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.
How to File a Trademark Application with the USPTO
A complete, current guide to registering a trademark or service mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, written for entrepreneurs, in-house teams, and the attorneys who advise them. It walks through every decision that shapes an application—Principal versus Supplemental Register, filing basis under Sections 1(a), 1(b), 44, and 66(a), goods-and-services identification and Nice classification, standard-character versus special-form drawings, and specimens that actually survive examination. It explains the USPTO's January 18, 2025 fee overhaul, which retired the TEAS Plus and TEAS Standard tiers in favor of a single base application plus surcharges, and walks through examination, the three-month office-action deadline, publication and opposition, the statement of use, registration, and post-registration maintenance under Sections 8, 9, and 15. A running hypothetical—Northbound Coffee Roasters—keeps the doctrine concrete. Educational, not legal advice; confirm current fees at USPTO.gov.
Estate Administration Toolkit: Petitions, Notices, Inventories, and Accountings
A working kit for administering an estate. Section A holds the diagnostic worksheets: an asset titling review that determines whether probate is needed, a small estate threshold check, and a solvency screen. Section B holds the opening documents: a petition outline, a letters order request, and an EIN and account setup list. Section C holds the creditor package: published and direct notices, a claim log, allowance and disallowance letters, and a statutory priority worksheet. Section D holds the inventory template and the estate ledger. Section E holds beneficiary communications and a personal property distribution protocol. Section F holds the closing package: an accounting format, receipts and releases, and a discharge petition. Section G holds a tax calendar with the portability and disclaimer deadlines. Section H collects the primary authorities.
Running a Platform That Hosts User Content: A Practical Guide
Running a platform that hosts user content is an operational discipline with a legal layer, and most platform liability comes from the platform's own conduct rather than from anything a user posted. This guide covers what to build: terms that match the process actually run, a moderation policy that scales, the copyright infrastructure the intellectual property carve-out requires, notice-and-action mechanisms for other categories, a subpoena response process, transparency data, and the design review that addresses the product-defect claims now driving platform litigation. It includes a build sequence for a new platform, a remediation sequence for an existing one, and the errors that reliably create exposure. A worked scenario follows a takedown demand from intake through resolution and litigation posture. It also covers what the terms of service must say for the defenses to work.
Pretrial Release and Detention Hearing Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs a pretrial release matter from arrest through detention review. It covers the first hour, the release package that decides hearings, preparation for the pretrial services interview, correcting the risk score and criminal history, the detention hearing argument and the condition packages that answer specific government concerns, comparing bond forms before paying a non-refundable premium, reviewing a bail bond contract, handling unworkable conditions and fees, responding to a missed court date, and reopening or seeking review when detention is ordered.
Identifying Trade Secrets in Litigation: Reasonable Particularity, Sequencing Discovery, and Protecting the Secret While You Sue
Trade secret litigation has a discovery problem no other case has: the plaintiff must describe the thing it is suing over, in writing, to the very competitor it accuses of stealing it, before it knows exactly what was taken. This article explains why courts require identification of the asserted trade secrets with reasonable particularity before discovery begins, tracing the rule from California Code of Civil Procedure section 2019.210 and the four policy reasons in DeRubeis v. Witten Technologies through the federal appellate decisions in InteliClear, Mallet, Oakwood Laboratories, TLS Management, IDX Systems, and Imax. It explains what an identification must contain, how compilation and combination secrets and negative know-how are described, when the identification can be amended, and what happens at summary judgment and trial when a plaintiff identifies too much or too little. It then covers the sequencing fight under Rule 26(b)(1), the mechanics of two-tier protective orders, source code review rooms, prosecution bars, sealing under 18 U.S.C. section 1835, Rule 502(d) clawback, and in camera review. The final sections address forensic discovery, including neutral examiners, imaging protocols, privacy objections, the DTSA ex parte seizure remedy, and Rule 37(e) spoliation in departing-employee cases, and close with an extended worked example, strategy for each side, a cost discussion, common mistakes, and a FAQ.
