Intellectual Property Insurance

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

You need to know this.

If you own any IP, what is your threshold for litigation? Rest assured, even the smallest businesses get involved with IP litigation, then find they can’t afford it because their general business liability policies don’t cover it. There is no need for you to be on your own in the IP courtroom; IP insurance can be a cost-effective way to handle the ever-rising costs associated with litigation of your IP rights.

I don’t endorse any particular carrier, but I found these videos on YouTube; they contain a good overall discussion of why you should carry IP insurance and of how IP insurance works.

IP Enforcement Insurance

IP Defense Insurance

Posted in General Business Law, Universal IP | No Comments »

Disney to Buy Marvel for $4 Billion – ABC News

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Disney to Buy Marvel for $4 Billion – ABC News.

Wow. Just wow.

Disney is already among the biggest entertainment businesses in the world, what with the movies and the theme parks and the hotel properties and the Broadway shows and all the rest of it. I believe they even have an inroad in the comics market (if they don’t now, I’m sure they did when I was a kid; I remember Mickey Mouse comics). Marvel has a thoroughly different look from Disney, so this will be an interesting evolution. I wonder if Superman will develop the Disney eyes?

Tags: Disney, Marvel Comics
Posted in Contracts, Copyright, Franchising, General Business Law, Licensing, Trade Dress, Trademark/Service Mark | No Comments »

Bailouts could cost U.S. 23.7 TRILLION dollars

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

via Bailouts could cost U.S. $23 trillion – Eamon Javers – POLITICO.com.

Twenty-three trillion seven hundred billion dollars.

$23,700,000,000,000.

Get a load of that number. It’s incomprehensibly huge.

According to the cited article, if a government spent $1 million per day going back to the birth of Christ — um, that’s over 2000 years — that would barely be $1 trillion. Now multiply that by 23.7.

Granted, the full pricetag would require numerous simultaneous system failures, but we all know that Murphy lives and that the system, when it can fail, will do just that.

Where will we get $23.7 trillion, over and above the ordinary cost of business of running the government? You don’t need me to answer that question for you. It will come out of your pocket and mine. Taxes will fund this massive sum.

Maybe we, as taxpayers in this great country of ours, should simply let the big corporations go under. Twenty-three point seven trillion dollars. Geez. The cost of the unemployment blitz that would come from allowing corporate America to fail wouldn’t come anywhere near $23.7 trillion.

It’s a cost-benefit analysis; what would provide the most benefit for the least cost? Somehow, I suspect that $23.7 trillion is the greatest cost.

Tags: $23.7 trillion, Bailouts, Cost-benefit analysis
Posted in General Business Law | No Comments »

Mummies…

Friday, March 27th, 2009

If mummies ran the world, the world would likely:

• have fewer wars (no mummy wants to lose her precious baby to some wartime accident);
• have a balanced budget (no mummy lets the household spending get ahead of where the family is financially, and a mummy knows EXACTLY where that is — down to the halfpence, pfenning, sou, centime, penny, lira);
• have good health care for all, and the ability to pay for good health care for all (a good mummy makes sure her babies have health care, and she’ll beat down the doors of power to make sure that the health care is covered);
• be well fed (no mummy willingly lets her children go hungry);
• have a clean and well-tended planet (mummies do not live in dirt — certainly mine doesn’t).

Maybe the Powers That Be should get themselves wrapped up in linen strips and learn to hang around with the mummies for a few millenia. The mummies have it right. They certainly have it WAY better than do the Leaders Of Industry who are hanging around Congress begging for a bailout.

Posted in Abbott & Costello, General Business Law | No Comments »

Tesla, Awaiting U.S. Aid, Unveils Its Electric Car – NYTimes.com

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Tesla, Awaiting U.S. Aid, Unveils Its Electric Car – NYTimes.com. (subscription required)

A Silicon Valley startup, called Tesla Motors (can’t help but notice the similarity in name to Nicola Tesla, the inventor of the radio … any relation?), has a fully electric sedan that they’re itching to build. They can’t get their design past the modeling stage without a $450M loan from the Feds. Fed loan money has pretty much dried up thanks to the credit crisis, leaving us gas guzzlers laying down our trail of carbon monoxide and other noxious fumes as we drive our fossil fueled sedans, SUVs, and Keystone Kops Kars through the streets.

Tesla has spent $50M developing their new electric sedan — the Model S — and needs $250-300M more. They’ve gotten $186M from investors and need the rest on loan from the government.

The government isn’t lending money right now. This is choking Tesla and other green-energy startups … I hope not completely to death, since I like the idea of a fully electric sedan. I hope it has the power to handle highway speeds.

