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.
Recovering a Hijacked Domain Name: A Practical Guide
This guide takes the owner of a hijacked domain name from the first hour after discovery to a recovered, locked name, and shows registrars, downstream buyers, and accused developers what to do when the demand arrives. It starts with the decision points that shape the response: how the name was taken, whether it has left the original registrar, whether the owner has a trademark, and whether the person who took it can be identified. The core steps cover containment of the root accounts, evidence preservation, notifications to insurers and law enforcement, registrar-to-registrar recovery through the Transfer Emergency Action Contact and the Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy, the UDRP, the in rem action and temporary restraining order in the registry's district, John Doe and in personam claims, insider disputes, and buy-backs through escrow. A timeline and cost table, a worked example that follows an industrial supplier through each step, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways close the guide.
Preparing to Take a Deposition Checklist: A Practical Checklist
Taking a good deposition is one of the most demanding skills in civil litigation, and the outcome is largely determined before the witness is sworn. This checklist walks the deposing lawyer through the entire arc under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30: confirming the procedural limits (the one-day, seven-hour cap and the presumptive ten-deposition limit), noticing the deposition and compelling nonparties by Rule 45 subpoena with the witness fee, drafting a reasonably particular Rule 30(b)(6) topic list and conferring in good faith, preparing a modular outline keyed to the elements, organizing exhibits, conducting the examination with proven questioning techniques (funneling, looping, locking in testimony, commit-and-confront impeachment), handling objections and improper instructions not to answer, managing remote logistics, and capturing testimony usable at summary judgment and trial under Rule 32 and FRE 801(d)(2). Each phase is paired with the reason it matters and the primary authority. The result is a preparation routine that survives a hostile witness, an obstructive defender, and a transcript read back months later by a judge who was not in the room.
Privacy Compliance Program Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A privacy compliance program is the operating system that keeps a company on the right side of an exploding patchwork of data-protection laws. This checklist builds one from the ground up, in order: governance and a named accountable owner, data mapping, the legal-patchwork analysis (FTC Section 5, CCPA/CPRA, the growing state laws, GDPR, HIPAA, GLBA, COPPA), anchoring to the NIST Privacy Framework and the Fair Information Practice Principles, a prioritized roadmap, and the operational machinery—privacy notices, DSAR handling, vendor and DPA management, DPIAs and privacy by design, security and breach response, training, and retention. It closes with accountability: documentation, monitoring, and audit. Each phase pairs checkboxes with the WHY and the traps, plus common mistakes, primary authority, and related mclaw.io resources. Build to the strictest applicable standard and apply it broadly. This is a map, not legal advice.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act Safe Harbors for Online Service Providers
The DMCA's four safe harbors in 17 U.S.C. § 512 are the legal scaffolding that lets the user-generated internet exist. When an online service provider qualifies, it is shielded from monetary liability for copyright infringement committed by its users—but only if it meets strict threshold conditions and follows the notice-and-takedown choreography to the letter. This guide walks through all four safe harbors (conduit, caching, hosting, and linking), the gateway requirements every provider must satisfy (a registered agent and a reasonably implemented repeat-infringer policy), and the two knowledge standards—actual and "red flag"—that decide most cases. It covers the leading authorities, from Viacom v. YouTube and Capitol v. Vimeo to the litigation that shattered Cox Communications' safe harbor, and the § 512(f) misrepresentation claim that Lenz v. Universal turned into a real check on abusive takedowns. It closes with practical compliance guidance, an FAQ, and a clear line between § 512 and the very different anti-circumvention rules of § 1201.
Supervision Conditions and Revocation Hearing Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A checklist for community supervision, from intake through termination. It opens with the eight questions to ask at the first meeting that nobody volunteers, then the compliance file that decides every later motion, then the operating routines for reporting, testing, money, and travel. A response section covers the first twenty four hours after something goes wrong and the self reporting that changes how a positive test is handled. A hearing section covers the records to demand, the Morrissey rights to assert including confrontation, the Bearden ability to pay showing, and the disposition plan to bring. Final sections cover modification, early termination, and the termination checklist.
Trademark Likelihood-of-Confusion Analysis: A Practical Checklist
Likelihood of confusion is the central question in nearly every trademark infringement dispute, and working it up correctly is a disciplined, factor-by-factor exercise rather than a gut check. This checklist walks you through identifying the controlling circuit's multifactor test, gathering the evidence each factor requires, weighing the factors holistically, and documenting a defensible conclusion—whether you are clearing a new mark, evaluating an enforcement target, or preparing an infringement claim or defense. It covers the Second Circuit's Polaroid factors, the Federal Circuit and TTAB's DuPont factors, and the Ninth Circuit's Sleekcraft factors, plus the recognized variants of confusion and the role of survey evidence. WHY notes and trap flags accompany each phase. Verify current law and any procedural deadlines, which vary by circuit and forum.
