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.
Trade Secret Cybersecurity Incident Response Checklist: A Practical Checklist
When a breach hits, the incident-response machine almost always points itself at personal data and the notification clock, while the theft of trade secrets—often far more financially devastating—goes unrecognized until the window for protective action has closed. This checklist folds intellectual property protection into incident response across three time horizons. Before the breach: a current crown-jewels inventory and the right contractual notices. During the breach: a triage question that flags an IP incident, parallel containment and preservation, forensic documentation built to litigation rather than regulatory standards, and a privilege structure that avoids the trap that snared Capital One. After the breach: preserving trade secret status through prompt visible action, pursuing or documenting DTSA remedies, coordinating notifications to manage the disclosure paradox, and protecting whatever insurance coverage exists. Each step is paired with the reason it matters and the case law that makes the stakes concrete.
Federal Deadline Toolkit: Calendaring Protocols, Extension Motions, and Excusable Neglect Declarations
This toolkit collects working papers for avoiding and recovering from missed federal deadlines. It includes a written calendaring protocol, a computation worksheet, a deadline triage matrix, pre-deadline and post-deadline extension motions, an excusable neglect declaration, a notice-of-appeal extension motion, a Rule 16(b)(4) motion, a stipulation with proposed order, and a CM/ECF failure declaration. It also provides a client letter, a call script, a carrier notice, an opposition outline for the other side, a self-represented motion, and a root-cause review form. Each paper states its purpose, owner, and timing, and each is followed by drafting notes tied to authority. All templates use bracketed placeholders and need adaptation to the court's local rules and the facts.
Trademark Statement of Use Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A checklist for completing an intent-to-use trademark application by filing a Statement of Use after the Notice of Allowance, including the timeline math for extensions of time. It covers when to file an SOU versus an Amendment to Allege Use, the per-class requirements (fee, specimen, dates of first use, verified declaration), the six-month extension cadence capped at 36 months from the Notice of Allowance, the request-to-divide option when use is partial, and how all of it preserves the constructive-use priority that dates back to the application filing date under 15 U.S.C. 1057(c). WHY notes, trap warnings, a common-mistakes list, and primary authority are included. Educational, not legal advice.
The Evolution of Design Patent Functionality: Clarifying the Muddle
Functionality in design patent law is two doctrines wearing one name, and confusing them is the source of most of the "muddle." The first is a validity rule: under 35 U.S.C. § 171 a design is unprotectable only if its appearance, judged for the article as a whole, is "dictated solely by function." The second is a claim-construction and infringement question: how individual functional features within a valid design affect the scope of what the patent covers. This article traces the doctrine from the early "dictated by function" test through the modern multi-factor inquiry of Berry Sterling and PHG Technologies, and through the Federal Circuit's course correction in Ethicon Endo-Surgery v. Covidien and Sport Dimension v. Coleman away from "factoring out" functional elements. It examines Automotive Body Parts Ass'n v. Ford and the rejection of an "aesthetic functionality" defense, connects functionality to the "article of manufacture" damages question of Samsung v. Apple, situates the doctrine after the en banc LKQ decision on obviousness, and offers worked examples plus prosecution and litigation guidance.
Expungement, Record Sealing, and Restoring Rights After a Conviction
A criminal record follows a person into housing, employment, licensing, education, credit, and family court, and most of the consequences are imposed not by a judge but by private decisionmakers reading a database. This article explains the difference between expungement, sealing, set aside, and a certificate of rehabilitation, why automatic clean slate laws are changing the field faster than petitions ever did, what relief exists for arrests that never led to charges, how the FCRA limits what background check companies may report and how to dispute an inaccurate report, what expungement does and does not do for firearm rights, voting, occupational licensing, and immigration, and how federal relief differs from and is narrower than state relief.
How to File a UDRP Complaint for Domain Name Disputes
A complete, practitioner-grade guide to recovering a domain name from a cybersquatter through the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy. It walks through the three required elements—identical or confusingly similar, no rights or legitimate interests, and bad-faith registration and use—anchored in the WIPO Overview 3.0 and leading panel decisions such as Telstra. It explains provider selection (WIPO, FORUM, and the other ICANN-accredited centers), complaint drafting under the UDRP Rules, the registrar lock, mutual-jurisdiction statements, GDPR-redacted WHOIS, the respondent's defenses, and reverse domain name hijacking. A dedicated section contrasts the UDRP with federal litigation under the ACPA, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d), including its nine bad-faith factors, statutory damages, and in rem jurisdiction. Written for trademark owners recovering domains and the attorneys who represent them. Not legal advice.
