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.
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.
Patent Venue and Transfer Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns the law of patent venue into tasks for a desk. It runs in phases, from pre-suit forum selection and pleading for the patent owner to first-response steps, footprint audit, Rule 12 preservation, and venue discovery for the accused infringer. Later phases cover section 1404(a) evidence, factor by factor, mandamus decisions, and post-ruling steps. Each item names its authority, with notes on common problems and red flags that signal a waived defense, a weak record, or a theory the Federal Circuit has rejected. Special items address foreign defendants, Hatch-Waxman cases, and declaratory judgment actions.
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.
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.
How to Prepare an Invention Disclosure for Your Patent Attorney
An invention disclosure is the single document from which a patent application is built, and its quality sets the ceiling on the protection an inventor can ever obtain. This guide explains what patent claims actually require, how to describe a technical problem and solution in language that translates into claims, why documenting alternative embodiments matters more than most inventors expect, and how to identify prior art in ways that help rather than harm an application. It works through the legal machinery that the disclosure feeds—conception and reduction to practice, inventorship under the Pannu standard, the duty of candor under 37 C.F.R. § 1.56 and Therasense, the enablement and written-description requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112, and the on-sale and public-use bars after Helsinn—and explains why lab-notebook discipline and confidentiality protect a patent's foundation. It includes a reusable disclosure-form template and annotated examples contrasting effective and ineffective disclosures. The aim is a disclosure that lets counsel claim the full scope of the invention, support every claim, and survive both examination and later challenge.
Building a Trade Secret Protection Program from Scratch
Every company holds information that is valuable precisely because it is secret, but trade secret law protects that information only if the owner takes reasonable measures to keep it confidential. This guide explains, in plain language, how to build a protection program that satisfies that requirement, following a fictional robotics startup as it identifies its secrets and secures them across physical, technical, and administrative dimensions. It covers what qualifies as a trade secret under the DTSA and UTSA, how to inventory and classify confidential information, the contractual protections that supplement the statutes, the easily-missed Section 1833(b) whistleblower-immunity notice that can forfeit a plaintiff's punitive damages, employee training, and the high-risk moment of employee departures. It incorporates the 2025-2026 collapse of the FTC's nationwide non-compete ban and explains what that means for protection strategy, and it closes with how trade secret protection coordinates with patents, copyrights, and open-source obligations.
Workers Compensation Toolkit: For Injured Workers and Employers
This toolkit assembles the working documents of a workers compensation matter, in the order they are needed, with the language that actually produces results. It includes the written notice of injury, the average weekly wage audit worksheet, the utilization review appeal that reverses denials, the treating physician narrative request, the light-duty offer letter, the impairment rating challenge, a settlement comparison worksheet that prices future medical against cash, and the lien and future credit negotiation letters used when a third-party case runs alongside the claim. It serves injured workers, employers building a return-to-work program, and counsel on either side.
Veterans Benefits Toolkit: Evidence, Nexus Letters, and Appeal Lanes
A working kit for VA claims. Section A holds records request letters including the claims file request. Section B holds a condition inventory worksheet, a secondary condition map, and a combined ratings calculator that shows why ratings do not add. Section C holds the evidence templates that decide claims: a direct service connection nexus letter, a secondary and aggravation nexus letter, a veteran lay statement, a buddy statement, and an employer statement for TDIU. Section D holds examination preparation and an adequacy review. Section E holds decision analysis and a lane selection matrix. Section F holds appeal filings. Section G holds a TDIU package and survivor claims. Section H collects the primary authorities.
Funeral Planning and Final Arrangements Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist covers the days after a death in the order the work must be done, and the afternoon of preparation that prevents nearly all of it. It leads with the four documents to find before making any arrangement, because families routinely pay for a funeral twice. It sets out the twenty-minute phone comparison that the federal price disclosure requirement makes possible, the things a funeral provider may never require you to buy, and the exact phrases that assert each right. It covers who holds the legal authority to decide and what to do when a family disagrees, the death certificates and notifications that follow, and the benefits that go unclaimed—with a separate sequence for when there is no money to pay.
Choosing Between a Design and Utility Patent: A Practical Checklist
Design patents and utility patents share the word "patent" and almost nothing else: a utility patent protects how an invention works under 35 U.S.C. § 101; a design patent protects how an article looks under 35 U.S.C. § 171. They differ in term, claim structure, examination, cost, the infringement test, and—dramatically—damages. This checklist helps an inventor, founder, or counsel decide whether to file a utility patent, a design patent, or both, by working through what the value of the invention really is, how each is examined and enforced, the total-profit damages superpower of § 289 after Samsung v. Apple, the post-LKQ rise in the design obviousness bar, the broken-line drawing strategy that sets design scope, and the international filing deadlines (12 months for utility, 6 months for design). It also flags the overlap with trade dress and copyright.
Software and Open Source Licensing Toolkit: From IP Layers to Compliance Programs
This toolkit is a high-level roadmap and curated library guide for the legal landscape of software and open source licensing. It walks the full terrain: the layered IP that protects software (copyright, patent, trade secret), proprietary licensing models, the major open source license families and their obligations, building an OSS compliance program, software-related M&A and investment diligence, SaaS and cloud distribution questions, and the emerging issues raised by AI-generated code. At each stage it links the firm's articles and checklists alongside the authoritative external references—the Open Source Initiative, SPDX, the canonical GPL/Apache/MIT license texts, and the leading enforcement case, Jacobsen v. Katzer. It is written for software companies, engineering and legal leaders, investors and acquirers, and transactional counsel. Read the roadmap, then drill into the linked review and compliance checklists. License terms are contractual and enforceable—treat compliance as engineering hygiene, not paperwork.
Rule 37(c)(1) Preclusion of Undisclosed Evidence: A Practical Guide
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(c)(1) is the rule that ended "trial by ambush." When a party fails to disclose information or a witness as required by Rule 26(a) or to supplement under Rule 26(e), it generally may not use that information or witness on a motion, at a hearing, or at trial—unless the failure was substantially justified or harmless. This guide explains, in plain language for litigators, business owners, and judges alike, how the rule works: the affirmative disclosure duties it enforces, its "self-executing" character, the two escape hatches and who bears the burden of proving them, and the multi-factor tests the federal circuits use—the Second Circuit's Patterson/Softel factors, the Fourth Circuit's Southern States framework, and the Tenth Circuit's Woodworker's Supply factors—to decide whether the harsh remedy of preclusion is warranted. It covers the special and high-stakes context of expert disclosures, the recurring question of whether a party may rely at trial on something it withheld in discovery, the procedural mechanics of invoking the rule, the menu of lesser sanctions, and a worked hypothetical, closing with practical takeaways for both sides and an FAQ.