Corporate Structuring and Running Multiple Businesses: A Deep Dive into Holding, Operating, and Parent Companies
Running several businesses out of a single entity stacks every risk in one place, so that one lawsuit can reach everything an owner has built. This article explains the multi-entity architecture that conglomerates, private-equity firms, and sophisticated family offices use to separate valuable assets from risky operations, written so an entrepreneur, a lawyer, and a judge can all follow it. It walks through the building-block entity types and the federal check-the-box tax rules that govern them, the holding-and-operating split and the intercompany leases, licenses, and loans that make it work, and the veil-piercing doctrine—anchored in Walkovszky v. Carlton and modern alter-ego decisions—that can destroy a carelessly maintained structure. It covers Series LLCs, charging-order protection, consolidated returns, transfer pricing under Section 482, the current state of the Corporate Transparency Act, succession planning, and insurance, all illustrated by a single worked example carried from one exposed LLC to a full multi-entity structure.
Section 230 and Platform Liability: What the Statute Actually Says and Where It Stops
Section 230 is the most consequential and most misdescribed statute in American technology law. This article explains what it actually provides: two distinct immunities, one for hosting third-party content and one for good-faith moderation, along with four express exceptions that are doing increasing work. It covers the elements courts apply, the material contribution test that determines when a platform becomes a content provider itself, and the product design theories plaintiffs use to plead around the statute. It addresses the Supreme Court's recent decisions, what they decided and what they conspicuously did not, and the First Amendment framework that constrains state regulation of moderation. It closes with practical guidance for platforms that want the protection to hold.
Navigating a Mental Health Crisis and Commitment Hearing: A Practical Guide
This guide walks through a mental health crisis from the phone call to the hearing to the discharge, from the perspective of the person in it and the family around them. It explains who to call and what happens when each option arrives, how to give a crisis team the specific facts that actually change an evaluation, what an emergency hold is and is not, and how to prepare for a commitment hearing in the two or three days you will have. It covers the separate fight over medication, how to find and use a public defender or appointed counsel, what a discharge plan needs to contain to be granted, and the paperwork—advance directive, health care proxy, release of information—that changes every subsequent conversation. It closes on what to do in the weeks after, including insurance appeals, firearm rights, employment protections, and the protection and advocacy agency almost nobody knows about.
Immigration Court Removal Defense Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs a removal case from intake through judicial review. It front-loads the relief screening that must happen before anything is conceded and the criminal analysis that determines detention and eligibility, then covers the notice to appear review that sometimes preserves cancellation, the bond package, the application deadlines including the one year asylum bar, the declaration and corroboration work that decides asylum cases, hearing preparation and credibility reconciliation, and the appeal and petition for review deadlines that are jurisdictional in effect. Separate sections address unaccompanied children, detained clients, and survivors of abuse and trafficking.
Home Improvement Contracts and Contractor Disputes: Licensing, Liens, and Getting the Work Done Right
A home renovation is the largest contract most people ever sign without a lawyer, and it is governed by a body of consumer protection law that almost nobody reads until something has gone wrong. This article explains what a home improvement contract must contain under most state statutes, why the three-day right to cancel exists and how often it is silently violated, and what contractor licensing and bonding actually get you. It then covers the mechanics lien system from the homeowner's side—how a subcontractor you never met can encumber your house even after you paid the general contractor in full, what preliminary notices mean, and why lien waivers exchanged at each payment are the single most protective habit available. It closes with the remedies when work is defective or abandoned: the licensing board, the bond, the state recovery fund, the deceptive trade practices act, and the arbitration clause that may have quietly taken your day in court.
Water Rights Toolkit: Applications, Transfers, Adjudications, and Enforcement
This toolkit assembles the working documents of a water rights matter: a water right abstract and due diligence request, purchase agreement and deed language, a new appropriation application outline with proof of beneficial use, an annual use log and forfeiture defense memorandum, a change application outline with an engineer engagement scope, a protest letter, a curtailment response and futile call demand, a dry-year lease term sheet, an augmentation plan outline, adjudication statement of claim and objection outlines, a district records request, and a pre-application meeting agenda for physical permitting.
Technology Transfer Toolkit: Invention Reporting, License Terms, and Sponsored Research
This toolkit collects the documents a technology transfer practice runs on, from the invention disclosure form that starts every statutory clock through the utilization report request that keeps an institution compliant. It includes a deadline tracker keyed to the Bayh-Dole obligations, present assignment language, a license term sheet with the provisions that actually get negotiated, a net sales definition with combination-product allocation, sponsored research and material transfer terms, inter-institutional agreement structure, and startup-specific accommodations. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the failure it prevents. Each template carries drafting notes on the federal obligations that cannot be negotiated away. Adapt everything to the institution's policies and the funding agency's terms.