Key Legal Issues for Startups

This workshop will focus on the legal issues common to all new business start-ups. We will review why it is important to create a mission and objective for your business before ANY legal decisions are made. We will explore business entity choices, a basic review of intellectual property issues, tax considerations, key agreements to consider, and tools to minimize risk.

Students will walk away with knowledge of the legal issues that may arise when starting a new business, a framework to address any legal issues that pop up beyond the start-up stage, and an understanding of key areas of risk that are often overlooked.

Instructor: Greg Grissett is an intellectual property lawyer that helps new and established enterprises protect their innovations, minimize intellectual property (IP) related risk, and enforce IP rights and defend against IP right assertions. Mr. Grissett does this primarily through patent preparation and procurement, patent litigation, and various types of patent analysis. In addition, Mr. Grissett routinely advises companies on brand protection strategies, protection of creative works via copyrights, and technology transactions through drafting and negotiating joint development agreements, software development and service agreements, and licenses for all forms of IP.