Choosing a Business Partner: Lessons from the Dark Side
I’m a litigation attorney. Much of my practice is business litigation and disputes between partners—whether that means partners in a legal entity or partners in the more general sense of the word, such as manufacturers or suppliers. I’ve seen great ideas fail in large part because the team dynamics don’t
Don’t Stop the Train: More on Developing Products and Trademark and Prior Art Searches
It is a rare pleasure when a new entrepreneur (or one with a new product/service) approaches an Intellectual Property (IP) Attorney with concurrent requests for trademark (TM) and prior art searches early on. Both types of searches can save avoidable costs. But, this is not to suggest that you slam the brakes on the train before you get their results. First, the name of your company might change during your marketing efforts. In the meantime, you can usually use a working name for the company/product without seriously impeding your efforts. But, keep records of what names you use and if you do develop any advertising, packaging, trade dress, etc. keep a dated copy of it. You will want a “sample” of those materials for your trademark application. In the meantime, hold off committing serious money to such advertising until you receive the results of the TM search
All too often an entrepreneur requests a trademark search after they have settled on a branding strategy. Indeed, in many cases, the company has been formed under a particular name, ...
Patent Reform arrived as law on September 16, 2011. The good news is that the Patent Office will soon have a “micro” entity fee structure which will allow many entrepreneurs ...
Often an entrepreneur concludes that their once-brilliant idea is unpatentable and they let it wither on the vine. Yet a patent attorney (if they had been consulted) might have thought ...
Many entrepreneurs ask angel investors to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) prior to discussing their businesses. They never hear back from the angels and wonder why. One reason may be that, ...
$12,500,000,000. That’s a lot of zeros to pay for intellectual property (IP). But that was the price Google paid for Motorola Mobility and, mostly, for their patent portfolio. In ...
Sometimes a business owner, eager to see the company’s first patent application, opens the draft -- and barfs. Never have they paid for such gobblygook. Many things about patents might ...
As a rule, gorillas and apes typically take a peaceful approach to life, but as the trailers for the Aug. 5 “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” have ...
Shopping for a patent attorney may seem pretty simple. You simply find one with expertise in your technical area. Right? However, focusing on the technical qualifications of a candidate ...
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