I also hope that their new fully electric car will be priced and made available such that Real People like you and me can afford to buy it, unlike Tesla’s other product, a $109,000 Roadster that is out in a very limited edition of 300 cars (with 1000 wannabe owners waiting in line). This is a product that everyone needs to be able to afford. Gasoline prices will skyrocket again soon enough (supply and demand requires that; gasoline is a finite resource) and gas-powered internal combustion engines are eating the planet alive. A fully electric car, powered with renewable energy, is just the ticket.

IF they makes its new car affordable and powerful enough to handle highways, Tesla just might have a herd of Proboscidea by the very large collective tail. If they price it and do limited production runs such that only multi-millionaires can buy it, the planet and the public will suffer.

Tags: Car manufacturing, Electric car, Government lending
Posted in General Business Law | 2 Comments »

60% of older workers are postponing retirement

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

CareerBuilder conducted a survey wherein they asked older workers about retirement plans.

Retirement? What’s that? The economic downturn prevents 60% of people who want to retire — who have worked and scrimped and saved their whole lives long in hopes of living the good life — from leaving the work force.

There are those of us who simply don’t want to retire. I, for example, have a delightful time working, I enjoy my business enormously and I plan to go to my grave with my fingers on the keyboard clacking out some client-related legal document. That doesn’t say I don’t enjoy having the option to retire, and it certainly doesn’t say that I don’t enjoy taking time off to visit some tropical paradise.

Some just want to go and live on that tropical island. They’ve been saving for it all their lives. They dreamed from the time they were tots about leaving the winter behind as they fall off the edge of the workaday world and into their dream.

The dream ain’t happening. Money doesn’t let it happen. It’ll be a few years before these folks feel secure enough to take that plunge. 

This may not be a bad thing: I have it from the horse’s mouth that retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And, according to MedPageToday, early retirement may spell — well, disaster.

So suck it up, Boomers, and keep the work fires burning. Starting a business is a grand way to keep your finger in the non-retired pot — and on your own terms.

Tags: Retirement
Posted in General Business Law | No Comments »

The Magic Numbers of Lou Costello

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Here is what must have gone on in the mortgage banking boardrooms. There really is no other excuse for what is going on with this economy….

If the video doesn’t show up, the URL is here.

Posted in Abbott & Costello, General Business Law | 1 Comment »

The Credit Crisis, visually represented

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

The Crisis of Credit Visualized, Part 1

The Crisis of Credit Visualized, Part 2

These two videos are a good representation/explanation of how we got where we are today. They were posted on YouTube by graphixmdp last week. I post them here because the economy stinks right now and I think it’s important for everyone to understand why. These videos are short, interesting, and they explain why.

Posted in General Business Law | No Comments »

It's only just begun…

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Recession Worst in Three Decades – Bloomberg.

The Economy. The downturn we’re seeing right now is likely to be only the beginning of what could well be a multi-year depression. People are losing jobs by the millions (time to go into business for themselves?) and the economy as a whole is predicted to shrink by almost 2% this year alone.

The economists are shrieking that is the worst economic downturn that we’ve seen since the mid-1970s, and it may go further and exceed that. Let’s hope we don’t have another Great Depression on our hands.

And it’s not just the USA that’s feeling the pinch. This downturn is global.

The economic stimulus bill has passed (even in the Senate, though by only one vote) and is now in effect, and that may help a little, but I bet it won’t do nearly all of what it’s supposed to do. The lack of jobs pinch the consumers’ wallets and thus the hoped-for spending bump is not likely to happen.

We’ll come through this crisis, but recovery will take time and recovery will be slow and painful. It will be the small businesses that will get us through, though; the day of the corporate behemoth being economic salvation has passed. Small businesses are blossoming as corporate America lays off more and more workers who decide that they’ve had enough of getting laid off and start their own businesses.

A word of caution to you newly laid off entrepreneurs, though: You need good legal and accounting advice. Recognize before you start that your business will start out as a money pit. Your income will vary wildly from month to month. You will struggle and sweat, your books will bleed red ink, and you will wonder why on earth you ever did this to yourself. You may, in fact, go under. Or you may succeed beyond the dreams of avarice.

So here’s to the economic downturn; may it be a well-disguised upturn.

Tags: Business, business-law, Economic Downturn
Posted in General Business Law | No Comments »

Facebook Repeals Copyright Plan – I4U News UK

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Facebook Repeals Copyright Plan – I4U News UK.

The Public Has Spoken.

Facebook put new Terms of Service into effect on its website a couple of weeks ago. Those terms basically said that Facebook has a royalty-free license forevermore to use for any purpose anything that any user posts on the site.

The users roared loudly enough to get the Facebook IP lawyers to listen. They’ve backed down on that one now.

Way to go, Facebook Users!

Tags: Copyright, Facebook, Social media
Posted in Copyright, General Business Law | No Comments »