Morris Law Partners

Do you know what to protect and how to protect it?  There are all sorts of “property” that need protecting and Barbara Findlay Schenckis has some good ideas on where to start.  Read the following article for more information.

Paul Allen’s recent patent infringement suit against Facebook, Google and other tech giants has fueled discussions from boardrooms to coffee shops. What needs to be protected, how can you put protections in place, and how do you defend intellectual property once registrations, patents, trademarks and copyrights are filed? Here’s a primer on what every business owner should know.

Registering a business name

Depending on whether a business goes by the legal name of its owner (John Smith Plumbing) or an assumed name (A-Team Plumbing), and depending on its location and business structure (sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, or corporation), the path into local and state government databases of registered business names varies. The Business.gov website  provides forms and instructions for this necessary step toward protecting your business name.

Registering with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

Just because you’re safe to use a name, idea or process doesn’t mean others can’t use it, too. Most intellectual property rights are limited to the territory in which they’re registered. To protect rights across broad market areas, register with the USPTO in one of three categories:

• Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds or colors that distinguish the goods and services of a business. Start by searching the USPTO database to determine that the mark you want appears to be available. If so, hire an attorney who specializes in trademarks to conduct a more extensive search before proceeding to claim the trademark in one of two ways:
• Officially register the mark following the USPTO instructions. The process usually requires the expertise of an intellectual property lawyer but, once registered, the trademark (indicated by the symbol ®) provides government protection from liability or infringement issues and is renewable so long as it’s used in commerce.
• Establish common-law trademark rights by using the mark, accompanied by a “TM” in superscript (“SM” for service marks), consistently and continuously in business dealings. Be aware that common-law trademarks are limited to geographic areas in which the marks have been used and, if challenged, lack the protection of registered trademarks.
• Patents are property rights granted for finite periods to inventors “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States.” The USPTO site links to applications, instructions and registered patent attorneys.
• Copyrights give producers of writings, music and works of art exclusive rights to control reproduction of their work. Copyrights take effect once the work is produced in tangible form. To strengthen protection, include a line on the work that states, “Copyright,” or “ã,” followed by the date of first publication, and the name of the copyright holder. For further protection, file a copyright registration through the U.S. Copyright Office.

In addition, the World Intellectual Property Organization provides information on obtaining international protection.

Defending registered rights

Establishing rights is the first — but certainly not the last — step in protecting intellectual property. Even after registrations are in place, responsibility falls to property owners to:

• Protect registrations by carefully following government and legal instructions. Misuse jeopardizes registrations and, as a result, exclusive rights. As a famous example, Otis Elevator Company, owner of the Escalator trademark, allowed the word to be misused as a noun, rather than as an adjective followed by a generic descriptor — e.g., Escalator brand moving stairs. As a result, in 1950, courts deemed that “escalator” had become “genericized” and therefore part of the public domain, and trademark protection was revoked.
• Move quickly against intellectual property violations. Waiting can erode rights. Though the Paul Allen patent infringement suit is far from decided, The Wall Street Journal includes this quote from University of Missouri law professor Dennis Crouch: “If the patent holder just sat on their rights for a long time … the patent might become unenforceable.”
• Register it, use it and defend it ­— in that order. To protect intellectual property, first work with attorneys and government offices to establish your legal claim. Then use your property — correctly and to the letter of the law. And, finally, should your rights be infringed upon, move quickly and decisively to keep your property proprietary, out of general use, and of high value to your business.

Barbara Findlay Schenckis a small-business strategist, the author of “Small Business Marketing for Dummies,” and the co-author of “Branding for Dummies,” “Selling Your Business for Dummies” and “Business Plans Kit for Dummies.”

Call 770.956.1000 to find out how Morris Law Partners can help you set up your Business Entity and your FREE consultation.

CNN Money has an online forum that allows for entrepreneurs to ask questions about business and an expert in that field will answer.  This one is about starting a new business and if one can write off the borrowed money.  The following is from CNNMoney.com.

You don’t get a tax break on money you borrow – but the interest you pay on your loans is fair game for deduction.

Bryanne Goetz, Orlando
I started a business from home this year. Can I write off the money that was loaned to me to start the company?

By Lenora Chu, CNNMoney.com contributor
You cannot write off money that was loaned to you. However, you can deduct the interest that you pay on the loan, says Martin Chan, a CPA of Philadelphia.

You can also claim any business expenses that may have been covered by the loan, such as office supplies and utilities, says Fullerton, Ca.-based CPA John Stoller.

In order to qualify as a tax deduction, these expenses must be considered both “ordinary” and “necessary,” says Chan. In other words, they must be common and accepted in your industry, and also helpful and appropriate to your business.

Is the answer really this simple or is there more that goes into it?  Morris Law Partners can help you with your existing business or help you get started with a new one.  We have the answers to this question and many more, just give us a call for a free consultation, 770.956.1000.

With the ever-changing tax codes, it is hard to keep track.  There have been some changes that can benefit many small business owners and entrepreneurs.  For more information about the changes in some tax codes, below is an article from Entrepreneur.com.
Confused about what to do as you gather your boxes of receipts and prepare for the dreaded tax deadline in the coming months? This past year has brought several tax changes affecting small business owners, capped by President Obama’s Dec. 17, signing of the tax-cut extension law.

