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Bullivant Houser Bailey PC's Distribution, Licensing and Franchise Group speaks to bottom-line concerns of clients on a functional level: pricing, selling, protecting trade secrets and intellectual capital, and receiving a return on intellectual capital. Our clients include leaders in the financial services, restaurant and hospitality, manufacturing, and media industries.

Our group works together across all areas of law to include expert attorneys in areas such as:

  • Distribution systems, design and documentation
  • Purchase orders / UCC Article 2 and Article 9
  • Intellectual property protection and strategies
  • Franchise litigation
  • Franchising
  • Pricing
  • Product liability
  • Intellectual property litigation

Before consulting with an attorney on distribution, licensing, or franchise issues, you should consider some of the following issues:

  • How do you distribute your product? Are the strategies documented?
  • Do your employment manual, employment contracts, and third-party agreements have a plan that protects you against misappropriation of your intellectual capital?
  • How do you document sales? Do your purchase orders and sales contracts put you in control of the transaction, limit warranties, protect intellectual assets, and secure obligations? Have you updated your forms lately?
  • What is your strategy to protect yourself from internal and external parties misappropriating your ideas and circumventing your relationships? Do you pursue trademark, copyright, trade secret, and patent protection?
  • Do you have a comprehensive legal strategy from conception of the proprietary idea to the delivery of product/services through the channel?
  • Is greater market penetration a goal?
  • Do you want to use licenses and/or franchise to leverage your resources and replicate your systems in designated areas?
  • Do you want a sales force of employees, brokers, or independent contractors, or a combination of all three?
  • Do you want to sell direct, or through distributors and wholesalers, or a combination of the two?
  • Will your litigation objectives and strategies advance your business plan?