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.
Trademark Use and Protection: How Brand Rights Are Born, Built, and Lost
A trademark is the quiet shorthand a business uses to say "this came from us"—and the law that protects it is built on one stubborn idea: rights flow from use, not paperwork. This guide explains how trademark rights are born through bona fide use in commerce, how a mark's strength tracks its place on the Abercrombie distinctiveness spectrum, and why federal registration on the Principal Register is so valuable. It walks through likelihood of confusion, dilution of famous marks, and the three quiet ways owners lose marks—abandonment, naked licensing, and genericide. It closes with a practical playbook for policing, enforcement, and maintenance, grounded in the Lanham Act and the cases that interpret it. Written for founders, in-house teams, and curious lawyers alike.
Law Practice Management and Professional Responsibility Toolkit
This toolkit supplies the documents and systems a law practice runs on. It includes an intake script that begins with a conflicts check, the fields a conflicts database must contain, engagement letter templates with the scope exclusion language that prevents most malpractice claims, non engagement and closing letters, conflict waiver and entity representation language, a three way trust reconciliation worksheet and client ledger format, a wire verification protocol, docketing standards, a file review form, a generative AI use policy, an incident response outline, succession plan documents, and a one page metrics dashboard.
Claiming the Research and Development Tax Credit
The research credit rewards activity that most companies are already doing and do not think of as research: developing a product, improving a process, writing software, or engineering a solution where the outcome was uncertain at the outset. Eligibility turns on a four-part test applied to each business component, and the credit is computed on a narrow set of expenses—wages for qualified services, supplies consumed in the process, and a fraction of contract research payments. The credit is also among the most heavily examined positions on a return, and the difference between a defensible claim and a disallowed one is almost entirely documentation created while the work happened. This guide covers eligibility, the expense categories, the two computation methods, the payroll tax offset available to small companies, the filing and refund claim requirements, and how to survive an examination.
Legal Considerations After Developing a Mobile App
You finished building the app—now the legal work begins. This guide walks the founder, the in-house lawyer, and the curious layperson through everything that should happen between "feature complete" and "live in the store": forming a liability shield, nailing down who actually owns the code, surviving Apple's and Google's developer agreements in a post-Epic v. Apple world, writing a EULA, terms of service, and privacy policy that are actually enforceable, and complying with the alphabet soup of consumer law that governs in-app purchases and subscriptions (ROSCA), kids (COPPA), accessibility (the ADA), advertising, open-source licenses, and export controls. We use a running hypothetical—a meditation app called "Acme Calm"—to make the abstractions concrete. The law here is fast-moving and varies by state and country; treat this as a sophisticated map, not a substitute for counsel. By the end you will know which fires to put out first and which can wait.
Special Education Advocacy Toolkit: Evaluations, IEPs, and Due Process
A working kit for special education advocacy. Section A holds the letters that start and shape every case: an evaluation request, a prior written notice demand, a records request, and a parent concerns statement. Section B holds review instruments: a goal quality rubric, a service specification table, an IEP review worksheet, and an evaluation report reading guide. Section C holds enforcement instruments: a service log audit worksheet, a compensatory education demand, and a state complaint template. Section D holds dispute filings: a due process complaint outline, a ten day private placement notice, and a manifestation determination challenge. Section E holds Section 504 and OCR instruments. Section F holds a transition worksheet. Section G collects the primary authorities.
Short-Term Rental Toolkit: Permits, House Rules, Agreements, and Neighbor Response
This toolkit contains the worksheets, letters, and operating documents a short-term rental host needs, ordered from the research that should precede a purchase through the notices that arrive when something goes wrong. It includes a four-question feasibility worksheet covering the city, the association, the lease or mortgage, and the insurer; an insurance disclosure letter written to produce a coverage answer in writing; a tax authority inquiry that exposes the levies platforms do not remit; an HOA document request; a dated safety inspection log that becomes a premises liability defense; house rules and rental agreement terms drafted to be enforceable; the notices that must be posted; a neighbor introduction letter; scripts for a rules violation and a neighbor complaint; responses to a city notice and an HOA violation; an injury incident report; and a personal use log.
