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.

ConsumerAuto Sales

Vehicle Purchase and Lemon Law Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist covers a vehicle transaction from before the dealership through a lemon law claim or a dealer dispute. It has three parts: the ninety-minute buying protocol that prevents most problems, the service-visit discipline that builds the case if one arises, and the escalation sequence from written notice through arbitration, revocation, complaints, and small claims. Deadlines and irreversible moments are flagged, including the point at which a trade-in title should never be surrendered and the window in which finance office products can be cancelled for a refund.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 3, 20267 min read

LitigationMaritime Law

Handling a Maritime Injury or Cargo Claim: A Practical Guide

This guide is the action sequence for a maritime injury, a cargo loss, or a vessel casualty. It covers what to do in the first hours aboard, why the accident report matters more than in any other injury case, how to establish seaman status with the evidence that actually decides it, how to demand maintenance and cure and what to do when it stops, how to choose a forum under the saving to suitors clause, how to respond to a shipowner's limitation action, the cargo claim sequence built around the one-year deadline and the joint survey, when to arrest a vessel, and how to handle a casualty investigation.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 3, 202628 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrademark

Domain Name Dispute Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Domain disputes are won on preparation done before anything is filed and lost on a step skipped in the first week. This checklist runs the sequence: diagnosing which of five situations you actually face, establishing the two dates that decide most cases, building the evidentiary record before contact tips the registrant, choosing among the UDRP, the URS, federal litigation, and purchase, and prosecuting the chosen route. It includes a respondent-side section for registrants receiving a complaint, and a prevention section covering the portfolio hygiene that stops the next occurrence. It sequences the choice between a UDRP proceeding and an ACPA action before either is filed. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 3, 20267 min read

Labor and EmploymentWage and Hour

Complying with Pay Transparency and Pay Equity Laws

Two related bodies of law now govern compensation. Pay equity statutes prohibit paying employees differently for comparable work absent a legitimate justification, and most state versions have broadened the comparison standard well beyond the federal equal-work test while narrowing the available defenses. Pay transparency statutes require employers to disclose pay ranges in job postings, to employees on request, and in some jurisdictions to report aggregate pay data to the state. This guide explains both, identifies where the state requirements differ in ways that matter operationally, walks through how to conduct a privileged pay audit and what to do with the results, and sets out the compensation infrastructure — job architecture, pay bands, documented criteria, and approval discipline — that makes compliance sustainable rather than a recurring emergency.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 3, 202626 min read

PropertyWater Law

Water Rights: Prior Appropriation, Riparian Doctrine, Groundwater, and Federal Reserved Rights

Water law is two systems, a set of federal overlays, and a growing crisis, and which system applies depends on which side of roughly the hundredth meridian you are standing on. This article explains riparian rights and the reasonable use standard in the East, prior appropriation and the priority system in the West, how a right is created, maintained, lost, and transferred under each, the separate and often incoherent treatment of groundwater, federal reserved rights under the Winters doctrine and the Indian water rights settlements that implement them, interstate allocation by compact and equitable apportionment, general stream adjudications, and where Clean Water Act permitting intersects with all of it.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 2, 202629 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrademark

Recovering a Domain Name: A Practical Guide

Recovering a domain name is a decision tree, not a single procedure, and the first branch is why the name is gone. This guide separates the five common situations — a squatter, a legitimate prior holder, a lapsed registration, a hijacked account, and a former partner or employee — because each has a different remedy and treating them alike produces expensive failures. It walks through the investigation that must precede any filing, the choice between the UDRP and federal litigation, the mechanics of drafting and prosecuting each, the negotiated purchase as an alternative, and the portfolio hygiene that prevents the next occurrence. It includes evidence checklists, a timeline, and the errors that most often defeat an otherwise strong claim.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 2, 202628 min read

Intellectual PropertyTrademark

Domain Name Disputes: Cybersquatting, the ACPA, and the UDRP

A domain name is a contract with a registrar that happens to function like a brand, and that mismatch produces a distinctive body of law. This article explains the two systems that resolve domain disputes — the federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and the contractual Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy — and why they exist side by side rather than one replacing the other. It covers the elements of each, the in rem procedure that lets a trademark owner sue a domain name itself, the bad faith factors that decide ACPA cases, and the recurring situations that are not cybersquatting at all. It closes with practical portfolio management and the trap of reverse domain name hijacking.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 1, 202627 min read

Intellectual PropertyRight of Publicity

Right of Publicity Toolkit: Releases, NIL Agreements, and Takedown Demands

This toolkit collects the documents that publicity work actually produces: releases in the variants an organization needs, an endorsement agreement outline with the clauses that decide disputes, a standalone digital replica consent that should never be folded into a media grant, a rights inventory schema, and the demand and takedown materials used when a use turns out to be unauthorized. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the failure it prevents. Because the underlying right is state law and varies substantially, the templates flag the points where jurisdiction-specific review is required rather than pretending to a uniform national standard. Each template carries drafting notes on scope, term, territory, and the digital replica provisions now appearing in state statutes. Adapt everything to the governing state law, which varies more here than in most areas.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 31, 202613 min read

Intellectual PropertyRight of Publicity

Right of Publicity Clearance Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Publicity claims against ordinary businesses almost always trace to one of three failures: no release, an expired release, or a release whose scope did not cover the use. This checklist is built to catch all three before a campaign ships. It runs the clearance sequence from classifying the use through verifying releases, checking stock license restrictions, handling deceased individuals, addressing digital replicas as a separate consent, and applying escalation rules. Separate sections cover the individual's side of a licensing negotiation and the enforcement evaluation when an unauthorized use is discovered.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 30, 20267 min read

GovernmentTribal Law

Indian Country Jurisdiction and ICWA Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist runs a matter with a tribal dimension from the first jurisdictional question through ICWA compliance and judgment enforcement. It is organized as sequences: the three threshold facts, the Public Law 280 and tribe-specific statute check, tribal code research and court admission, the exhaustion decision, sovereign immunity and contracting, criminal jurisdiction analysis, the full ICWA compliance sequence with its deadlines and standards, judgment recognition, and consultation. The items that most often destroy an otherwise sound position are flagged.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 30, 20267 min read

Intellectual PropertyRight of Publicity

Licensing and Protecting Name, Image, and Likeness: A Practical Guide

Name, image, and likeness work divides into two jobs that look similar and require different skills: licensing an identity so it produces revenue without giving away more than intended, and clearing third-party identities so a campaign does not generate claims. This guide covers both. It walks through the individual's side — entity structure, category definition, approval mechanics, digital replica consent, morals clauses, and the compliance overlay in college athletics — and the user's side, including release drafting, stock imagery restrictions, deceased individuals, and the escalation rules that keep advertising out of trouble. It closes with enforcement: how to evaluate an unauthorized use, what a demand letter should say, and when the claim is worth pursuing.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 29, 202627 min read

GovernmentFirearms Law

Firearms Law Toolkit: Licensing, Transfers, Restoration, and Compliance

This toolkit assembles the working documents of firearms compliance: an eligibility worksheet and certified disposition request, a background check denial challenge and record correction request, a private transfer bill of sale, a registered item application tracker and trust responsible-persons list, reciprocity and travel worksheets, an inventory template and theft report checklist, surrender compliance and order termination letters, a restoration petition outline, a plea colloquy advisory for criminal practitioners, a dealer compliance audit and straw purchase refusal memorandum, and an estate firearms memorandum.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 29, 202612 min read