For founders launching a business or bringing a new brand to market, protecting proprietary information is critical. But when you’re navigating early conversations with developers, vendors, collaborators, or potential investors, how do you share what you need without risking your ideas being copied or exploited? One common tool is the non-disclosure agreement (NDA). NDAs are used to safeguard sensitive information like product plans, brand concepts, customer data, and technical processes from being disclosed or misused. Yet, in the world of trademark development and intellectual property strategy, these agreements are often misunderstood, misapplied, or given more weight than they can legally carry.

Technology has radically altered interactions between companies and customers, and customers’ expectations resulting in hot new trends in franchising. In the education arena, franchises are looking bright this year. This sector is booming as people question the education their children are receiving at public schools and look to enhance the curriculum through online and offline tutoring services and [...]

Gone are the days where rapid innovation occurred solely in Silicon Valley. While California is still responsible for about 25% of new patents in the nation (the most of any state), many cities from coast to coast are industry leaders in innovation. Here are some cities that have been national leaders in a patent category for the [...]

The way the system has worked is we connect to the internet through a internet service provider (ISP) who gives us the information we want without allowing preferential treatment to some websites. Massive companies like ESPN or Netflix, are treated with equal internet speeds as your small business. However, there have been recent developments in the [...]

Every business owner obviously goes through the process of hiring new employees. Maybe you have a process that you have been using since starting your business, or maybe you don’t really have a clue or have never thought about refining your process. One thing is clear, it is a waste of time (and money) when you [...]

What brand of ketchup is in your pantry? What brand of ketchup is at your favorite restaurant? Odds are it was probably Heinz ketchup. It seems everywhere you go, if you want some ketchup, its going to be Heinz. This begs the question, can anyone compete with the Pittsburgh based company? Former Brown University students Scott [...]

What could be a surprise to some, Nike was seen as the most innovative companies in the last year. Normally one may think that the term “innovative company” would be reserved for the Apples and Microsofts of the world, however, the elite athletic company was seen as the king of innovation. Nike has a way to [...]