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.

CorporateCorporate Transactions

Preparing a Company for Sale: A Two-Year Readiness Guide

Most owners begin preparing to sell about ninety days before they want to close, which is roughly two years too late. The value a buyer will pay is set by what the company can prove about itself, and nearly everything that increases price or reduces risk takes twelve to twenty-four months to fix. This guide organizes the work on that timeline: what to do at twenty-four months, at twelve, at six, and in the ninety days before a process begins. It covers financial readiness and the quality of earnings review, the legal cleanup that diligence will otherwise find, the structural changes that reduce customer and key-person concentration, the tax structuring decisions that must be made years in advance to matter, and how to build a data room that makes a buyer confident rather than nervous.

Casey Scott McKayJuly 2, 202525 min read

Intellectual PropertyPatent

Standard-Essential Patents and FRAND Licensing in 5G and IoT

As billions of devices connect through standardized protocols, disputes over standard-essential patents (SEPs) and fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms have hardened into a multi-jurisdictional war fought across four continents and three branches of government. This article explains, in plain language, what an SEP is and why it confers unusual power, how standard-setting organizations such as ETSI and the IEEE built the FRAND bargain into their intellectual-property policies, and the three rival methodologies courts use to set royalties. It works through the U.S. antitrust dimension that newcomers miss entirely—Rambus, Broadcom v. Qualcomm, N-Data, and the FTC's failed monopolization case against Qualcomm—alongside the contract framework born in Microsoft v. Motorola and the European competition framework of Huawei v. ZTE. It then traces the dramatic 2024-2026 developments: the UK's new interim-license doctrine, China's global rate-setting and the WTO's TRIPS finding against its anti-suit injunctions, the Unified Patent Court's first FRAND ruling, the collapse of the EU SEP Regulation, and the component-versus-device licensing fight roiling connected cars and IoT. It closes with a practical, phase-by-phase negotiation framework and an FAQ. The goal is for a judge, a licensing executive, and a curious newcomer all to come away genuinely fluent.

Casey Scott McKayJune 30, 202554 min read

Estate PlanningElder Law

Planning and Paying for Long-Term Care: A Practical Guide

This guide walks a family through long-term care from the first worrying sign to the estate recovery notice. It covers the inventory to assemble before anything else, the capacity documents that must be signed while capacity exists, how to assess the level of care actually needed, how to compare home care, assisted living, memory care, and nursing facilities on cost and fit, how to evaluate a specific facility using public survey data and a site visit, how to appeal a Medicare skilled nursing termination, how to file a long term care insurance claim, how to prepare and file a Medicaid application and win a fair hearing, what to sign and refuse at admission, how to use care plan meetings and discharge appeals, and what happens after death.

Casey Scott McKayJune 30, 202527 min read

CriminalDUI

DUI Stop, Testing, and License Hearing Checklist: A Practical Checklist

A deadline-driven checklist for a drunk driving case. It opens with the twenty four hour list, including the license hearing deadline that is often ten days and is missed constantly. It then runs the discovery request that produces the records the case turns on, the body camera review performed against the report line by line, the minute by minute timeline that supports observation period and rising blood alcohol arguments, the suppression motions in order of value, the administrative hearing, the five consequences to price into any plea, the mitigation packet, sentencing, and the reinstatement steps that people complete late or not at all.

Casey Scott McKayJune 30, 20257 min read

FinanceLending

Applying for an SBA 7(a) Loan: A Practical Guide for Small Business Borrowers

An SBA 7(a) loan is a conventional bank loan with a federal guarantee attached, and that structure explains everything about the process: the bank underwrites the credit and the SBA imposes a layer of eligibility, documentation, and program rules on top. Borrowers who understand which requirements come from which source negotiate the right things with the right party. This guide covers eligibility including size standards and the affiliation rules that catch private-equity-backed applicants, the permitted uses of proceeds, the economics of fees and rates, the collateral and personal guaranty requirements that are not negotiable, and what a complete application actually contains. It then walks the closing conditions, the special rules for business acquisitions, and what happens on default.

Casey Scott McKayJune 29, 202526 min read

LitigationAdministrative Law

Administrative Law and Agency Practice Toolkit

Dealing with a federal agency is three distinct activities: participating in a rulemaking, complying with or contesting an adjudication, and challenging what the agency did. Each has its own procedure, its own record, and its own set of preservation requirements — and the single most consequential fact is that an argument not raised in the comment period is generally waived in court. This toolkit runs all three, from monitoring proposed rules through the comment that builds the record, the adjudicatory process and its due process floor, the threshold requirements that dispose of most challenges, the standards of review after the abandonment of Chevron deference, remedies, and the information tools that support everything else. It ends with the judicial review stage itself, where the standard of review, the administrative record, and the remedy on remand determine what a win is actually worth.

Casey Scott McKayJune 28, 202513 min read

Intellectual PropertyCopyright and Trademark

Copyright vs. Trademark: What Is the Difference?

