Claims

This toolkit provides the documents that make final arrangements manageable, ordered from the preparation that prevents problems to the responses that fix them. It opens with a disposition directive, a funeral wishes letter, and the one-page kitchen drawer sheet that families actually find in the first hour. It includes a telephone price worksheet built around the two questions that expose a fivefold price spread, a general price list comparison, a script for the arrangement conference with the exact phrases that assert each right, an itemized statement review, and a Funeral Rule complaint letter. It then covers the cemetery fee inquiry, preneed contract questions, veterans benefits claims and a DD-214 request, a death certificate order worksheet, a notification tracker, a credit bureau deceased notice, and an outline for a disposition dispute petition.

Casey Scott McKayJune 24, 202619 min read

CommercialAgriculture

Farm and Ranch Legal Toolkit: Leases, Liens, Insurance, and Succession

This toolkit supplies the working documents of a farm operation. It contains cash rent and crop share lease templates with the clauses that decide disputes, a termination notice letter, a farmland purchase diligence worksheet, a water right verification form, the PACA invoice language and the packers and stockyards preservation notice, a lien search protocol, a crop insurance and program deadline calendar, a program eligibility worksheet, a two entity structure model, a pesticide drift incident protocol, agritourism signage requirements, a grain contract review sheet, and a succession family agreement outline.

Casey Scott McKayJune 24, 202615 min read

Intellectual PropertyPatent

Artificial Intelligence and Inventorship: Global Perspectives on Machine Contributions to Innovation

Patent systems around the world now agree that an inventor must be a human being, yet they disagree—sharply, and in ways that change real filings—about how much a person must contribute when an AI system does much of the creative work. This article explains the global state of play in plain language, anchored by the DABUS litigation that forced the question and a realistic mid-spectrum example of a scientist inventing with AI assistance. It covers the United States (including the USPTO's November 2025 rescission of its 2024 guidance and its return to the traditional conception test), the European Patent Office, the United Kingdom, and the major Asian patent offices. It also tackles the twin problem of disclosure—written description and enablement for "black box" inventions—and distinguishes the settled formal rule from the unsettled practical question. Throughout, it maps the spectrum of human involvement and offers concrete documentation, drafting, and cross-border strategies, with worked hypotheticals a judge, a patent lawyer, and a curious founder can all follow.

Casey Scott McKayJune 22, 202643 min read

TechnologyContract

Software Transactions: An Overview

Software is bought, sold, rented, built, embedded, and resold in a dizzying variety of deals, and the legal rules that govern them are surprisingly unsettled. This guide maps the whole landscape of software transactions--on-premises licenses, SaaS and cloud subscriptions, custom development agreements, and reseller, VAR, and OEM channel deals--and explains how each is structured and why the differences matter. It tackles the foundational puzzle of which law applies (the UCC Article 2 versus common-law debate and the cautionary tale of UCITA), how clickwrap contracts are formed and enforced, who owns the intellectual property when code is written to order, and how data, privacy, and open-source obligations flow through a deal. Worked hypotheticals walk through the negotiation of indemnities, warranties, liability caps, service levels, and source-code escrow, including the modern cloud-escrow analog. It closes with the merger, acquisition, and asset-transfer problems that catch dealmakers off guard, a section on the disputes that actually arise, an FAQ, and cross-links to deeper companion articles.

Casey Scott McKayJune 20, 202653 min read

TransportationMotor Carrier

Keeping a CDL and Handling a Motor Carrier Violation: A Practical Guide

This guide is built around the decisions that decide whether a commercial driver keeps working. It opens with the citation, because the plea that any other driver would take is prohibited for a CDL holder and taking it anyway is how careers end. It covers the medical certificate whose lapse downgrades a license by operation of law, the annual records review that catches errors while they are fixable, and the driver qualification file the carrier keeps about you. It walks the drug and alcohol testing regime including the clearinghouse and the return-to-duty sequence that must be done in order, then the roadside inspection, the out-of-service order, and the DataQs challenge that removes bad data for free. It closes with the whistleblower and coercion complaints, their short deadlines, and what to examine before signing a lease-purchase.

Casey Scott McKayJune 20, 202627 min read

Government BenefitsSocial Security

Social Security Retirement and Survivor Benefits: Claiming Age, Spousal Rules, and the Earnings Test

Social Security retirement is a wage-replacement annuity computed from a worker's own earnings history, and almost every dollar of it turns on choices made in a single year. This article explains insured status and the quarters of coverage that create it, how the primary insurance amount is computed from indexed earnings and bend points, what claiming early or late actually does, the spousal and divorced-spouse benefits and their frequently misunderstood limits, the survivor benefit that is the real reason to delay, the earnings test that is a deferral rather than a forfeiture, taxation of benefits, overpayments and waiver, and the four-level appeal structure. It uses examples throughout and separates the rules that are fixed by statute from the assumptions people import from folklore.

Casey Scott McKayJune 19, 202629 min read

CommercialFranchising

Franchise Disclosure Document Review Checklist: A Practical Checklist

The franchise disclosure document contains nearly everything a prospective franchisee needs to evaluate an opportunity, and most buyers do not read it carefully because it arrives at four hundred pages during an emotional decision. The items that predict outcomes are not the ones the sales process emphasizes. This checklist works item by item through the disclosure document, with particular attention to the four that matter most: Item 3 litigation, which shows how the franchisor treats franchisees when things go badly; Item 19, which is the only place earnings claims may be made and which a third of franchisors omit entirely; Item 20, whose outlet tables reveal the system's actual failure rate; and Item 21, which shows whether the franchisor can deliver the support it promised. It closes with the validation calls that are worth more than the entire document.

Casey Scott McKayJune 18, 202611 min read

HousingSubsidized Housing

Applying for and Keeping Subsidized Housing: A Practical Guide

This guide covers subsidized housing from the waiting list application through the hearing that saves a tenancy. It explains how to get on every list you qualify for, which preferences to claim and how to document them, and why the informal review of a denial is the most winnable and least used proceeding in the field. It walks through the voucher search — reading the payment standard, understanding the forty percent cap, and what to ask a landlord before signing — and then through the annual routine of recertification and the reporting obligations that produce most terminations. It closes with the hearing: how to request it before the deadline, what documents to demand, how to check the arithmetic, and what to propose, because hearing officers grant specific things and rarely forgive general ones.

Casey Scott McKayJune 18, 202628 min read