Author Archive

The Fifth Circuit has ruled in favor of four universities (Lousiana State University, the University of Oklahoma, Ohio State University and the University of Southern California) against an apparel company that sold t-shirts with the schools’ color schemes and other identifying indicia referencing the games of the schools’ football teams.
Said the court: “We conclude that [...]

For federal tax purposes, an LLC with one owner is referred to as an entity that is not separate from its owner (a “disregarded entity”) unless an election is made for it to be treated as a corporation.
An upcoming change affects how single-member LLCs will be required to pay employment taxes.
For wages paid before Jan. [...]

Recently, both Legal Literacy and Wisconsin Business Law and Litigation have blogged about the dangers of including another’s trademark in your website’s metatags. (If you’re unfamiliar with metatags and want to see some for yourself, click on “View” [in the Firefox or Explorer browsers], then “Page Source” or “Source.”)
Believing that search engines use metatags to [...]

You’re starting a business and (after conducting a thorough trademark search) have settled on a Very Clever Name. You log in to your favorite domain registry and snap up VeryCleverName.com. Your budget is limited, but you know it’s good practice to build as extensive a domain portfolio as possible, so you also purchase variations of [...]

Twice this week I’ve heard lawyers proclaim in public that you don’t own the copyright to your work anymore, if you’ve signed a “work made for hire” agreement.
That’s not necessarily so.

The general rule is: if you create copyrightable material, you are called the “author” of that material and you own the copyright.
That general rule doesn’t [...]