The Complete Guide to Adding New Investors After Your Seed Round
This guide explains the legal and financial mechanics of bringing new investors onto a startup's capitalization table after an initial seed round, with the focus squarely on the first priced equity financing—the Series Seed or Series A—that typically follows. It walks through how SAFEs and convertible notes convert at the priced round, the dilution arithmetic behind pre-money and post-money valuation and the notorious "pre-money option pool shuffle," and presents a fully worked, step-by-step cap-table example for a hypothetical company. It surveys the standardized deal documents (the NVCA model documents and the lighter Series Seed forms) and the core preferred-stock terms a new investor will negotiate—liquidation preferences, dividends and conversion, preemptive and pro-rata rights, rights of first refusal and co-sale, information and registration rights, board seats, protective provisions, drag-along, and anti-dilution protection (broad-based weighted average versus full ratchet). It addresses Regulation D compliance for the new issuance, amending the certificate of incorporation under the DGCL, the Section 409A revaluation, and the practical work of securing existing-investor consents and waivers. A dedicated section examines down rounds and the fiduciary-duty scrutiny insider-led financings draw under Delaware's entire-fairness standard. The article is written so that founders, investors, and their counsel can all follow every moving part of a first priced round.
Defending or Bringing a Biometric Privacy Claim: A Practical Guide
This guide walks plaintiffs' and defense counsel step by step through a biometric privacy case, from the first client call to settlement approval, with the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act as the main focus and other state and local laws covered where they create claims. It begins with decision points for each side and then covers intake and fact capture, preservation (including the tension between a litigation hold and BIPA's destruction duty), mapping claims to the five statutory duties, limitations and accrual, the forum fight over CAFA removal and Article III standing, arbitration and mass arbitration, and the threshold defenses: labor preemption and the health care, financial institution, and government contractor exemptions. Later steps address pleading motions, discovery of time-clock and vendor data, class certification, damages after the 2024 amendment and the Seventh Circuit's 2026 retroactivity ruling in Clay v. Union Pacific, insurance tenders, and settlement approval after the Seventh Circuit vacated the Clearview AI settlement. A timeline and cost table, an extended worked example involving a logistics company with hand-geometry time clocks, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways close the guide.
Drafting Patent Claims and Specifications That Survive Section 112: A Practical Guide
This guide walks inventors, prosecutors, and litigators through what Section 112 requires at each stage of a patent's life. The drafting steps cover the inventor interview, a scope ladder of claims, working and prophetic examples, disclosure of alternatives and common qualities, algorithms for software and machine learning, definitions, and priority mapping. The prosecution steps cover how to answer written description, enablement, and indefiniteness rejections without creating new problems. The litigation steps show both sides how to frame contentions, time claim construction, use experts and inventors, and preserve issues for judgment as a matter of law. Sample language, a table of trade-offs, worked hypotheticals, and a list of common mistakes are included.
Environmental Permitting and Compliance: The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and NEPA
Environmental compliance runs on permits, and a permit is both a shield and a trap: operating within its terms is a complete defense to most enforcement, and operating outside them is a strict liability violation regardless of whether any harm occurred. The two dominant programs—the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act—share an architecture in which the federal government sets standards, states administer permits under delegated authority, and private citizens may sue to enforce. NEPA operates differently, imposing a procedural obligation on federal agencies to study environmental effects before acting, and it has become the principal battleground over infrastructure and energy projects. This article covers the permitting programs a facility actually encounters, the compliance obligations that follow, the enforcement architecture including citizen suits, and the diligence and disclosure that transactions require.
Running a Legal Sweepstakes or Contest: A Practical Guide
This guide takes a promotion from concept to closeout. It works through the design decisions that determine the compliance profile, how to build an alternative method of entry that actually works, how to draft official rules and the abbreviated rules that appear in advertising, when registration and bonding are required and how to avoid them, the launch review that catches the errors regulators notice, and the administration that follows: winner selection, verification, affidavits, prize delivery, tax reporting, and records. It includes a timeline, a budget, and the provisions that matter when something goes wrong.
CAN-SPAM Email Marketing Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist
The CAN-SPAM Act (15 U.S.C. 7701-7713) and the FTC's rule (16 C.F.R. Part 316) do not ban unsolicited commercial email; they impose a disclosure-and-opt-out code of conduct on every commercial message, bulk or single, B2B or B2C. This checklist operationalizes that code: classify each message under the primary-purpose test, keep headers and subject lines honest, label commercial mail as an ad, include a valid physical postal address, provide a one-step opt-out kept live for 30 days, honor opt-outs within 10 business days forever, never sell or transfer opt-out addresses, and maintain and scrub a central suppression list. It allocates sender/initiator liability (no contract can transfer it away), handles affiliate marketing and special content, and layers in the TCPA for texts and GDPR/CASL for international recipients. Each phase pairs checkboxes with the WHY and the traps, plus common mistakes, primary authority, and related mclaw.io resources. Verify the current per-email penalty at the FTC's latest adjustment notice.