by Kelley Keller | Featured Contributor Did you know that the IRS views hobbies as very different things than businesses? In fact, if you make a mistake when you file your taxes or claim a loss from your “business” activity for too many years, you could get into a lot of expensive trouble. […]
Author: Kelley Keller
Kelley Keller, Esq. is President of The Keller Law Firm and a 20-year veteran of the intellectual property law field. As an intellectual property attorney, she has deep experience helping businesses of all sizes identify, manage, and protect their trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets, including many household brands like Toyota, Disney, and Verizon, which she worked with during her tenure at two of the largest IP law firms in Washington, D.C. Kelley also offers education to small business owners, creative and coaching professionals, digital entrepreneurs, and established companies about starting, building, and growing a Rock Solid Business on an strong foundation through her website KelleyKeller.com. Kelley’s personable nature and ability to explain complex legal issues in simple terms set her apart from most attorneys. She is relentless in helping businesses, their owners, and their families mitigate risks and open the doors to new opportunities.
You can find Kelley on Twitter, LinkedIn,Facebook, and Instagram.
Posted in
Posted in
10 Steps to Go from Self-Employed to Business Owner
Whether you’ve already started a business or you’re thinking of doing so, you should consider how to go from self-employed as a sole-proprietor to being a business owner, meaning you own a business that is completely separate from your personal life in terms of operations, finance, taxes, and the law.
Posted in
Posted in
Why Legal Contracts Yell at You in All Caps
by Kelley Keller If someone sent you an email, text, or tweet in all caps, you’d immediately be offended and possibly quite worried. Why? Because caps equal yelling in electronic communications. That’s not the case with legal contracts. If a graphic designer created a design in any medium that included a big block of […]
Posted in
Posted in
5 Signs You Have Valuable Intellectual Property
by Kelley Keller Every business has intellectual property. Your brand name, your online content, and your logo are just a few examples of tangible and intangible intellectual property that you could make money from now or in the future. In simplest terms, intellectual property refers to products of the human mind and imagination. It […]
Posted in
Posted in
5 Reasons You Might Not Own Your Content and How to Fix Them
by Kelley Keller Did you know that you might not own your content? The content on your business blog, in your ebook, in your presentations, and on your website might not be owned by you at all—even if you created it. If you don’t own your content, you can’t protect it or keep others from […]
How to Cut the Time to Register a Trademark in Half
by Kelley Keller Federal trademark registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is not a quick process. As the Trademark Timeline at the end of this article shows, it can take anywhere from seven months to more than two years to register your trademark! However, every day you wait to submit your trademark […]
Posted in
Posted in
3 Steps to Maintain Your Trademark Registration (or Risk Losing It)
by Kelley Keller Did you know that once you federally register a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), your registration lasts forever as long as you do a few critical things? Most people don’t realize that federal trademark rights are exclusionary. In other words, you don’t get any rights to […]
Posted in
Posted in
Don’t Be a Victim of Predatory Trademark Scams
by Kelley Keller If you register a trademark through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, you could become the victim of a predatory trademark scam without even knowing it. Unfortunately, these scams can cost trademark owners a lot of money, but you don’t have to be a victim. You can protect your trademarks, your […]
Posted in
Posted in
3 Signs It’s Time to Protect Your Intellectual Property
by Kelley Keller Your business has intellectual property, and if you’re not protecting it, your entire business is at risk. But how do you know when it’s the right time to take the actual steps, contact an intellectual property attorney, and set the process in motion to secure your rights and protect your […]
Posted in
Posted in
How Do I Protect My Content with a Copyright Notice?
by Kelley Keller You’ve launched your website, written a blog post, published an ebook, or recorded a podcast and you want to make sure no one steals it. You’ve spent a lot of time creating content that will be useful to your audience and help you build your brand and business. You need to […]