Counsel for the brand, content, and campaigns a company is known by, with the clearance, registration, licensing, and ad-law review that protect the assets carrying your enterprise value before a dispute makes them expensive.
A copyright owner who registers within three months of publication, or before an infringement begins, can recover statutory damages and attorney's fees; one who registers later is limited to actual damages and the infringer's profits, which for most online copying is nothing worth suing over. The fee is small. The difference is the whole case.
Trademark rights arise from use, but a federal registration gives nationwide priority from its filing date and, after five years of continuous use following registration, can become incontestable. Both rights rest on paper that must exist before the dispute does: a clearance search run before the name is on the door, a signed assignment from every contractor on the creative, and a substantiation file for every claim a campaign makes, because the FTC asks for the evidence after the ad runs.
We treat the three regimes as one practice because a launch, a rebrand or a campaign raises all of them at once. We clear and register marks, document and license copyright, and review advertising against the FTC's substantiation and endorsement rules, coordinating locally admitted counsel where a foreign filing requires it.
Availability searches, clearance opinions, and federal and state trademark applications that secure the names, logos, slogans, and trade dress distinguishing your goods and services, with prosecution before the USPTO.
Portfolio strategy, renewals, and policing for growing brands, with the monitoring, demand letters, and opposition and cancellation proceedings that keep a mark distinctive and defensible as the business scales.
Registration of written, visual, software, and audiovisual works, plus the work-for-hire, assignment, and ownership documentation that puts the content a company paid to create in the company's hands.
Inbound and outbound license agreements, content and image permissions, and candid fair-use analysis, structuring a clean right to use, monetize, and republish content.
Review of claims, disclosures, endorsements, comparative advertising, sweepstakes, and promotions for compliance with federal and state requirements, and advice on matters before the FTC and state regulators.
Madrid Protocol filings and direct national applications for brands that cross borders, coordinated with locally admitted counsel where a jurisdiction requires it, so the mark is protected in the markets it operates in.
A federal registration does not displace a business already using a similar mark in its region before the filing date; that prior user keeps its territory, and the registrant's nationwide right has a hole there. A full clearance search covers state registers and common-law use, which the USPTO register cannot show.
A registered trademark lasts as long as the mark is used, if a declaration of use is filed between the fifth and sixth year and a renewal every ten years; miss either and it is cancelled. A copyright in a work made for hire runs 95 years from publication, nothing to file.
Paying a contractor to make content does not always mean you own it. Without a written assignment or work-for-hire term, the creator may hold the copyright you assumed was yours.
Every objective claim in an ad needs substantiation before it runs, and health claims need competent and reliable scientific evidence. The FTC's Endorsement Guides, revised in 2023, require any material connection between brand and endorser to be disclosed in the same medium, and the 2024 rule on fake reviews carries civil penalties.
Fair use is a fact-specific, four-factor analysis rather than a rule of thumb. Where the cleaner path is a license, permission beats relying on a defense whose strength you only learn in court.
A Madrid Protocol filing extends a US application abroad, but for five years it depends on the US basic registration: if that fails, the foreign extensions fall with it. In first-to-file countries, China among them, whoever files first owns the mark, so the foreign filing goes in before the product does.
Before a dollar goes into branding, we run knockout and full availability searches across the USPTO register, state filings, and common-law use, then deliver a written clearance read, whether to adopt, adapt, or walk away, with the rationale documented.
Applications go on file in the right classes with a specimen and filing basis that will survive examination. When the USPTO examining attorney issues an office action on likelihood of confusion or mere descriptiveness, we respond, amend, or argue until the mark publishes.
The mark publishes for opposition, and if a third party challenges it, we answer before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. In parallel, copyright registrations and work-for-hire assignments lock down ownership of the content the launch is built on.
A registration is where the work of keeping a mark begins. Watch services surface confusingly similar filings, demand letters and TTAB proceedings keep the mark distinctive, ad claims stay substantiated as campaigns evolve, and Section 8 and 9 maintenance filings keep the registration alive.
A brand you cannot defend is a rebrand you have not scheduled yet.
The three bodies of law that attach to a brand on the day it launches. For trademarks: clearance searches, applications and office-action responses, and the oppositions and watch services that keep a mark defensible. For copyright: registration, the assignments and work-for-hire terms that put ownership in the company's hands, and the licenses that let it use and monetize content it did not create. For advertising: claim substantiation, endorsement and influencer disclosures, and sweepstakes and promotion rules under FTC and state law. The common thread is paper that exists before the dispute does.
A trademark protects the brand identifiers that distinguish your goods or services in the market, such as names, logos, slogans, and trade dress. A copyright protects original creative works fixed in a tangible medium, such as written content, images, software, and audiovisual material. They are separate rights with separate registration regimes, and a single product launch often implicates both at once.
Clearing and registering before launch is almost always the cheaper path. A clearance search surfaces conflicting marks before you invest in branding, and a registration secures nationwide priority and the presumptions that make enforcement straightforward. Launching first and registering later risks an infringement claim, a forced rebrand, or a mark you cannot defend.
Yes, and the review happens before the claim runs, because the FTC's standard is that the advertiser held a reasonable basis for every objective claim at the time it was made. Health, safety and performance claims need competent and reliable scientific evidence; comparative claims need head-to-head support; endorsements need a clear disclosure of any payment or free product in the same medium as the endorsement. Since October 2024 buying or writing fake reviews is a rule violation carrying civil penalties, and state attorneys general enforce their own consumer-protection statutes alongside the FTC. Competitors also challenge claims through the National Advertising Division, which moves faster than a court and refers non-compliance to the FTC.
Fair use is a fact-specific analysis. Courts weigh the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the original work, how much is used, and the effect on the market for the original. We give a candid read on where a proposed use sits and document the rationale, so you can make an informed call rather than a hopeful one, and we structure licenses where the cleaner path is permission.
Yes. Trademark rights are territorial, so a US registration does not protect a brand abroad. We build international filing strategies, including Madrid Protocol filings and direct national applications, and coordinate with locally admitted counsel where a jurisdiction requires it, working from Chicago, London, and Dubai across the markets a brand operates in.
Patentability analysis, application drafting, and prosecution strategy for the inventions behind a company's products, coordinated with registered patent counsel where required.
Explore →IP audits and diligence for financings, acquisitions, and licensing deals, confirming ownership, scope, and freedom to operate before the value of an asset is priced into a transaction.
Explore →The full IP practice, covering patent, trademark, copyright, and trade-secret strategy, plus the licensing and fair-use agreements that monetize and defend a company's intangible assets.
Explore →Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
One partner is accountable for the whole matter, and you have that partner's direct line. Chicago, London, and Dubai work to the same standard.