When to Trademark Your Brand
Choosing when to trademark your brand is a timing decision with real financial consequences, and most founders get it wrong by waiting too long. This article explains why trademark priority generally goes to the first user or filer, how an intent-to-use application lets you stake a nationwide claim before you have a single sale, and why a clearance search before you commit to a name can save you a six-figure rebrand. It covers the distinctiveness spectrum, common-law versus federal rights, the constructive-use date that anchors federal priority, the six-month Paris Convention priority window for international filings, the Madrid Protocol, bad-faith squatting in first-to-file markets, and realistic budgets at each stage of growth. It closes with a practical sequencing plan for startups, a candid look at DIY versus hiring counsel, a worked example, an FAQ, and links to related guides. The throughline: in trademarks, early and deliberate beats fast and sloppy, every time.
Recovering Unpaid Wages: A Practical Guide
This guide is a sequence for a worker who suspects they are owed money, beginning with the habit that costs ten seconds a day and decides most claims. It explains how to reconstruct hours when the employer kept no records and why that absence helps rather than hurts, how to audit a pay stub for the four most common violations, and how to test an exemption against what you actually do rather than what your title says. It covers writing the complaint that converts a wage dispute into a wage-plus-retaliation dispute, choosing among the state labor agency, the federal Wage and Hour Division, and a private lawsuit, and what each route costs and preserves. It closes with the final paycheck penalties, collecting from an employer with no money, and what to do while still in the job.
Indirect Patent Infringement Claim Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist breaks an indirect patent infringement claim into the facts each side must find, prove, or attack, in the order the work happens. It starts by mapping every claim element to the actor who performs it, choosing among inducement, contributory infringement, divided infringement, and the export and import theories, and testing the predicate act of direct infringement. Separate phases cover knowledge of the patent, specific intent and good-faith belief, active steps and causation, the staple-article and substantial noninfringing use inquiry, direction or control under Akamai, cross-border liability under sections 271(f) and 271(g), and pharmaceutical label cases. Later phases address notice letters and declaratory judgment risk, pleading and motions to dismiss, discovery and expert proof, damages and willfulness, and jury instructions and judgment as a matter of law. Each item is tagged for the patentee, the accused infringer, or both, and the checklist closes with a defense audit, red flags, an FAQ, and practical takeaways.
Willfulness and Enhanced Damages Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns the law of willful patent infringement and enhanced damages into check-off tasks for both sides of a dispute. Phase 1 covers the accused infringer's first two weeks after a notice letter, Phase 2 the analysis, opinion, design-around, and Patent Office decisions that build a good-faith record, and Phase 3 the patent owner's tasks before and when sending a letter. Phases 4 through 6 cover litigation: pleading and motions to dismiss, discovery and the advice-of-counsel election, and trial and post-trial practice, including the Read factor briefing and exceptional-case fees. Each item links the governing authority and adds a short practical note where useful. Red-flag boxes, a deadlines table, a short worked example, and a list of common failure points close the checklist.
Asserting Victims' Rights and Getting Compensated: A Practical Guide
This guide is the sequence for a person harmed by a crime. It covers what to do in the first week including obtaining the report and finding an advocate, how to register for notification everywhere so the case does not proceed without you, how to exercise the right to confer before a plea, how to document losses so restitution is actually ordered, how to write and deliver an impact statement, how to apply for compensation and appeal a denial, how the civil claim and insurance fit alongside the criminal case, and what to do after the case ends including parole input and custody notification.
Recovering from Identity Theft and Fixing a Credit Report: A Practical Guide
This guide is the recovery sequence for someone whose identity has been stolen or whose credit report is wrong. It covers the first twenty-four hours in priority order, why a freeze beats every other protective step, how to obtain the identity theft report that unlocks the strongest remedy in the statute, how to write a dispute that cannot lawfully be answered with a perfunctory verification, the block procedure that most consumers never use, how to handle specialty reports from tenant and employment screeners, what to do when a deleted item reappears, and when the problem is worth taking to a consumer lawyer.