Even as you prepare your 2010 taxes, consider also looking ahead to make investments in equipment or other fixed assets before Dec. 31, 2011. The Small Business Jobs Act enacted in September doubles the Section 179 expense limitation to $500,000 for fully writing off fixed assets the year they were acquired. This specific tax break is applicable to 2010 and 2011 tax returns. Eligible investments include office furniture and equipment, machinery and computer software. Another provision from the same law allows 100 percent writeoffs of up to $250,000 of qualified real property such as leasehold improvements and some restaurant and retail improvements.

Everspark Interactive, an eight-person Atlanta search-engine-optimization marketing company, increased investments in video and broadcasting equipment and software because of the new tax break, according to co-founder Jason Hennessey.
The new legislation was also good news for entrepreneur Guy Brami, who has had his eye on a computer-controlled cutting machine, a couple of cranes and a large-format flatbed printer for Gelberg Signs, the Washington, D.C., sign fabricator he owns with two brothers.

The combined price tag for Brami’s list tops $300,000, a sizable chunk for a 25-employee company, so he’ll likely spread out the investments over the next year. “It’s an incentive to make investments that we may otherwise put off,” he says.

But don’t delay past 2011. The tax-deductible amount will return to 50 percent in 2012.

And for business owners planning to invest more than $500,000 in equipment, making that purchase in 2011 will also ease your tax burden. That’s because the new law allows a 100 percent write-off (double what it was previously) of the bonus depreciation allowed for business investments in plant and equipment that exceed $500,000.

The benefit of getting 100 percent depreciation can be substantial. For instance, if a professional service corporation subject to a flat tax of 35 percent invested $500,000 in computers, software and office furniture, it could reduce its federal tax bill by 35 percent of that amount. “So the total benefit potentially is $175,000 to that professional service corporation,” says Neil Becourtney, a CPA with accounting firm J.H. Cohn LLP in Roseland, New Jersey.
This article was reprinted from Entrepreneur.com.

Contact Morris Law Partners for your free consultation today.  770.956.1000

Morris Law Partners now has a blog!  We are in the business of helping fellow entrepreneurs and our postings will reflect this philosophy.  We thought we would share with you what we are all about and what makes us like no other law partnership you have dealt with in the past.

•Morris Law Partners leads clients through the process of strategic negotiation and dispute resolution with honesty and integrity.
•Morris Law Partners is located in Atlanta and our business is based on values, stressing mutual respect and trust for each other.

Morris Law Partners is more than just a group of Atlanta Business attorneys. We are a team of professionals committed to finding and negotiating solutions that save our clients time and money.  In addition to understanding the law, we understand business. Why is this important? Simple. We believe that it is impossible to provide effective solutions for our clients’ businesses unless we first understand their businesses.

How We Work

Morris Law Partners attorneys believe in taking a positive approach to our clients’ needs and seek to develop outcomes to Atlanta business issues that further our clients’ desires. Since its beginnings in 1965, the Partners have served as trusted advisors to our clients. We help with both strategic and tactical planning for our clients and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, proactive rather than reactive thinking. The Partners’ representations are typically long-term and relationship-based, extending beyond localized transactions to encompass the full range of our clients’ needs and objectives. Our small size allows the business attorneys to develop and maintain a close relationship with our clients. Each of our business attorneys is fiercely committed to ongoing professional development and believes in combining that development experience with real-world expertise in today’s business and legal marketplace. Going to court is easy – all it takes is time and money. But at Morris Law Partners, we’re more than just Atlanta attorneys – we’re business people. Understanding our clients and their businesses allows us to create and implement effective strategies that solve business problems before they become legal problems.

Morris Law Partners takes a team-based approach to the challenges that our clients encounter in their businesses. This approach includes both internal and an external components: internal, to the extent that a Morris Law Partners attorney will effectively utilize all available resources in order to best achieve client goals; and external, in that the Partners seeks to integrate itself into a client’s existing business and legal relationships to the maximum extent practicable in furtherance of that client’s objectives, rather than to displace those relationships. Morris Law Partners assembles the best team possible to make sure that our clients’ challenges are resolved, whether by our partners or by outside resources. Many large firms market themselves as one-stop shops for their clients and claim that they can satisfy all of their client’s needs through the use of the firm’s own lawyers. Unlike those firms, Morris Law Partners does not attempt to provide total and comprehensive legal services to our clients. Instead, Morris Law Partners provides a single point of contact for our clients and identifies the need for, and coordinates the work of, outside specialty lawyers when necessary in connection with a particular representation. Morris Law Partners believes this approach serves our clients’ interests in the best possible manner by providing the highest quality business counseling, without concern as to whether that counseling is generated within or outside of the Partners. The Partner’s clients can, therefore, feel confident that they are the recipients of not simply the best legal advice the Partners can provide, but also, through our association of outside specialists with respect to particular matters, of the best legal advice in the country.