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.
The Right of Publicity: Name, Image, Likeness, Digital Replicas, and the Limits of Owning Yourself
The right of publicity protects a person's commercial interest in their own identity, and it is the most jurisdictionally fragmented area of American intellectual property law. This article explains what the right covers, where it comes from, and why fifty different state answers produce genuine practical difficulty for anyone operating nationally. It covers the elements of a claim, the defenses that matter most—newsworthiness, expressive use, and copyright preemption—and the two developments reshaping the field: the collapse of amateurism in college athletics and the arrival of technology that can generate a convincing replica of anyone's face or voice. It closes with how the right interacts with trademark false endorsement claims and what a workable clearance practice looks like.
Patent Litigation Toolkit: A Roadmap and Research Guide
This toolkit is a high-level roadmap and curated library guide to U.S. patent infringement litigation, from pre-suit investigation through appeal and international strategy. It walks each stage: pre-suit investigation, venue and forum selection, pleadings, claim construction (Markman), discovery, infringement and defenses, invalidity including inter partes review at the PTAB, damages, trial, appeal to the Federal Circuit, and cross-border considerations. At each stage it links to mclaw.io articles and checklists plus primary and official authorities including 35 U.S.C. Sections 271/281/284, PACER, CourtListener, and leading cases. This is general information, not legal advice; verify current rules and case law before acting.
Maritime and Admiralty Law: Jurisdiction, Seamen, Cargo, and Vessel Liability
Maritime law is a separate legal system that has operated alongside the common law since before the Constitution, with its own jurisdiction, its own remedies, its own procedure, and a set of rules that surprise even experienced litigators. This article explains admiralty jurisdiction and the saving to suitors clause that lets most maritime claims be tried elsewhere, the three-part remedial structure available to injured seamen under the Jones Act, unseaworthiness, and maintenance and cure, how the Longshore Act covers everyone else on the waterfront, the death remedies, the shipowner's limitation of liability action, maritime liens and in rem arrest, and the cargo regime with its package limitation.
Insurance Claim and Bad Faith Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist runs a first-party insurance claim from the hour of the loss through a bad faith case. It is organized as sequences: immediate documentation and mitigation, the policy review that identifies every deadline, the adjuster inspection, valuation and contents, the conditions that forfeit claims, appraisal, examinations under oath, denials and complaints, and the evidence a bad faith claim requires. Every deadline that can destroy a valid claim is flagged, including the sixty-day proof of loss requirement and the policy suit limitation period that is far shorter than the ordinary contract period.
Fair Use Toolkit: Analysis Memoranda, Clearance Decisions, and Litigation Positions
This toolkit collects the documents a fair use practice actually produces, from the intake form that converts a vague request into an answerable question to the discovery requests a defendant serves when the use is challenged. Each template is annotated with its purpose, its owner, and the specific failure it prevents. The materials serve both the clearance function and the litigation posture, and several do double duty—the memorandum template structures advice before the use and becomes the good-faith record afterward. They are structures to adapt, not forms to fill in.
Drafting a Settlement Agreement and Release: A Practical Guide
A settlement agreement converts a dispute into a contract, and the drafting determines whether the dispute is actually over. This guide covers the document clause by clause. It starts with the party definitions and the release scope, which is where most enforcement problems originate, then works through general versus specific releases, mutual releases, the waiver of unknown claims and the statutory language several states require, and the carve-outs that must be preserved. It covers payment mechanics including escrow, security, and the stipulated judgment structures used when payment is deferred, then dismissal and the jurisdiction-retention provision without which a federal court cannot enforce the agreement. Later sections address confidentiality and non-disparagement and their now-substantial limits, tax allocation and reporting, liens and third-party interests, multi-party settlements and contribution bars, and the provisions that make a breach remediable.
Copyright Fair Use Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Fair use analysis goes wrong in a small number of predictable ways, and nearly all of them are failures of intake rather than failures of doctrine. This checklist runs the analysis in the order that produces the clearest answer: converting a vague request into a specified use, screening for protectability and registration, characterizing the purpose, mapping the owner's markets, running the four factors, weighing them, assigning a risk tier, and identifying mitigations. It includes a separate section for each of the common clearance contexts and a closing reference table of the failures each step exists to prevent. It separates the clearance decision from the litigation posture, because the questions differ. Every item is written so that a "no" tells you what to do next.
Art Law Toolkit: Consignment Agreements, Provenance Research, and Claims
This toolkit assembles the working documents of an art matter: a provenance worksheet and database search log, bill of sale warranty language, a condition report template, a pre-auction question letter, consignment agreement terms with a gallery insolvency demand, commission agreement and moral rights clauses, the statutory artist notification letter for building-incorporated work, loan agreement terms and an insurance schedule, demand letters for stolen art and responses to a restitution claim, a forgery rescission demand, an estate art inventory, and dealer conflict disclosure language.
Administering an Estate: A Practical Guide for Executors and Families
This guide runs an estate administration in order, from the week of the death to the discharge order. It covers what to do in the first thirty days including the insurance step that families miss, how to find out whether probate is required at all, the petition and appointment, the estate bank account and the recordkeeping that protects the representative personally, the creditor notice and claim period that sets the timeline, the inventory and valuation, the four tax filings and the portability election that is missed most often, selling property, dealing with beneficiaries, the accounting, and closing the estate with releases and a discharge order that ends the exposure.
Juvenile Defense Toolkit: Intake, Detention Hearings, Disposition, and Sealing
This toolkit collects the working documents of a juvenile delinquency matter: a wallet invocation card and parent instruction sheet, records request letters, a diversion agreement review sheet, a detention release plan template and risk assessment challenge, suppression and competency motion outlines, a transfer hearing outline organized around the Kent factors with a developmental evaluation engagement letter, a disposition memorandum and character letter request, condition modification and violation response tools, ability-to-pay and fee waiver motions, placement grievance and release planning tools, and a sealing petition outline.
Conducting a Fair Use Analysis: A Practical Guide
Fair use questions arrive as yes-or-no requests and have to be answered as risk assessments, which is why a repeatable analytical workflow matters more than familiarity with the case law. This guide sets out that workflow: identifying exactly what is being used and for what purpose, gathering the facts each factor actually requires, running the four factors in the order that produces the clearest answer, and writing a memorandum that will hold up if the use is challenged. It covers the specific clearance contexts that generate most fair use questions—documentary film, publishing, education, software, marketing, and machine learning—and includes an escalation framework, a risk-tier vocabulary, and guidance on when to license instead. A worked analysis walks a real-shaped clearance decision from intake through a written memorandum. It also explains how to document the analysis so it holds up if the use is later challenged.
International Trademark Filing Strategy Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns the decision of where and how to protect a trademark outside the United States into a sequence of concrete tasks. It starts with mapping where the business makes, sells, and licenses its products, then covers foreign clearance and linguistic checks, the choice between Madrid, national, and regional filings, and the six-month Paris priority window. Further phases address specifications and classes (including China's subclass system), translations and local-script marks, budgeting, contract terms that keep distributors and manufacturers from filing the brand, customs recordation at home and abroad, and the watch and maintenance program that keeps the portfolio alive. Red-flag boxes mark the situations that call for immediate filing or escalation, and a deadlines table collects the clocks that matter. A short worked example and a list of common failure points close the checklist.