Intent-to-Use Trademark Applications: A Practical Guide
An intent-to-use application lets you stake a claim to a trademark before you have sold a single product, reserving nationwide rights as of your filing date while you finish building, branding, and going to market. This guide explains, in plain language for both lawyers and business owners, how the intent-to-use system works and why it is one of the most powerful tools in U.S. trademark practice. It covers the central payoff (a constructive-use priority date that can defeat someone who actually sells first), the bona fide intent requirement and the burden-shifting framework courts use to test it, the full lifecycle from filing through the Notice of Allowance to the Statement of Use, the exact timeline math of extensions, the anti-trafficking assignment bar, and the strategic uses and pitfalls. It closes with a worked launch scenario and concrete practice takeaways.
Provisional Patent Application Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns the provisional patent application process into tasks that an inventor, in-house lawyer, or outside practitioner can assign, track, and check off. It is organized in twelve phases, from threshold decisions and disclosure control through ownership, invention capture, drafting, figures and claims, entity status, cover sheet data, filing, the twelve-month management period, and conversion. Each item names the governing statute, rule, or case and adds a short practical note where one helps. Red-flag boxes mark the points where priority, ownership, or foreign rights are most often lost. A deadlines table, a phase for auditing someone else's provisional, a short worked example, and a list of common failure points close the checklist.
The Art and Science of Depositions in Federal Civil Litigation: A Comprehensive Guide
This comprehensive guide is written for the litigator who must take depositions in federal civil cases, and it walks through the entire arc of an oral examination from planning to courtroom payoff. It explains the mechanics of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30, including the one-day, seven-hour limit, the presumptive ten-deposition cap, the nonparty witness fee, and when leave of court is required, then turns to noticing, Rule 45 subpoenas for nonparties, and the special discipline of organizational depositions under Rule 30(b)(6), with attention to the 2020 meet-and-confer amendment. The article develops a practical method for questioning witnesses—funneling, looping, locking in testimony, and impeaching with documents—and addresses exhibits, expert and hybrid witnesses, apex depositions, and the realities of remote and video proceedings. A dedicated section explains how to handle the deposition that goes sideways: the no-show, the witness who takes the Fifth, the witness who lies, and the emergency that ends the day early. It closes by showing how deposition transcripts become evidence under Rule 32 and Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2) at summary judgment and trial, and how to prepare so that every hour of questioning advances the case. Throughout, it cites primary authority and offers worked examples a judge, a lawyer, and a layperson can all follow.
Law Firm Trust Accounting and Conflicts Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist covers the two systems that generate the most discipline and the most malpractice exposure in law practice: client trust accounting and conflicts of interest. It supplies the monthly trust routine including the three way reconciliation, the prohibitions that produce most shortages, the setup requirements, and the response to a shortage. It then covers the conflicts system from intake screening through imputation and screening on a lateral hire, the informed consent that resolves most conflicts, and the engagement and non engagement letters that document the relationship. It closes with docketing redundancy, wire fraud verification, and succession planning.
Running a Law Firm on Open Source Technology: Embracing Efficiency and Cost-Effectiveness
This is the deep business case for running a law firm on open source software—the efficiency and cost-effectiveness argument, worked through in numbers and weighed honestly against its limits. It explains what open source is and how the GPL, LGPL, AGPL, MIT, Apache, and BSD license families differ, then maps a complete open source stack covering the operating system, collaboration, documents, email, accounting, research, and security. It develops a rigorous total-cost-of-ownership comparison against proprietary suites, including a worked numeric hypothetical, and treats vendor lock-in and data portability as both a financial and an ethical concern. The article overlays the professional-responsibility framework that governs every technology decision a lawyer makes—ABA Model Rule 1.1 comment 8 on technology competence, Rule 1.6(c) on safeguarding client confidences, the cloud and SaaS ethics opinions, ABA Formal Opinion 483 on breach response, and the patchwork of state breach-notification and emerging written-information-security-program laws. It closes with a phased migration roadmap and a candid accounting of open source's real limits. For the shorter action checklist, see the companion guide Open Source for the Law Firm; for the licensing law itself, see Open Source Software.
Preparing and Defending a Rule 30(b)(6) Deposition
A Rule 30(b)(6) deposition is the only discovery device that compels an organization to speak with one voice, and it is the single most dangerous deposition most companies ever face. The organization must designate someone to testify about matters known or reasonably available to it, prepare that person on subjects they may know nothing about personally, and live with the answers. This guide covers both sides of it: how to draft a notice that survives a motion for protective order, what the 2020 conferral amendment actually requires, how to select and prepare designees, what preparation means when the witness has no personal knowledge, how to defend the deposition and when to instruct a witness not to answer, and how the testimony is used afterward at summary judgment and at trial. The recurring theme is that the duty is to prepare the organization's answer rather than to produce a knowledgeable person, and that failing to do so is treated as a failure to appear.