Business Lawyer for Colorado's Businesses and Entrepreneurs

Jul. 21, 2020

Registering Internet Domain Names as Trademarks After Booking.com

 Last July, I wrote about Iancu v. Brunetti, a trademark case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court which held that "the Lanham Act's prohibition on registration of 'immoral or scandalous' trademarks violates the First Amendment." This year the Supreme Court decided another trademark case - Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com - that’s likely to be even more important than Brunetti. Booking.com<, as the name might suggest, involves the applicability of federal trademark protection to internet domain names when used as trademarks. The Justices, in a first, held oral argument by teleconference and broadcast those arguments through a…

May 2, 2020

LLC Talk: Avoiding Dissolution After the Death of a Member

 The death of an owner is almost always a challenging event for a business. And what happens to that business depends on its structure, the statute it was organized under, and any controlling or governing documents (such as an LLC’s operating agreement or an owner’s will). Do you know what would happen to your business? Under the Colorado LLC Act, voting and control rights are separated by default from economic rights. Generally, this separation is beneficial for LLC owners (“members”). But it can create a unique trap for the unwary that jeopardizes the survival of a business after the death of its last member. Unless otherwise provided in an operating…

Apr. 16, 2020

Business Basics: Is a Home-Based Business Right for You?

 If you’ve got a great idea for a business, now just might be the best time to start a business out of your home. Running a home-based business can have some big benefits from flexible hours and no commute, to reduced costs and overhead, to tax advantages from operating a business or having a home office. Moreover, many hope by working from home to create a better schedule or arrangement to balance employment and care-giving or other family responsibilities. Whether you’ve imaged starting a home-based business for a long time or whether you only recently wondered whether operating a business out of your home would work well for you, this article…