Business & Technology Law Blog

May 13
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Are You Commingling Multiple Businesses?

By | Business Contracts, Business Lawyer | No Comments

If you own multiple limited liability companies or corporations are you commingling the businesses?

If so, you expose these ventures to unnecessary legal dangers.

For example, a court might decide one company is the alter ego of the other and hold both of them liable in a lawsuit. Instead walls of protection, you’ve let down the drawbridge and invited in plaintiffs to raid all of your companies.

So, how do you avoid this commingling danger?

Treat them as separate companies.

For instance, don’t raid the bank account of Company A to pay Company B’s expenses simply because the latter is short on cash.

And when the entities do business with each other, use written contracts that explain the rights and duties of each entity under the agreements.

For example, if Company A wants to advertise on Company B’s website, there should be an advertising agreement in place where B gets compensated somehow by A for running the ads. No freebies from one company to the other simply because you own both.

What about intellectual property? If one company owns the IP, but you want both companies to use it, chances are you’ll need some type of licensing agreement between one entity as owner (licensor) and the second entity as licensee.

An experience business lawyer can help you put the right documents in place to protect your multiple businesses from improperly commingling. And if you’ve already been commingling, he can help you fix the situation to minimize the legal risks.

May 12
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What Type Of Software Development Agreement Do You Need?

By | Software Agreements, Software Lawyer | No Comments

Not all software development agreements are the same.

For example, some app dev contracts favor the client. Others favor the developer. This is particularly important with respect to ownership rights and licensing.

And a development contract that’s designed for a single project doesn’t really fit a situation where there’s an ongoing relationship between the client and developer covering multiple projects over a period of time.

Of course, there’s the issues of support, maintenance, and updated versions of the software. Are they included or excluded as part of the agreement?

Naturally, an experienced software lawyer like Attorney Mike Young can help you get a software development agreement that’s right for your business whether you’re a software developer or the client paying for app development.

May 10
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What Does Your Business Entity Own?

By | Business Contracts, Business Lawyer | No Comments

If you set up a limited liability company (LLC) or corporation for your existing business, what does the new entity own?

Too often, the answer is nothing.

How does that happen?

Your sole proprietorship or partnership never gets around to actually transferring the business assets to the new entity.

So, you’re really still running the business as before while pretending there’s a corporate liability shield in place to protect you as the owner.

Unfortunately, a hollow entity (without assets) isn’t going to protect you personally.

Naturally this means you’ll want to transfer the assets to the entity so that it can operate as intended for tax and liability purposes.

An experienced business lawyer can help you use the right contracts and assets transfer paperwork in a way that makes sense for your business model. Because if you’re going to set up a corporation or LLC, you might as well take advantage of it.

May 06
0

Has Google FLoC’d Your Website Privacy Policy?

By | Internet Lawyer, Website Lawyer, Website Legal Documents | No Comments

Google is testing a new tracking method for interest-based advertising in its Chrome Browser. It’s known as Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC).

If you own a website, it’s important that your site’s privacy policy accurately reflect how visitors are tracked and the type of data being collected…even if you’re not the one doing the collecting.

So, it’s a good idea to update your privacy policy to acknowledge visitors to your site using the Google Chrome Browser may be tracked using FLoC.

You may also want to let visitors know how they can disable FLoC tracking in their Chrome Browser. Most won’t but it’s a visitor-friendly feature that will be appreciated by those who are concerned about their personal privacy enough to read through your site’s privacy poicy.

And if you haven’t updated your privacy policy in a few years, chances are you’ll want an experienced Internet Business Lawyer to make other changes to your privacy policy to address important new laws and regulations.

May 04
0

Products Licensing: How To Profit From It

By | Business Contracts, Business Lawyer | No Comments

Whether you sell products or services, you can make additional revenue by products licensing.

If you sell products, find complementary products available from third parties and license the right to sell them to your customers.

Depending upon the price point, a third-party product that you license can serve as an upsell, cross-sell, entry level product for your own product(s), or even be bundled with your products and sold together.

Of course, you can also license your products to be sold by others. Whether you receive a flat $XX per sale, a percentage of the sale, or some other revenue, it’s an easy way to generate additional cash flow while the third party handles the marketing and sales for you to their prospects and existing customers.

What if you only sell services? Chances are there are products that fit within your niche that can be licensed to sell.

Naturally, whether you’re the licensor or the licensee, the product license must make sense, i.e. be a natural fit for the licensee’s customers.

An experienced business lawyer can help you put together the right type of licensing and distribution agreement for what you plan to do that helps you maximizes profits while minimizing the legal risks.