How Agreements Help Avoid Conflict Among Business Partners

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Many business people fail to enter into appropriate ownership agreements that could protect them if the business fails, a partner dies, or the owners decide to part ways. Many entrepreneurs believe the legal fees and hassle needed to obtain properly drafted ownership agreements outweigh any potential benefits. When a new venture is launched, and money …Read more

Important Corporate Documents for a Successful Business Sale

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The last thing most founders think about when they start up a company is selling it. If one of the possible exit strategies is to sell your company, you should be thinking about the documentation you’ll need for a successful business sale from the very beginning. It may be years down the road but the …Read more

Using Phantom Stock in a Family-Owned Business to Attract Employees

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Like any business, a family-owned business has a strong incentive to attract, retain, motivate and reward key employees. A competitive salary and benefits package may not be enough to do this in today’s market. Many businesses offer equity incentive plans to employees as a form of long-term incentive compensation. For many family-owned businesses offering stock …Read more

Biggest Threat to Your Company’s Trade Secrets

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For many people, trade secret theft evokes images of an international technological superspy using complex cyber-tools to engage in corporate or national espionage in cyberspace to steal the crown jewels of company or country. In reality, the more common, less dramatic and yet more dangerous threat to a company’s proprietary information comes from within. Current …Read more

Protecting Your Trade Secrets Where State Law and Federal Defend Trade Secrets Act Meet

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When it comes to protecting your company’s trade secrets, one of the most important remedies you can secure is a court order preventing a former employee from making use of the trade secret for the benefit of a competitor. From your perspective, it’s impossible for an employee who received your company’s crucial business information to …Read more

Final Pay Rules When Employees Retire

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The California Supreme Court has held, in a case of first impression that the state’s final pay rules for retiring employees apply in the same manner as to employees who quit. This is an important clarification of California employment law. Background California has strict final pay rules when employment ends. Labor Code section 201 requires …Read more

When Should I Use Patent Protection, Trade Secret, or Both?

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Intellectual property owners can protect certain information either by obtaining a patent or by maintaining its secrecy. A patent provides strong, exclusive rights for a fixed period of time, generally twenty years. A trade secret may last indefinitely, but protection can be lost through independent development, reverse engineering, or failure to maintain secrecy. There are …Read more

Copyright Infringement Can Ensnare Unsuspecting Artists

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If you’re an aspiring artist, make sure you get written approval to use any of the artwork or photography included in your work or in its promotion. If you act in concert with a promoter or record company to wrongfully use another person’s work, and benefit financially from those activities, you may be liable for …Read more

How and Why You Should Copyright Your Software

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If you dream of building a software development company, it’s no exaggeration to say that without your software, and the legal ability to commercialize it, you have no business. Other than your people, your proprietary software is your most valuable asset and needs to be protected from competitors and secured from unintended internal uses that …Read more

Independent Contractor or Employee? How to Choose Properly

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One of the most common ways an employer gets into hot water is to improperly classify an employee as an independent contractor (“IC”). This is an important issue for businesses for a few reasons. There is no single, simple rule you can use to determine the proper employment status of an individual you hire to …Read more