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.
Commercial Lease Review Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A commercial lease is usually the second largest financial commitment a small business makes, and it is drafted by the landlord. This checklist covers the review in the order the money moves. It begins with the letter of intent, where the leverage actually exists, then rentable area and the load factor that determines what a stated rate really costs. It works through operating expense pass-throughs and the four provisions that control them, the tenant improvement allowance and delivery mechanics, and the use and exclusivity clauses that decide whether the space works for the business. Later phases cover the transfer provisions that matter if the company is ever sold, the personal guaranty and how to limit it, the lender documents that protect a tenant in a foreclosure, and the end-of-term obligations that produce most post-lease disputes.
Life Sciences Regulatory Toolkit: FDA Pathways, Labeling, and Promotion
Almost every question in life sciences regulation reduces to two prior questions: what is this product, and what does the company say it does. Classification determines the pathway, the manufacturing standard, the reporting obligations, and whether a state tort claim is preempted, and classification turns substantially on the company's own claims. This toolkit runs the product lifecycle: intended use and classification, pathway selection and the clinical work each requires, quality systems, labeling and promotion including the constitutional limits on off-label enforcement, postmarket reporting and recalls, the enforcement ladder from inspection through consent decree, and the preemption doctrines that determine whether an approved product can still be sued over. It ends with enforcement, recalls, and the promotional review process that keeps a compliant product from becoming a misbranded one.
Getting Divorced: A Practical Guide from Filing to Final Decree
This guide runs a divorce in the order it happens. It covers the preparation that should occur before anything is filed, how to choose among do it yourself, mediation, collaborative, and litigated processes and what each actually costs, how to hire and pay counsel including limited scope options, filing and service, the temporary orders hearing that sets a status quo that tends to stick, mandatory financial disclosure and when to go further with discovery, valuing a house, a pension, and a business, negotiating property and support with tax awareness, drafting a parenting plan specific enough to be enforceable, mediation and trial, and the post decree follow through that determines whether the settlement you signed is the settlement you actually get.
Drafting a Severance and Release Agreement That Holds Up
A severance agreement has one job, which is to make claims go away, and a surprising number of them fail at it. This guide covers what makes a release enforceable and what makes it worthless. It starts with consideration, which must be something the employee is not already owed, and the knowing and voluntary standard courts apply, then works through the OWBPA requirements for waiving age claims including the group disclosure that most employers get wrong. It covers the claims that cannot be released at all and the ones that require special handling, then the restrictive provisions that have become the most heavily regulated part of the document, including confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses that federal labor law, the Speak Out Act, and several state statutes now constrain. Later sections address the operational provisions, tax treatment including Section 409A, and a clause-by-clause drafting walkthrough.
Children's Privacy Under COPPA and the Age-Appropriate Design Codes
Children's privacy is governed by a 1998 statute that applies only to children under thirteen, only to operators with actual knowledge or a child-directed service, and only to a defined list of personal information—and by a newer generation of state design codes that attempt to regulate the experience itself rather than the data. The two regimes ask different questions and a company can satisfy one while violating the other. This article covers the COPPA Rule as amended, including who is an operator, what makes a service child-directed, the verifiable parental consent methods that actually exist, the internal operations exception that most services rely on, and the retention and deletion obligations recently strengthened. It then addresses the design codes, the constitutional litigation that has reshaped them, teen privacy under state comprehensive laws, and what an age assurance program looks like in practice.
AI Governance and Compliance: Building a Program for the EU AI Act, State AI Laws, and Everything After
Artificial intelligence regulation arrived faster than most compliance functions expected and in a shape most were not built for: a comprehensive European statute with extraterritorial reach and staged deadlines, a growing set of state laws targeting algorithmic discrimination and disclosure, a federal posture that swung sharply between administrations, and enforcement by agencies applying decades-old consumer protection, employment, and lending statutes to new technology. This article maps that terrain and then explains how to build a governance program that satisfies most of it at once. It covers the EU AI Act's risk tiers, prohibited practices, high-risk obligations, general purpose model rules, and penalty structure, along with who counts as a provider and who counts as a deployer, which is the classification that determines everything else. It then covers the American picture: Colorado's algorithmic discrimination statute, Texas's intent-based approach, Illinois and New York City employment rules, California's transparency and training data laws, and the federal agencies enforcing existing law against AI systems. A long practical section covers the program itself: inventory, risk classification, impact assessments, human oversight design, testing and documentation, procurement and vendor contracts, incident response, and training. It closes with checklists, a worked example, an FAQ, and related reading.
