Small Business Law Articles & Blog Posts
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President Trump’s Tax Plan: Time to Form Pass-Through Entities?
This is not an endorsement for or against President Trump or his recently introduced 2017 Tax Proposal. It is simply a discussion of the effects of pass-through entities. We’ve been...
VARA: How Artists Can Protect Their Rights
As business attorneys, we frequently deal with copyright questions related to graphic arts and other commercial artwork. Usually this means putting agreements in place to make sure everyone owns the...
Avoiding Trademark Ownership Pitfalls
We help a lot of small businesses protect their trademarks and one issue that comes up frequently is identifying the correct owner. This is the very first entry you must...
Likelihood of Confusion — Don’t Be Confused by Trademark Law
One of the things I like about helping trademark clients is that I get to spend a lot of time educating them on how the law works. This is one...
Can non-US residents form an Anonymous LLC in the US?
We receive this question from many non-US residents interested in doing business in the US, but hoping for some level of anonymity. The answer to this question is the same...
How Much Anonymity do Anonymous LLC’s provide?
I’ve written in the past about anonymous LLC’s. See the list of blog articles here. What I’m often asked, is just how much anonymity is provided by Anonymous LLC’s, and...
Exhibiting Prudence May Save Your Business
Yesterday, the topic of prudence could not leave my mind. You see, my wife called me at work because she just had to pass on the shocking gossip she had...
Proper Copyright Licensing is Important
Driving to work the other day, I happened to find myself driving behind the truck you see above. Apparently owned (or contracted) by an exterminating company called Manzano Pest Management...
What Exactly is a Trust?
Legal websites are rampant with articles promoting the use of trusts and their value in avoiding the horrific, heinous probate process. In my experience as a trust officer, the overriding...
Alternative Facts
We’ve written before about the importance of acting quickly when it comes to registering your trademark. Even if you are entitled to registration, waiting to file can add significant delay...
Boilerplate Matters in Contracts
I’ve been running into a lot of contracts disputes lately where a party’s rights were potentially affected by missing boilerplate provisions. Boilerplate generally refers to language that is reused from one...
The Art (and Work) of Branding
Back in July 2016, I published an article entitled Clever Business Names, after having a strong reaction to a business named “Curl Up & Dye”. Like that previous article, my...