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Choice of Business Entity for Startup
In Canada business entities considered by entrepreneurs include: (1) sole proprietorships, (2) partnerships and limited partnerships and (3) corporations. Each of these entities has advantages as well as disadvantages. Choice of the entity is usually not irrevocable, and often an initial decision will be made with the understanding that, at the appropriate time, a different form of organization will be used.
Protection of Intellectual Property in Startup
Aside from competence of management team, control of intellectual property is a major focus of investor scrutiny. The ability to identify and protect intellectual property directly reflects on investor confidence and the resulting access to capital available to technology start-up. Protection of intellectual property assets is available through the law of copyright, trade secrets, patents and trademarks.
Entertainment
The business of entertainment is the profitable production, marketing and dissemination of creative works. This industry has five branches: movies, television, live theater, music and print publishing. Entertainment law is body of principles governing activities within the entertainment industry. Despite the lack of a universally accepted definition of what entertainment lawyers do, lawyers practicing in the entertainment industry operate with certain principles that distinguish their work from that in other areas of law. As a general proposition, the scope of entertainment law contains four basic elements: (1) the case law and statutory schemes of various other legal disciplines that relate to the entertainment industry; (2) certain state statutes that regulate entertainment-related business activity; (3) collective bargaining agreements in the entertainment industry; and (4) the application of entertainment-related business practices and economic principles to the above three elements.
The entertainment industry has traditionally controlled the creation and distribution of books, music, film, theater, radio, television, and electronic broadcasts through the legal device of intellectual property and contracts. The industries have created and controlled the international market for entertainment products by determining which artists and productions received exposure to the entertainment audience. The audience in turn picked their favorite artists and productions, and the industries generated profits for themselves and the successful entertainers, while discarding the artists, products and productions that were not profitable. This system existed over most of the last century; however, a technological revolution is underway that is reshaping entertainment businesses as we know them. The entertainment industries are now reacting to the use and misuse of computer-delivered digital entertainment and its uncontrolled distribution over the Internet.
The Firm provides a full spectrum of contracts for protection and exploitation of intellectual property in the entertainment industry as well as with a full slate of intellectual property services, including patent applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO). We also represent our entertainment clients in the registration and protection of trademark, copyright and trade secret rights, the licensing of those rights, and the commercialization of intellectual property assets. Trademark representation ranges from advising both domestic and foreign companies prior to development and use of a mark, to registration with the USPTO and CIPO, protection of marks abroad, and trademark litigation. We can assist our clients on business and marketing issues and strategies (including risk management), the protection and exploitation of creative works (including trademarks and copyrights) litigation management, and other intellectual property.