Posts under ‘lawyers’

The IPKAT reported recently that the BBC is preparing to take the publishing company HarperCollins to court over a book that reveals the identity of the Stig from Top Gear. The Stig never removes his helmet on the show, concealing his identity. The identity of the Stig’s character has been kept a secret for the [...]

In previous posts I have commented both on the ‘End of Lawyers?’- a book by Richard Susskind and also on the Legal Services Act, which are two commonly discussed items by those interested in the UK law business landscape. In the ‘End of Lawyers? The Legal Hybrid is already here‘  my message was I already [...]

In their article earlier this year, the Ipkat drew attention to the fact that there is a marked separation between the worlds of trade marks and branding. More often than not the two are not addressed collectively, but are rather dealt with by completely separate teams, or even distinct organisations.  A creative team might deal [...]

Before considering what start ups require from their lawyers, it’s worth remembering that many businesses tend to change radically in the early years.  A few years after starting up, they may look nothing like their initial manifestation. This is because it’s common for new businesses to not know what it is exactly that they do, [...]

Last week nine websites that allowed people to download or stream TV programmes and films for free were closed down (see here), their domains seized by the US federal government.  These sites included tvshack.net, Movies-Links.tv, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.coms along with five others. These sites were  targeted as part of a new initiative, aimed at combating Internet [...]

In business, as in life, we are constantly assessing and managing risks.  One of the most important risks to avoid is that of choosing your brand name without doing some very careful searches.  I know this from personal experience. When I started up my law firm I named it A1 Law, having done a brief [...]

Should fan fiction be permitted by copyright law?  Roland Barthes, a literary theorist set out in his essay ‘Death of the Author’ his belief that once a text has been written by an author it no longer belongs to them, but to those who read it.  As he puts it: “to give a text an [...]

Last week I suggested questions to ask your business lawyer.  But let’s accept it – legal isn’t as much fun as working in your business, or marketing it.  Legal stuff just isn’t sexy. So, if like millions of other entrepreneurs, you are tempted to ignore the legal stuff, or to write it off as a [...]

If you are starting up in business, getting the right legal help can be a key to success – especially if you are a creative business.  An effective Intellectual Property strategy to properly structure your IP rights from the beginning really does make a difference to the value of your business as it grows. I [...]

Social media for the legal profession This is part 2 of the blog post ‘Would the Zappos Social Media Policy be Right for you?’ which I began yesterday.  As mentioned there I want to briefly touch on some of the issues law firms may want to bear in mind when devising their social media policies. [...]