Mudd Law Offices | Lawyers Enabling Small Businesses, Startups, and Entrepreneurs to Succeed
Startups, Entrepreneurs, and Founders employ Mudd Law Offices to provide them with exceptional representation in a broad range of startup legal services. From initial considerations involving intellectual property (particularly trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets) to employee agreements (including, but not limited to, non-compete agreements, non-disclosure agreements, social media policies, and personnel policies), Mudd Law Offices enables founders of startups and entrepreneurs to move forward with their creativity and ingenuity in the respective market sector.
Intellectual Property
When beginning to consider a business idea, any entrepreneur, founder, or startup must consider intellectual property. To begin with, the business idea may be novel or involve a novel product or service that could be considered a trade secret. In this context, it becomes important to know when and where one can disclose some information to engender funding and when and where too much disclosure can affect the startup’s early viability. This becomes important to consider when contemplating the use of Non-Disclosure Agreements or NDAs. On his Startup Radio program, Charles Mudd, Internet and Startup Attorney, discusses the issues to be considered in using non-disclosure agreements in the startup context. The startup attorneys at Mudd Law Offices can advise on these nuanced business decisions.
Additionally, any entrepreneur and startup should consider means to protect the startup name – whether the company name or product name – through use of a trademark. A trademark application can be filed even if the trademark has not yet been used in commerce. Consequently, the startup lawyers at Mudd Law Offices can provide advice and counsel in determining when best to file for a trademark application – whether it be in the United States or abroad.
Some content created by the startup may also need to be protected through the use of copyrights. Stephanie Snyder, startup lawyer at Mudd Law Offices, advises our startup clients on when copyright registration would be useful, practical, and essential to protecting the startup’s bundle of IP.
Similarly, patents may also be applicable to the startup, entrepreneur and founders where the startup business involves novel products, services, or means of providing such products or services. While Mudd Law Offices’ startup attorneys employs our colleagues to complete actual patent prosecution, our firm remains involved in the advisements process.
Employment Agreements
The startup attorneys at Mudd Law Offices also have substantial experience advising companies on the development of employment agreements that protect the startup and business from rogue employees while also respecting the rights of startup employees. These agreements may include provisions preventing the unauthorized disclosure of trade secret and confidential information. These agreements may also include provisions placing restrictions on where an employee can become employed upon departure from the startup business. The agreements may references other policies such as workplace privacy, BYOD (bring your own device), and social medial policies – all of which Mudd Law Offices develops for its startup clients.
Website Policies
Mudd Law Offices also creates custom Terms of Use as well as Privacy and Security Policies to be used in the development of its startup clients’ websites.
These areas represent but a portion of the services the startup lawyers at Mudd Law Offices provide the firm’s startup, entrepreneur, and founder clients. For more information, please visit our main firm website.