Acquired Distinctiveness and Genericness Evidence Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist converts the law of acquired distinctiveness and genericness into concrete evidence tasks for both sides of a USPTO refusal, a TTAB proceeding, or a federal lawsuit. It begins by fixing the question, the forum, the burden, the relevant date, the genus, and the relevant public, because evidence aimed at the wrong question or the wrong date proves nothing. It then works through each category of proof the courts weigh under the Converse factors (use and exclusivity, look-for advertising, sales in context, unsolicited media, copying, purchaser declarations, and surveys) and through the genericness record of dictionaries, media and trade usage, competitor usage, the owner's own usage, and the policing file. Separate phases cover product designs, packaging, and colors, the risks of signing a five-year statement, and the rules for getting each exhibit admitted at the USPTO, before the Board, and in court. Every item carries a short note with the controlling authority, and the checklist closes with red flags, an FAQ, and practical takeaways.
Bringing or Defending a Civil Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Claim: A Practical Guide
This guide takes a civil computer access dispute from the first alert through summary judgment, once from the plaintiff's chair and once from the defendant's. It sequences triage, revocation, forensic preservation, loss accounting, claim selection, pleading, emergency relief, and discovery, and it explains who should do each task and when. The defense half covers first-day containment, criminal exposure, the Rule 12 motion sequence, opposing a TRO, and attacking loss at summary judgment and trial. It compares the CFAA with the Stored Communications Act, the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and state computer crime statutes in California, Virginia, Florida, and elsewhere. Sample language, two worked hypotheticals, and a list of common mistakes make it usable on a live matter.
Data Subject Rights Request Handling Checklist: A Practical Checklist
A rights request is a deadline running against a company that usually does not know where its data lives. This checklist covers the operational path from intake to closure: recognizing a request whatever channel it arrives through, verifying identity without collecting more data than necessary, determining which statutes apply and what each requires, searching systems of record and vendors, applying exemptions correctly, responding within the deadline, handling appeals, and logging everything. Separate phases cover opt-out signals, which are processed differently and on a shorter clock, and the requests companies forget to plan for, including employee and applicant requests in California and requests received through a support ticket rather than the privacy portal. The goal throughout is a process that can be demonstrated to a regulator from the log alone, without reconstructing anyone's memory of what happened.
Smile: Cell Phone Camera Privacy and the Law
Nearly everyone now carries a high-resolution camera and microphone everywhere they go, and the law has scrambled to keep pace. This article maps the legal landscape of photographing and recording people—starting with the public-versus-private divide and the "reasonable expectation of privacy," then untangling the patchwork of one-party and all-party wiretap-consent statutes that govern audio under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and its state analogs. It explains the federal video voyeurism crime at 18 U.S.C. 1801, state "upskirting" and revenge-porn laws, the First Amendment right to record police, and the special rules for landlords, employers, biometrics, and drones. It also addresses how lawfully captured footage becomes admissible evidence. Throughout, it offers concrete do's and don'ts for both the person holding the phone and the person on the other side of the lens. Because recording-consent rules vary dramatically from state to state, the article repeatedly flags where you must check local law before you hit record.
Cross-Examination Toolkit: Chapter Outlines, Impeachment Sequences, and Reptile Defense Scripts
This toolkit collects working templates for preparing and conducting cross-examination at deposition and trial, and for preparing witnesses to withstand it. It includes an admissions memo, a fillable chapter outline, a witness intelligence and bias worksheet, exhibit foundation scripts, and impeachment sequences for prior sworn testimony, unsworn statements, and omissions. It also provides scripts for locking in lack of memory, making a record of deposition obstruction, a Reptile defense witness-preparation module with objection scripts and a motion in limine outline, a Reid-tactic recognition card, and a question bank organized by subject. Each template states its purpose, owner, and timing, uses bracketed placeholders, and is followed by drafting commentary tied to the governing rules and cases. A running fictional trucking case shows each template in use.
International Data Transfers After Schrems II: Standard Contractual Clauses and Transfer Impact Assessments
The digital economy runs on cross-border data flows, but for any organization touched by European data protection law those flows carry real legal and financial risk after Schrems II. This article maps the post-Schrems II architecture for moving personal data out of the EEA: the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and the Latombe litigation now testing it on appeal; the 2021 modular Standard Contractual Clauses and the Transfer Impact Assessment that Schrems II made mandatory; technical, organizational, and contractual supplementary measures and their limits; Binding Corporate Rules; and the narrow Article 49 derogations. It covers the parallel UK regime, including the December 2025 adequacy renewal through 2031, reviews the enforcement record that gives these rules teeth, and lays out a phased compliance program with a maturity model. The throughline: this framework demands genuine legal analysis rather than contractual box-ticking, and some transfers will not survive that analysis.