Copyright and trademark are the two most commonly confused forms of intellectual property, and the confusion costs people money, lawsuits, and missed protection. This article lays the two systems side by side: what each one protects, where the rights come from, how long they last, which government office handles them, what symbols you use, and how infringement is judged. We work through five concrete examples--a logo, a jingle, a slogan, a fictional character, and a piece of software--to show where the regimes diverge and where they overlap on the very same creation. We give special attention to the boundary policed by Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox, the Supreme Court's rule that trademark cannot be used as a perpetual substitute for expired copyright. Every legal point is anchored in primary authority (the Copyright Act, the Lanham Act, and leading Supreme Court and circuit decisions) and reputable secondary sources (the U.S. Copyright Office and the USPTO). By the end you will have a working decision framework for which protection you need, when you need both, and what to do next.

Casey Scott McKayJune 27, 202549 min read

LitigationCivil Procedure

Serving Defendants in China: Methods and Strategy Under the Hague Service Convention

A lawsuit against a defendant in China usually stalls before the merits for a reason that has nothing to do with who is right: service of process. This article is a working playbook for the general civil and commercial case, explaining how Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f) and 4(h)(2) mesh with the Hague Service Convention, why China's Ministry of Justice Central Authority is in practice the only safe channel, and why China's standing objection to Article 10 forecloses mail and private-agent service. It walks the Form USM-94 packet, the realistic six-to-eighteen-month timeline, the translation requirements that sink most requests, and court-ordered alternative service under Rule 4(f)(3)--including email and social media--against the backdrop of Water Splash, Inc. v. Menon, 581 U.S. 271 (2017). It covers serving U.S. subsidiaries and agents under Volkswagenwerk v. Schlunk, the Article 15 mechanics of defaulting a no-show defendant, the sobering enforcement problem (including China's absolute view of sovereign immunity), and how the Hague Evidence Convention governs discovery from China. The aim is one piece a litigator, a judge, and a business client can all follow.

Casey Scott McKayJune 25, 202547 min read

FinanceDigital Assets

Cryptocurrency and Digital Asset Regulation in the United States

Digital asset regulation in the United States is not a single regime but the collision of several older ones, each of which was written for something else and each of which claims part of the field. This article works through the claims in order: when a token is a security under the Howey test and what the Ripple and Terraform decisions actually held, where the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's authority begins and ends, why every meaningful intermediary is a money services business with Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions obligations, how the federal payment stablecoin framework changed the analysis for issuers, what the tax rules require now that broker reporting and per-wallet basis tracking are in effect, and how customer assets are treated when an exchange fails. The organizing insight is that no regulator supervises digital assets as such; each older statute asks whether a particular transaction or relationship falls within its own definitions. The practical consequence is that analysis begins with what a business does, not with what it holds.

Casey Scott McKayJune 25, 202525 min read

Intellectual PropertyDamages

Damage Statistics: Intellectual Property Litigation

Intellectual property verdicts make headlines for their size, yet the median IP recovery is far more modest than the billion-dollar awards suggest. This guide walks through how courts actually compute damages across the four IP regimes--patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets--from the reasonable-royalty hypothetical negotiation and the Georgia-Pacific factors to copyright statutory damages, Lanham Act profit disgorgement after Romag v. Fossil, and the unjust-enrichment and exemplary measures of the Defend Trade Secrets Act. It explains why IP awards swing so violently, what enhanced and treble damages add, and the decisive role of the damages expert. It frames "damage statistics" honestly: most cases settle, distributions are wildly skewed, and headline verdicts are often slashed on appeal. The aim is to give a judge, a practitioner, and a curious business owner a shared, accurate mental model of what an IP case is worth and why.

Casey Scott McKayJune 21, 202538 min read

Legal ResourcesAccess to Justice

Small Claims Filing and Hearing Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist runs a small claims case from the decision to file through collection of the judgment. It begins with the four threshold questions that determine whether the claim belongs in small claims court at all, then covers the defendant identification research that decides more cases than any argument, the demand letter, filing and fee waivers, the service rules that self represented plaintiffs most often get wrong, exhibit preparation, the hearing itself, and the post judgment collection tools including the abstract of judgment that quietly does most of the work. A separate section covers defending a claim.

Casey Scott McKayJune 16, 20258 min read

CriminalDUI

Handling a DUI Case: A Practical Guide from the Stop to Sentencing

This guide runs a drunk driving case in order, on both of its clocks. It covers what to do and not do at the roadside, the paperwork handed over at release and the license hearing deadline hidden in it, hiring counsel and what to ask, the discovery request that produces the records the case turns on, reviewing body camera footage against the report, building the minute by minute timeline that supports a rising blood alcohol argument, the suppression motions worth filing and in what order, the administrative hearing, plea negotiation and the five consequences to price into any offer, mitigation and sentencing, and the license reinstatement and record relief work that follows.

Casey Scott McKayJune 16, 202529 min read