Many in-house lawyers inherit export controls without warning. One day it is contracts or IP; the next day someone tells you engineering, HR, and IT are now an “export risk.” That is not an exaggeration. EAR and ITAR regulate who inside your company is legally allowed to know what. Export controls are not mainly about shipping products. They are about information . Design drawings, source code, test data, manufacturing processes, and technical manuals can all become regulated

After our last post on the vocabulary of startup funding, a few founders followed up with a similar reaction: “Okay, I understand what a seed round or Series A is. But what do I actually do now?” That question usually comes at a very specific moment. The product exists in some form. There’s early interest—maybe a pilot customer or two. The founder has started hearing phrases like “traction,” “runway,” and “institutional capital,” often in the same week. This is typically wher

If you are building a startup in Michigan, fundraising can feel opaque—not because capital is unavailable, but because it comes in stages , each with its own logic, expectations, and tradeoffs. This post is meant to demystify those stages by explaining why they exist, what they are designed to fund, and how Michigan founders typically experience them. Rather than treating funding rounds as labels, it helps to see them as checkpoints in a company’s development. Each round answ

For more than a decade, § 101 has been the dark cloud over U.S. patent practice. Even companies with sophisticated R&D pipelines routinely find themselves stuck in eligibility quicksand, watching well-designed innovations get bounced as “abstract ideas” or “mere data processing.” Yet the surprising truth is this: the companies that consistently avoid § 101 headaches aren’t doing anything exotic. They aren’t filing longer applications, or denser ones, or even necessarily more

Government shutdowns create widespread operational uncertainty. The impact on intellectual property agencies varies significantly because these offices are funded in different ways. For businesses, creators, and in-house counsel, understanding those distinctions is key to maintaining rights and avoiding preventable delays. USPTO: Continuing Operations Under Fee-Funded Reserves The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) remains open and operating normally. Unlike many federa

As the calendar winds down, most businesses are focused on closing the books and planning for the next fiscal year. But one...

The Harvard Letter: A Wake-Up Call In August 2025, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sent Harvard University a letter that landed like a...

In the age of smartphones and viral videos, what you say or do online—and even off-duty in public—can quickly become everyone’s business....

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly transforming industries and businesses. Governments worldwide are catching up. Expect new laws...

Intellectual property (IP) plays a central role in driving innovation for cleaner energy, eco-friendly products, and green technologies....

The U.S. Department of Commerce is considering a dramatic change to the patent maintenance fee system: replacing or supplementing the...

For small, advanced manufacturing businesses supplying both automotive and aerospace industries, trade secrets are often a competitive...

Whether you're aiming to sell to a strategic buyer, a private equity firm, or one of the many e-commerce aggregators active in the...

As we celebrate the Fourth of July, it’s natural to reflect not only on the birth of American independence but also on the principles and...

Does Your U.S. Startup Need to Comply with GDPR? For many U.S. startups, international growth is part of the business plan from day one....

Starting a business in Michigan? One of your most important first steps is choosing the right legal structure. This decision affects...

As companies grow beyond their national borders, the complexity of managing an international intellectual property (IP) portfolio...

Patent eligibility law under § 101 remains foggy on its clearest day. But a rejection of your patent claims under § 101 isn’t necessarily...

You’ve worked hard and invested real money to build your brand. Then one day you open your browser or walk down the aisle at a trade show...

Few things are more unsettling than receiving a complaint alleging trade secret misappropriation. Whether you’re a company or an...