6 Oct 2021
If you’re seeking to trademark intellectual property for your company or brand, whether it’s a product name, a logo, or a slogan, you may be tempted to do it yourself. And provided you live in the U.S., you’re eligible to do so without the help of an attorney. But going it alone isn’t always a...
17 Sep 2021
When you or a group of collaborators come up with a work, invention, or idea through your own creativity and original thought process, you’ve created intellectual property. Unfortunately, unlike most physical property, intellectual property is easily stolen or misattributed, which can result in its rightful owners being denied credit and compensation for their work. People...
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...
16 Jun 2021
Whether you’re a serial inventor or you’ve just come up with the idea of a lifetime, it’s just as important to protect your new intellectual property as it is to actually put your idea in motion. Unfortunately, many people make mistakes at this point—and those mistakes can render their ideas worthless or even place them...
11 May 2021
If you’re paid an hourly rate, you expect the hours you put in at work to be accurately recorded and compensated. But not all workers are paid correctly down to the minute. Some aren’t even paid accurately down to the hour, and they may be seriously underpaid for weeks, months, or years. When this happens,...
27 Apr 2021
When you accept a job in California, you expect to be a critical component of your team and a valued employee of your company. But thousands of employees throughout the state are mistreated every day. If that happens to you, do you have any legal recourse? The answer depends on whether any state or federal...
12 Mar 2021
When most people want to file a patent, they do so with one major goal in mind: making money—or at least, protecting their idea from OTHERS making money off of it! Patents can range from obscure, niche applications that may never be used, to schematics and designs of products that can and will change the...
19 Jan 2021
A trade secret is any information or business dealing that cannot be shared outside of the company where it belongs. Their economic value defines them. In other words, if a competitor were to get their hands on your trade secret, it could potentially harm your business. You may think that you are not privy to...
12 Jan 2021
Employment law regulates the relationship between employers and employees. Without it, businesses would (have been proven to) take advantage of their employees. This is not because business owners are inherently bad people; it is merely because a business’s purpose is to make money. So, if an entity is fulfilling that purpose, it will find any...
5 Jan 2021
Do you remember when Invisalign hit the market in 1998? It was a revolutionary product that promised to straighten your teeth without metal braces. Finally, people could improve their smiles without undergoing the torture of a mouth full of hardware. It was a particularly fantastic solution for adults, who often find the look of metal...
22 Dec 2020
A lot of people confuse copyright and trademarks, but they are, in fact, very different. A trademark is a visual indicator that a service or product belongs to a particular company or entity (think logo)—copyright, on the other hand, grants exclusive legal rights to the originator of a piece of written or artistic material. Performances,...