A trade secret is a piece of information which is confidential, can be legally protected, and gives your company a competitive edge. In Texas, trade secrets are defined as follows:
"Trade secret" means all forms and types of information, including business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, and any formula, design, prototype, pattern,...
Continue reading…An operating agreement (also known as a company agreement) is a contract that governs your LLC’s operations as well as member interaction with one another and with the LLC. You may think that an operating agreement is not necessary for your single-member LLC - after all - why make an agreement with yourself? Is the...
Continue reading…You and your business partners start a new business and decide to operate it as a limited liability company ("LLC"). Now that you’ve completed the first step of choosing a business entity it's important to prepare an operating agreement (also known as a "company agreement"). The operating agreement is a a shareholder agreement for...
Continue reading…Architects, owners and developers can benefit from understanding the role that intellectual property law plays in protecting architectural plans and building designs. Copyright law lends itself more to the types of protections that architects would tend to seek, while trademark law is generally more applicable to building or business owners. This article discusses trademark...
Continue reading…Architects, owners and developers can benefit from understanding the role that intellectual property law plays in protecting architectural plans and building designs. Copyright law lends itself more to the types of protections that architects would tend to seek, while trademark law is generally more applicable to building or business owners. This article discusses trademark...
Continue reading…Below is the third excerpt from a presentation I gave at the State Bar of Texas’ 16th Annual Entertainment Law Institute entitled “Legal & Business Aspects of Music, Film and Digital Entertainment” in October 2006. Again, this was written for a court in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and other circuits treat some of these...
Continue reading…Below is the second excerpt from a presentation I gave at the State Bar of Texas’ 16th Annual Entertainment Law Institute entitled “Legal & Business Aspects of Music, Film and Digital Entertainment” in October 2006 on the topic of copyright infringement. This was written for a court in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and...
Continue reading…I thought I’d post some excerpts from a paper that I co-wrote for a presentation I gave with a friend of mine, Buck McKinney, at the State Bar of Texas’ 16th Annual Entertainment Law Institute entitled “Legal & Business Aspects of Music, Film and Digital Entertainment” in October 2006. The first excerpt is entitled...
Continue reading…Originally published on June 22, 2010 on EntertainmentLitigation.com The copyright world was abuzz on April 10, 2010 when the Second Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction granted in favor of the J.D. Salinger Literary Trust restraining the an author (and others) from publishing, advertising, or otherwise distributing a book that allegedly infringes Salinger’s copyrights in
Continue reading…Originally published on August 3, 2010 on EntertainmentLitigation.com In 1992, illustrator Todd McFarlane hired Neil Gaiman to write a script for McFarlane’s comic book entitled Spawn. Gaiman developed two new characters named Medieval Spawn and Angela; developed a backstory for each character, and wrote a script for one of the issues. A...
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