Original work
Five, seven, and then five more
We own this haiku

Confused by our original work? It illustrates how copyright protection applies when you create an original work, as opposed to when you register a copyright.

If your company's standard confidentiality agreements were created prior to 2016, you may be unable to take advantage of what Forbes once called the biggest IP development in years.  Until 2016, there were no federal trade secret protection laws. Rather, trade secret protection fell entirely under the ambit of state law. This changed in 2016 with the passage of the DTSA, a United States federal law that allows an owner of a trade secret to sue in federal court when its trade secrets have been misappropriated. The law also grants legal immunity to corporate whistleblowers.

Should the Securities and Exchange Commission crack down on Initial Coin Offerings? According to a former commissioner at the S.E.C., Joseph Grundfest, the answer is “absolutely."  Billions have already been raised over the past few years by start-ups in exchange for virtual currencies.

If you do business in California, cross your t's and dot your lowercase i's (and j's) when handling employees.  California’s Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) allows employees to file lawsuits to recover civil penalties on behalf of themselves, other employees, and the State of California for labor code violations. In a recent PAGA case, an employee brought a suit seeking civil penalties for a California employer’s failure to include the last four digits of its employees’ Social Security numbers on an itemized wage statement, which violates California Labor Code 226(a)(7).