Casey Scott McKay
Attorney · Technology and IP Law · MC Law, PLLC
Software engineer turned IP attorney, Casey advises technology and science companies — and the investors behind them — from first patent to successful exit. He previously built cybersecurity systems at Fannie Mae and consulted on data science and machine learning at Thunken, Inc. He is the attorney of record for the trademark matters Marksy refers to MC Law, PLLC, and writes the knowledge base's guides, checklists and toolkits.
- Admitted: Tennessee (#034028)
- Practice: Patent, trademark and copyright; practice before the USPTO
- Affiliation: MC Law, PLLC — how the referral works
- Full profile
Marksy is not a law firm and is not a substitute for an attorney or law firm. Marksy is an automated online service and an advertising business. Marksy does not provide legal advice, does not practice law, and no attorney–client relationship is formed with Marksy. Where attorney services are involved, they are provided by independent, licensed attorneys who are solely responsible for the legal services they render.
Documents by Casey Scott McKay (926)
- Copyright Fundamentals Toolkit: Ownership, Registration, Duration, and Scope · Toolkit — This toolkit is the orientation guide to American copyright at the starting line, and a curated tour of every Marksy document that carries part of the subject.…
- Aftermarket and Repair IP Checklist: Part Classification, Design Filings, Repair Analysis, Software Access, and Enforcement Triage · Checklist — This checklist runs an aftermarket position from either side, in the order that eliminates work rather than the order that feels doctrinal. Phase one…
- The Second Look: Inter Partes Review and How the PTAB Reshaped Patent Litigation · Article — Before 2012 a defendant who thought a patent was invalid had one forum and one standard: a federal jury, clear and convincing evidence, and a trial three years…
- Patent Licensing and Technology Transfer Toolkit · Toolkit — A patent licence is a bounded permission not to be sued, and the value in one lies entirely in the boundaries. This toolkit runs a licence from the decision to…
- Global Brand Enforcement Toolkit: Reaching Infringers Across Borders · Toolkit — A brand that sells anywhere sells everywhere, and the infringers know it. This toolkit maps the four questions that decide every cross-border enforcement…
- Defending a Patent Assertion: A Practitioner's Guide to Venue, Stays, Early Motions, and Settlement · Guide — This guide runs the defense of a patent assertion from the demand letter to resolution, organized around the fact that most of these cases are decided by cost…
- Confidentiality and NDA Toolkit: Drafting, Negotiating, and Enforcing · Toolkit — A confidentiality agreement is the most frequently signed and least frequently read document in commercial practice, and the clauses that decide disputes are…
- Trademark Transactions Toolkit: Licensing, Assignment, and Coexistence · