Filing an application for a trademark registration with the United States Patent & Trademark Office is surprisingly easy in terms of the actual process itself if you are prepared with your materials. There are services out there that will help you file a trademark registration...
Congratulations! You got your trademark registered with the US PTO. You have an officially registered trademark blessed by the United States government. If you think that was the hard part, it is not. Now comes the hard part of policing, protecting, and maintaining your trademark. Let’s...
In the last post, we started a discussion on how to determine and properly classify employees to see if they are exempt. Be sure to check out that last post here. As a reminder, the salary level has to be at least a fixed $684 per week (meaning...
The United States Department of Labor regulation regarding salary levels for exempt and nonexempt employees will go into effect in January 2020. The minimum salary for exemption status will be $35,568 (or $684 per week). Before that goes into effect, I strongly suggest that employers review the classifications of...
One of the most common questions I get when discussing trademarks is when is an appropriate time to submit an application for a registration of a trademark. It is a good question that involves a number of factors. But the trademark office breaks things down into...
This month Matt returned to speak with the Design Domination podcast, offering advice to graphic designers who do branding work for their clients. What do designers need to know about registering a trademark? Let’s dive in. The truth of the matter is that if graphic designers knew...
This post is not really about the law, nor any particular small business-related issue, but it is something that I would like to share with our followers. I recently had the opportunity to facilitate a design-thinking exercise with a client. They were looking at one...
Over the past couple of days, I’ve worked with clients who are addressing disciplinary issues for salaried employees. There seems to be a myth that salaried employees are subject to different procedures than an hourly employee. First, I want to dispel that myth. Just because an employee is...
I was recently approached by a client who has an interesting issue related to employee classification. When I talk about employee classification, I am talking about whether the person is exempt or nonexempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Broadly, the Fair Labor Standards Act presupposes that every employee...