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.
Counterfeiting, Seizure Orders, and Schedule A Litigation: Fighting Fakes in Federal Court
Counterfeiting is trademark infringement with the volume turned up, and Congress gave brand owners a set of remedies that exist nowhere else in intellectual property law: ex parte seizure of goods and records, mandatory treble damages, statutory damages of up to $2 million per mark per type of goods, and criminal penalties. This article explains what legally counts as a counterfeit, how the ex parte seizure procedure in 15 U.S.C. section 1116(d) actually works and why it is used less often than people assume, and how the modern enforcement workhorse operates: the Schedule A case, in which a brand joins dozens or hundreds of anonymous online sellers in a single complaint, obtains a sealed temporary restraining order freezing their marketplace accounts, and serves them by email. It covers the mounting judicial criticism of that practice, the joinder and personal jurisdiction defenses that are starting to work, contributory liability for marketplaces and landlords after Tiffany v. eBay and Inwood, customs recordation and border enforcement, criminal referrals, and defense strategy for sellers who are swept up. It closes with a program-building checklist, a worked example, an FAQ, and related reading.
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.
Ransomware and the Payment Decision: OFAC Sanctions, Reporting Duties, Insurance, and Negotiating With Attackers
This article treats the decision whether to pay a ransomware demand as the legal problem it has become, rather than a purely technical or financial one. It explains why paying is not generally illegal in the United States but can violate sanctions law on a strict liability basis, and how OFAC, FinCEN, and the federal criminal statutes reach victims, insurers, negotiators, and banks. It then maps the reporting duties that a ransomware attack and a ransom payment each trigger, from CIRCIA and NYDFS to the SEC, HIPAA, the FTC Safeguards Rule, and state breach statutes, and explains why paying never cancels a notification obligation. Separate sections cover cyber extortion insurance and war exclusions, the practical reliability of decryptors and deletion promises, how negotiation is actually run, the ethical and board-level duties that frame the decision, and the litigation that follows. An extended worked example follows a hospital system through a seven-day payment decision, and the article closes with common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways.
Trademark Expungement and Reexamination Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist turns the Trademark Modernization Act's ex parte expungement and reexamination procedures into concrete action items for both sides of a proceeding. Petitioners get items for computing the filing windows, choosing among a petition, a letter of protest, and a TTAB cancellation, planning and logging a reasonable investigation, and assembling the verified statement, evidence index, and TEAS filing that 37 C.F.R. § 2.91 requires. Registrants get items for reading and docketing an institution notice, triaging each challenged good or service, building evidence of use that satisfies 15 U.S.C. § 1127, deciding what to defend and what to delete, and preserving the record for reconsideration, a TTAB appeal, and Federal Circuit review. Short notes under each group explain the rule behind the items and cite the statute, regulation, manual section, or decision that controls. Later parts cover Director-initiated proceedings, post-registration audits, portfolio hygiene for registrants who would rather never see a petition, common mistakes, a short FAQ, and practical takeaways.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Moving for or Opposing Leave to Amend a Pleading: A Practical Guide
This guide walks the moving party and the opposing party, step by step, through a contested request to amend a federal pleading. It begins with the threshold decisions that determine which standard applies: whether the free amendment window is still open, whether the opponent will consent, whether the scheduling order deadline has passed, whether limitations makes relation back essential, and whether the amendment will change the court's jurisdiction. The movant's steps cover building a diligence record, drafting a complete proposed pleading and a redline, seeking consent, structuring the motion around Rule 16(b)(4), Rule 15(a)(2), futility, and relation back, and handling filing, service, and the post-ruling deadlines. The opponent's steps cover deciding whether to fight, constructing the timeline, proving concrete prejudice, choosing futility arguments, and asking for conditions. Special sections address post-dismissal and post-judgment amendments, removed cases, added parties, amended answers, and patent cases, followed by a timeline and cost table, a worked example involving a software reseller dispute, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways.
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.
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.