San Diego Employee Non-Disclosure Agreements: What Should They Contain? The purpose of San Diego and California non-disclosure agreements ("NDA") is to protect your business and its commercially valuable trade secrets. Trade secrets and confidential information are often the key to keeping and expanding your company's market share. We have [...]
Non-Solicitation and Non-Acceptance of Business Clauses are Not Enforceable in San Diego As many San Diego and California businesses know, non-compete agreements are not enforceable in California. That is, except for a few limited circumstances, you cannot enforce any agreement by which an employee agrees not to compete against [...]
Using San Diego Affiliated Companies to Protect Intellectual Property Under some circumstances, there is value to using or creating an affiliated company to protect intellectual property from risks associated with other parts of an ongoing business. Under California law, the same group of individuals or entities can own more [...]
Non-Compete Agreements in San Diego: When are They Valid? In general, under California law, a current employer cannot restrict an employee from leaving and taking another job, even with a competitor. In many states, employers are allowed use so-called "Restrictive Covenants" or a "Non-Compete Agreements" to prevent an employee [...]
What are "Liquidated Damages" in San Diego? A provision for liquidated damages is a way to specify damages in the absence or inability of actually calculating damages, or when such damages would be difficult to calculate. The advice and counsel of a good corporate lawyer is needed if you [...]
Tips for Picking a Good Company Name: Lessons From Trademark Law One of the trickier aspects of starting a new San Diego business is picking a good company name. As we discuss below, it is generally a bad idea to pick YOUR personal or family name as the name [...]
Five Advantages of Using Trade Secret Law to Protect Your Intellectual Property Your San Diego business owns a lot of intellectual property ("IP") even if you do not really think of some of your assets as IP. As we have discussed before, many aspects of businesses can be legally [...]
San Diego Business Law: Preventing Raids on Your Employees (Part II) We wrote earlier about steps to take to prevent raids on your employees when a high-level, managerial employee is departing. See here. A recent case out of Wisconsin gives us an opportunity to review, update, and provide additional [...]
Selling or Buying a Business? Valuation Methods When you want to sell your San Diego small business or professional practice, or if you are in the market to purchase, at some point, everyone will have to decide how much the business is worth. This is obviously important for the [...]
San Diego Businesses: Checklist for Protecting Your Computer From an Angry Administrator We have written recently about the need to protect your digital and virtual assets. One of many possible threats is a rogue or angry or vindictive recently-fired network administrator. Bad situations do happen; Uber recently was forced [...]
Franchise vs. Licensing Agreement: What is the Difference? Most of us are familiar with franchises. Many fast food restaurants and retail stores are franchises. Services can also be franchises, like tax preparation companies. In general, a franchise is a business form where you pay a fee to the franchisors [...]
Checklist for Official Social Media-Use Policy for Managed Employees (Part II) This is the second in our series of posts about writing your company's official social media use policy. In the first part, we tackled the issue of generalized social media use for your employees when you do NOT [...]
The Value of Mediation as an Alternative to Litigation As we have said in the past, every San Diego and California business can expect to have business-related legal disputes at some point. Disputes arise not necessarily because someone is behaving badly, but often are because mistakes happen or circumstances [...]
San Diego Liquor Festivals and California State Trademarks Many San Diego and California businesses understand the importance of trademarks. Many are familiar with the fact that registering trademarks is done through the US Patent & Trademark Office. However, it is less well-known that a San Diego business can register [...]
An Action Plan for Protecting Your Trade Secrets As we discussed here, trade secrets are often the key to seizing and maintaining marketshare in a fiercely competitive marketplace. Trade secrets are protected under the California version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act ("UTSA"). See Cal. Civ. Code §§ 3426, [...]
Fair Use of Copyrighted Material Generally, the owner of a copyrighted work has the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform, and display the work, and to prepare derivative works based on it. 17 U.S.C. § 106. Fair use is a broad exception to this exclusive right. It allows the [...]
