12 Aug 2021
Every job comes with its own challenges, stresses, and frustrations. But those challenges should never be due to unfair, threatening, and harassing treatment from other employees, supervisors, managers, and owners. Unfortunately, countless California workers deal with that exact scenario every day, which not only makes them less effective at their jobs, but it can also...
3 Aug 2021
One of the most common ways that California employers take advantage of workers is by utilizing them as independent contractors instead of employees. Independent contractors are also known as 1099 workers because of the tax forms they’re sent by the businesses they work for rather than W-2 forms. Businesses misclassify workers as contractors because doing...
19 Jul 2019
“Trade secrets” are a form of intellectual property protection that is separate from patents, trademarks, and other formal protections. Trade secret protection can be beneficial in different ways, including it does not require the disclosure of the protected information (like a patent) and it can apply to many types of information that may not qualify...
9 Jul 2019
Employers regularly disregards the differences between an independent contractor and an employee. Employers be warned. Such disregard could spell trouble and prove extremely costly. First, if the misclassification is intentional, then there are hefty penalties upwards of $25,000.00 which the employer will incurr. Second, and perhaps more importantly, if a plaintiff’s attorney gets a hold...
12 Nov 2018
Many new and up-and-coming companies want to share their new goods, services, or technology with the world. However, there are mistakes that startups can make that can put their intellectual property at risk. For this reason, each startup should have a carefully considered intellectual property strategy tailored to your company’s goals and industry. Startup owners...
12 Mar 2018
Congratulations! You’ve received a Notice of Allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a task which you appreciate is no easy feat. Now that you are someone who can proudly say, “I have a U.S. patent,” you should know there are other requirements for you to complete in order to fully maintain and...
10 Dec 2014
In this POS patent infringement lawsuit, CardSoft sued VeriFone and others asserting infringement of its software patents. Both companies are in the point of sale (POS) industry that consumers recognize as credit card readers, and also the industry that Apple is seeking to gain market share in with its new concept of Apple Pay. At...
15 Aug 2014
I/P Engine brought a patent infringement lawsuit against Google and several other defendants for infringing on several of its patents. The patents at issue relate to a method for filtering Internet search results. The patents’ main operational features determine the relevance of an Internet search by, for example, extracting text from a web page (known...
6 Jun 2014
Generally, business owners who own and operate a business in California as a sole proprietorship or general partnership, may be considering establishing a more formal business entity, such as a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, or some other entity. Such owners initially ask themselves where, i.e. in which state should I create this legal entity? ...