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.

ConsumerTimeshares

Timeshare Toolkit: Rescission Letters, Deed-Back Requests, and Complaint Filings

This toolkit contains the letters and worksheets that resolve timeshare matters, ordered by urgency. It opens with the rescission letter and the two notices that must accompany it, because that right expires in days. It then provides a deed-back request written to produce the requirements in writing, a payment plan proposal for owners in arrears, and a pre-default letter that gets a surrender accepted more often than owners expect. It includes a transfer verification checklist that prevents the recorded-transfer failures several scams depend on, a demand letter for owners with a real claim, complaint templates for the state timeshare regulator and attorneys general, a fraud report for exit-company victims, a sales presentation timeline and document inventory for building a claim, and the executor and heir notices that preserve a disclaimer.

Casey Scott McKayMay 22, 202616 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrademark

The Evolution of Trade Dress Protection for Product Design and Configuration: A Comprehensive Case Law Analysis

This article is the deep case-law spine of mclaw.io's trade dress coverage. It traces the doctrine for product design and configuration through the four foundational Supreme Court decisions decided between 1992 and 2001—Two Pesos v. Taco Cabana, Qualitex v. Jacobson, Wal-Mart v. Samara, and TrafFix v. Marketing Displays—and the circuit law that has applied them. Written for judges, practitioners, and business readers alike, it explains the outcome-determining line between product packaging (which can be inherently distinctive) and product design (which can never be, and always demands secondary meaning), along with the elusive "tertium quid" middle category. It works through utilitarian functionality under Inwood, the Morton-Norwich evidentiary factors, aesthetic functionality under Qualitex, and the way TrafFix demoted alternative-design evidence and elevated expired utility patents. It surveys how the circuits have handled footwear, multi-tools, snack food, restaurant decor, beverage bottles, and smartphones, pays close attention to who bears the burden of proving (non)functionality and to the expert and survey evidence that decides close cases, and closes with worked hypotheticals, industry-by-industry guidance, a comparative look at trade dress abroad and at emerging pressures from AR, 3D printing, and AI, and a practical FAQ. The throughline is the law's enduring effort to balance brand identity against the public's right to copy unpatented, functional features.

Casey Scott McKayMay 22, 202653 min read

CommercialAdvertising and Marketing

Promotions and Prize Marketing Toolkit: Rules, Registration, and Platform Compliance

This toolkit assembles the documents a promotions program runs on. It contains a design brief for the marketing team, a mechanic decision matrix mapping each promotion type to its legal profile, a modular official rules template with the alternative method of entry and error provisions that matter most, an abbreviated rules block for advertising assets, a registration threshold worksheet, influencer agreement and entrant disclosure language, the winner documents including the affidavit and releases, notification and disqualification letters, a launch review form, and a records retention schedule.

Casey Scott McKayMay 19, 202613 min read

Wills and EstatesPowers of Attorney

Powers of Attorney and Advance Directives: A Practical Guide

A power of attorney and a health care directive are the documents most likely to be needed and least likely to exist, and the ones whose failure produces a guardianship proceeding that costs more than the entire estate plan. This guide covers both. It explains what a durable power of attorney does, why springing powers create the problem they were meant to solve, and the specific authorities that must be granted expressly because the statutory form withholds them by default. It covers the third-party acceptance problem, which is the most common practical failure, and the agent's fiduciary duties and recordkeeping obligations. The second half addresses health care documents: the proxy, the living will, the HIPAA authorization that is separate and necessary, and the POLST that operates differently from all of them, along with guardianship as the alternative when the documents do not exist.

Casey Scott McKayMay 19, 202626 min read

EmploymentDiscrimination

Filing an Employment Discrimination Charge: A Practical Guide

This guide walks through filing a discrimination charge in the order the work has to be done, starting with the deadline that ends more claims than any argument. It explains how to calculate the window, why each discrete act starts its own clock and hostile environment does not, and how to preserve the deadline while you are still deciding. It covers what to write down before memory fades, how to identify comparators while you still have access, and why the internal written complaint is the single most important procedural step an employee can take. It then walks the charge itself — what the intake questionnaire does, how to draft the charge so it does not limit your later claims, and what happens through the position statement, mediation, investigation, and right-to-sue letter — and closes on severance releases and the second deadline nobody expects.

Casey Scott McKayMay 19, 202627 min read

Government BenefitsVeterans

Filing and Appealing a VA Disability Claim: A Practical Guide

This guide runs a VA disability claim from the first decision to file through an appeal to the Board. It covers the intent to file that preserves back pay for the cost of a form, obtaining the service records and the claims file, identifying every condition to claim including the secondary conditions almost nobody claims, obtaining a nexus opinion in the words the standard requires, writing lay statements that carry weight, preparing for the compensation and pension examination and what to say in it, reading a decision letter to identify which element failed, choosing among the three review lanes, and pursuing TDIU, dependency benefits, and the state benefits the VA does not administer.

