Intellectual Property

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The federal government is “shut down.” But that shut down does not apply equally across all aspects of the federal government. For those of us who work with intellectual property, that is on full display.

For example, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), remains “open and fully operational” because it has operating reserves from the prior year’s fee collections. It will keep rolling until those reserves are depleted. Last time, in 2019, it stayed open…
Continue Reading The Shut Down Shuffle

I once asked my Dad what the 70’s were like, and he replied, “Oh, it was a beautiful time, Collin! A beautiful time!” I’m sure it was.

That’s also how I’ve been describing THC edibles and the current state of Delta-9 regulation in Wisconsin to anyone who will listen: a beautiful time, but one that won’t last long. Regulation is coming.

Right now, we’re tracking only one proposal, but it’s a big one. Wisconsin legislators have floated expanding the…
Continue Reading Don’t Choke on Your Brownie: Delta Derivative Changes Proposed

Courses rarely live in one place. A video on your platform, slides in a folder, worksheets in a download, templates you keep improving. If you create a course, you own the rights to the words, images, and structure you made. Registering those rights creates a public record and unlocks stronger remedies if someone reuses your work without permission. It also makes licensing cleaner when you sell a bundle or individual modules. The useful question is not only how to…
Continue Reading A Plain-English Guide to Protecting Your Educational Content

Ferrara Candy Company, the maker of Nerds, recently filed a lawsuit against the maker of Dweebs candy. What looks like a quirky fight between two playful names is actually a cautionary tale for startups and small businesses building their brands.

Ferrara has spent decades growing Nerds into a cultural touchstone. In 2024 alone, sales topped $870 million in the United States. To protect that investment, Ferrara holds trademarks on the Nerds name, the irregular pebble shape of the candy,…
Continue Reading Trademark Trouble in Candyland: Lessons for Growing Brands from Nerds vs. Dweebs

This post is the second part in a series on Minnesota Paid Leave. Feel free to check out Part 1. The previous post talked about who qualifies for Minnesota Paid Leave. This post focuses on the types of leave available to those who qualify. The leave types essentially break down into two separate buckets: Medical Leave and Family Leave. 

Medical Leave generally applies in situations where an employee is seeking leave for their own medical condition that leaves…
Continue Reading Minnesota Paid Leave: What are the Different Types of Leave? 

Never a dull moment! While enforcement of the nicotine vape ban begins September 1, 2025, hemp vapes get a one-year reprieve, with enforcement delayed until September 1, 2026. More information from the Department of Revenue (DOR) is below:

Manufacturers must certify their devices to the department by July 1, 2025, except manufacturers of an electronic vaping device that contains hemp, as defined in sec. 94.55(1), Wis. Stats., and does not contain nicotine (hemp device) must certify such device no…
Continue Reading Puff, Puff… Pause: Hemp Vape Rules on Hold Until 2026

Sean McArthur has joined the OG+S team as a law clerk. He brings a background in regulatory compliance, pharmaceutical operations, and surgical hospital administration—plus a flair for storytelling that somehow makes even clinical protocols read like character arcs. He’s proving to be that kind of person that has the kind of unshakeable curiosity that makes law school fun (yes, really).

Before law school, Sean worked at Alkermes and Jazz Pharmaceuticals, where he dove deep into the world of 21…
Continue Reading Say Hello to Our New Law Clerk!

We here at OG+S love being practical (and let’s face it, we also have a big dose of whimsy). While we love big ideas, we love it even more when we can help make big ideas actually happen. To use a patent term, we love to help reduce it to practice. That’s why we are thrilled to have Theresa Gresl join us as an “Of Counsel” patent attorney!

What does “Of Counsel” mean? Well, for us, it means that she…
Continue Reading Introducing Theresa Gresl, Of Counsel

Startups move quickly. Founders are focused on building, shipping, and staying alive. Legal work tends to come in later, often after something has already gone wrong. At that point, fixing the issue usually costs more than it would have to prevent it.

After years of working with startups, I have seen a handful of problems show up again and again. They are simple to avoid if you ask the right questions early. Here are the five conversations I wish…
Continue Reading Start Smarter: The Legal Basics Every Startup Needs

We at OG+S are very proud of our administrative assistant, Carter Rickard. He just graduated from high school! We celebrated by making him write a blog post about it. Here is Carter telling us about the closing of one chapter and opening of another in his life’s story. Thanks for reading, Erin.

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Walking across the stage can be intimidating. Making sure that you are not walking too fast, that you stop and wait five seconds so your…
Continue Reading Graduation and What the Future Holds

I’ve been thinking about a question raised by Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, in his recent piece, “The Urgency of Interpretability.” He writes about the increasing power of artificial intelligence systems and our unsettling lack of insight into how they actually work. The models are getting stronger. Our ability to understand them is not.

This isn’t just a technical concern. Increasingly, these systems are showing up in places that carry legal, ethical, and practical significance. Mortgage determinations, hiring tools,…
Continue Reading How Can We Trust What We Don’t Understand?

You may believe that your company has an unfettered right to do what it wants with a computer program created by its workers—but that may not be the case.

Consider the two similar scenarios below:

Suppose that your company is fortunate enough, or substantial enough, to have one or more software developer employees. Suppose also that one of your software developers writes the code for a new computer program that you would like to market.

Now, suppose your company

…
Continue Reading I Paid for That Software to Be Developed, So Why Don’t I Own It?

Trademark registrations are a great tool for business owners to protect their brand identity. Unlike some other forms of intellectual property protection, trademarks can last forever provided that they are actively used and enforced within the marketplace. In other words, a business owner must “use it” or “lose it.”

Registration of a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) grants the trademark owner the exclusive right to use the trademark in commerce for the goods and/or

…
Continue Reading How Businesses Can Enforce Trademark Registrations

You can tell by the rise of generative AI that it has generated a lot of interesting operational and legal questions. To piggyback off my colleague, Fatimeh (see her posts here and here), I wanted to look in on a specific legal dispute involving AI and copyright.

Back in 2023, The New York Times (NYT) sued Microsoft and OpenAI over allegations of copyright infringement, digital millennium copyright act (DMCA) violations, unfair competition, and trademark dilution. In short, NYT…
Continue Reading We Can Try to Understand The New York Times’ Effect on AI