Here’s a quick link to a brief introductory article on the differences between patents and trade secrets as an IP protection strategy. There are more questions and quirks than this, of course, but that’s why legal advice is always custom.
The US is fairly easy place to do traditional business. We have far fewer restrictions on who may operate or own a business than other countries, and while there’s still progress to be made in streamlining regulatory compliance at multiple levels of government, it’s not always arcane. But nonprofits are a little more trouble…
Several years ago, I switched my law practice from mass torts (plane crashes and shipwrecks) in New York City to corporate law at a large Silicon Valley law firm. As a result of that experience and clients I worked with in the years following the dotcom bust, I developed a number of simplifying rules about…
“Joint venture” is a sloppy term used to describe a number of different business operations. The important thing to remember is that it is too vague to be meaningful legally. A project that is called a joint venture might legitimately be structured like any of these: a brand new entity with shared ownership a subsidiary…