Casey Scott McKayMay 18, 202628 min read

Civil RightsDisability Rights

Requesting Disability Accommodations and Enforcing Access Rights: A Practical Guide

This guide is about the practical craft of asking — how to make a disability accommodation request that gets granted, and what to do when it is not. It explains why the specific sentence you use matters more than the statute you cite, how much medical documentation is actually required and what a provider letter should and should not say, and how to run the interactive process without giving away information you do not have to disclose. It covers the different rules for stores, governments, landlords, airlines, and websites, including the exact two questions a business may ask about a service animal and the broader housing rule for assistance animals. It then walks the escalation path: the written follow-up, the person whose job this is, the agency complaint and its deadlines, and the choice between federal and state routes, where state law is frequently the better one.

Casey Scott McKayMay 15, 202629 min read

Labor and EmploymentPolicies and Procedures

Multistate Employment Compliance Toolkit

One employee working in a new state makes a company a multistate employer subject to that state's entire employment regime, its payroll tax registrations, and usually its corporate income and sales tax nexus, from the first day of work. Most companies discover this one state at a time, through a notice. This toolkit builds the program that prevents it: establishing where employees actually work and controlling where they may work, running the registration sequence before the first paycheck, layering the wage and hour and leave differences that catch employers paying only weekly overtime, handling pay transparency and restrictive covenant limits that reach remote postings and relocations, building a handbook architecture with state addenda that stays current, and choosing whether to build the compliance function or buy it. It closes with the relocation checklist and the legislative tracking cadence that keep the program current once the initial cleanup is done.

Casey Scott McKayMay 15, 202613 min read

ConsumerTimeshares

Timeshare Purchase and Exit Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist runs a timeshare matter from the moment of signing through exit, default, and inheritance. It leads with rescission because that right expires in days and is the only clean exit, setting out how to find the deadline, how to send the letter correctly, and what to check if the deadline appears to have passed. It then walks the exit hierarchy in order of what actually works, beginning with the deed-back program most resorts operate and most owners never ask about. It flags the single reliable indicator of exit-company fraud, sets out what actually happens on default for each type of interest, and covers what executors and heirs must do — including the disclaimer requirements that a single booked stay can forfeit.

Casey Scott McKayMay 14, 20268 min read

EmploymentDiscrimination

Employment Discrimination: Protected Classes, Proof Frameworks, and the Charge Process

Employment discrimination law is a system of deadlines and proof frameworks that decides most cases long before anyone reaches the merits. This article explains who is covered and by which statute, the protected characteristics under federal law and the substantially broader lists many states add, and the difference between disparate treatment and disparate impact. It works through the burden-shifting framework that structures most cases, what a comparator is and why it does more work than any other category of evidence, and the hostile work environment standard with the employer defenses attached to it. It covers reasonable accommodation for disability and religion and the interactive process that decides those claims, retaliation — which is the most commonly filed and frequently the strongest claim — and the charge-filing deadlines that are short, jurisdictional in effect, and the single largest cause of otherwise meritorious claims being lost.

Casey Scott McKayMay 11, 202627 min read

Labor and EmploymentTermination and Layoffs

Conducting a Reduction in Force: WARN, Selection Criteria, and Releases

A reduction in force is a project with a legal structure, and the sequence matters as much as the substance. This guide walks it from the business decision through the last separation. It covers the WARN Act and its state analogues, including the aggregation rules that turn a series of small layoffs into a mass layoff, the notice content requirements, and the exceptions that rarely apply. It then covers the selection process, which is where discrimination exposure is created or avoided, including how to define the decisional unit, apply objective criteria, and conduct an adverse impact analysis under privilege before the decisions are final. Later sections address severance design and the OWBPA requirements that make an age release valid, the group disclosure that surprises employers, notification logistics, and the post-separation obligations that continue long after the announcement.

Casey Scott McKayMay 9, 202627 min read

LitigationCivil Rights

Section 1983 Complaint and Qualified Immunity Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist runs a Section 1983 case from intake through the fee petition. It front-loads the two deadlines that destroy cases before anyone reaches the merits, the state notice of claim period and the body camera retention schedule, then works defendant selection, the pleading standards that a qualified immunity motion will test, the clearly established precedent search that should happen before filing, the Monell discovery plan that determines value, and the damages and fee proof that determines what the case is actually worth. Separate sections cover the defense sequence and the Heck bar analysis.

Casey Scott McKayMay 8, 20268 min read