A consumer business lives on its brand and its supply chain. The name on the package, the look of the product, and the claims in the advertising drive sales, and the manufacturers, distributors, marketplaces, and payment providers behind them determine whether products arrive and money comes back. Legal problems in this sector are rarely abstract: a counterfeiter lists your product on a marketplace, a regulator questions a label, a supplier ships late, or a class action challenges a claim on your packaging. We are a litigation and transactional firm focused on intellectual property, technology, and business disputes. For consumer and retail companies, that means building brand protection into the business from the start and enforcing it in court when it is challenged.
Products, Retail, Fashion, Food, And Cannabis
Five sectors make up our consumer and retail work. Consumer products covers brands selling goods to the public, with work on trademarks and trade dress, counterfeiting and gray market goods, and advertising and influencer marketing. Retail and e-commerce covers retailers, direct-to-consumer brands, and marketplace sellers, where the issues include online consumer law, payments, platform agreements, and data privacy. Fashion and apparel covers designers and labels protecting fast-moving designs and brands, closing licensing and retail deals, and fighting counterfeits. Food and beverage covers producers, restaurants, and beverage brands dealing with FDA and USDA labeling rules, co-packing, and distribution. Cannabis covers licensed operators, ancillary businesses, and hemp companies working through the conflict between state legalization and federal law.
Brand, Advertising, And Product Rules
The Lanham Act protects trademarks and trade dress and supplies the federal false advertising claim competitors use against each other. The FTC Act prohibits deceptive advertising, and the FTC's Endorsement Guides, its rule against fake reviews and testimonials, and the Made in USA Labeling Rule apply directly to how brands market. ROSCA and state automatic renewal laws govern subscriptions. The INFORM Consumers Act requires online marketplaces to verify high-volume third-party sellers. Product safety falls under the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the CPSIA for children's products, along with California's Proposition 65. Food brands answer to FDA labeling rules under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Food Safety Modernization Act, and to USDA for meat and poultry. Cannabis companies face the Controlled Substances Act and state licensing regimes.
Brand Protection And IP Disputes
For consumer companies, the brand is usually the most valuable intellectual property they own, and most disputes involve it in some way. A competitor launches a confusingly similar name or package. Counterfeit goods appear on Amazon, Temu, or social media storefronts. A terminated distributor keeps selling, creating gray market goods that bypass your warranty and quality controls. A competitor's comparative advertising misstates your product. Protection for product design is narrower than many brands expect: the Supreme Court held in Wal-Mart v. Samara Brothers that product design trade dress requires secondary meaning, and Star Athletica limits copyright in useful articles to separable artistic features. We build protection around those limits, document it as the brand grows, and enforce it where it is strongest.
Litigation And Enforcement
We bring and defend trademark infringement, trade dress, counterfeiting, and false advertising cases in federal court, including multi-defendant actions against online counterfeit sellers. We use marketplace takedown programs, Amazon Brand Registry, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection recordation to stop infringing goods before they reach buyers. We defend consumer class actions challenging labels and marketing, such as natural or made in USA claims, along with automatic renewal and website accessibility claims. On the commercial side, we litigate disputes with manufacturers, co-packers, distributors, licensees, and retailers over defective goods, missed deliveries, chargebacks, and wrongful termination. For cannabis clients, we account for the added complication that some courts have refused to enforce contracts involving activity that remains illegal under federal law.
Supply, Distribution, And Licensing Deals
Our transactional work covers the agreements that get products made and sold. We draft and negotiate supply and manufacturing agreements under UCC Article 2, including warranties, inspection and rejection rights, tooling and mold ownership, and limits on liability. We handle co-packing agreements and quality terms for food and beverage brands, distribution and reseller agreements with territory and pricing provisions, retail vendor agreements, and marketplace and fulfillment terms. We license brands and designs to manufacturers and collaborators, draft influencer and ambassador agreements that satisfy the Endorsement Guides, and prepare e-commerce terms, return policies, and privacy policies. We also clear and register trademarks, including the filing strategies cannabis companies use when the USPTO refuses marks for products that remain federally illegal.
How We Work With Consumer Brands
We start with the brand and the channel. A brand selling through big-box retailers faces different risks than one selling direct through its own site or on Amazon, and our advice reflects how you actually reach customers. We review the core assets first: trademark filings, packaging, key supply and distribution agreements, and marketing claims. Then we agree on scope and cost in writing and set priorities, so the most valuable protections come first. During enforcement, we go after the infringers doing the most damage and choose the fastest effective tool, which is often a marketplace complaint or a demand letter rather than a lawsuit. When litigation is the right tool, we file with the evidence already assembled.
Flat Fees For Brand Work
Much brand work is standardized, and we sell it as flat-fee products with a fixed price, a stated scope, and a set turnaround. That includes trademark clearance and registration, cease and desist letters, influencer agreement templates, website terms and privacy policies, and NDAs for manufacturing partners. Litigation, contested negotiations, enforcement programs against large numbers of sellers, and acquisitions are scoped and estimated in writing before we begin. The estimate states what is included and what would change it, and we revise it with you if the facts change. For growing brands managing tight margins, we plan the work so that legal spend tracks the value of what it protects.