What is a Patent? According to stopfakes.gov, “[a] patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor. Patents are granted for new, useful and non-obvious inventions for a period of 20 years from the filing date of a patent application, and provide the right to [...]
What Material is Protected by a Trademark? Many people confuse what is protected as a trademark with copyrights and patents. Each of these terms describes a protection for very specific types of intellectual property. “A trademark is generally a word, phrase, symbol, or design, or a combination thereof, that [...]
An Overview of the Copyright Law The copyright law of the United States is governed by Title 17 of the United States Code and was enacted as the Copyright Act, Public Law October 19, 1976, as Pub. L. No. 94-553, 90 Stat. 2541 (the “Act”). The Act is the [...]
Protect Your Most Valuable Asset – The California Uniform Trade Secrets Act Does your business have trade secrets? Of course it does! Trade secrets in California means any “information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique or process” that has actual or potential value that is not known to [...]
The Value of Registering Trademarks You may have heard that federal registration of trademarks is not necessary in the United States because certain rights to use a mark and exclude others from using it in connection with similar products arise automatically. While this is generally true under common law, [...]
How an IP Portfolio Attracts Funding and M&A Suitors Maintaining a complete and current patent portfolio is a great way for a company to improve its chances of a potential acquisition deal. In intellectual property (IP) centric industries like technology and biotechnology, a patent portfolio is also vital to [...]
Examining Ownership and Assignment of Intellectual Property Rights Produced by Independent Contractors In the United States, ownership of intellectual property (IP) rights defaults to the inventor. In order for any transfer of rights to be effective, a clear written assignment must be made between the parties. Even the work [...]
How Freedom to Operate Informs Deal Values in IP-Heavy Industries In transactions involving research-centric businesses like biotechnology firms or pharmaceutical companies, the intellectual property (IP) assets of the target are the focus of the deal. The terms of a proposed acquisition are directly affected by the relative strength and [...]
CGL Insurance: The Basics A previous post discussed why Commercial General Liability (CGL) Insurance policies typically do not cover the costs of intellectual property (IP) rights infringement claims. However, CGL Insurance is still an essential component of any ongoing business operation because it protects the assets of the business [...]
Acquisition Due Diligence: IP Infringement In another post, the process of identifying and investigating intellectual property (“IP”) assets of a target company was addressed. That process often serves as the first step of an IP due diligence effort and builds a foundation for subsequent stages of IP due diligence. [...]
Have You Considered IP Insurance? Many small companies erroneously assume that their Commercial General Liability (CGL) Insurance policy will cover defense costs in case of a suit over intellectual property (“IP”) infringement, such as a patent infringement claim. Insurers typically have two principal duties under a third party CGL [...]
IP Due Diligence in Mergers and Acquisitions The first step in conducting intellectual property (“IP”) due diligence of a target company is to identify and list all IP assets indicated in documentation produced by the target company and any relevant information obtained during the preliminary examination of the target. [...]
How to Choose a Business Name One of the most important decisions to make when organizing a startup is selecting a name for the business. Entrepreneurs spend dozens, if not hundreds, of hours developing the name of each new business to ensure the name will represent the business well [...]
Start an Internet Business Over the last decade, the internet has changed the face of business. Before the internet, commerce was, in large part, dominated by those who had the means to open and support “brick-and-mortar” stores or offices. As the internet has gained more and more users, first [...]
Expand a Business Online Over the last decade, the internet has changed the face of business. Before the internet, commerce was, in large part, dominated by those who had the means to open and support “brick-and-mortar” stores or offices. As the internet has gained more and more users, first [...]
Starting a Biotechnology Business Starting a biotechnology business entails many of the same legal and business principles required to start any business and reviewing the page “Starting a Business” is a good starting point. The following is an overview of the biotechnology industry beyond generally applicable principles: Biotechnology Business [...]
Starting a New Business Starting a business begins with planning. However, once the plan is in place, the plan must be executed. Below are the ten steps you will need to execute to transform your business idea into an operating business. #1. Write a Business Plan A well written [...]
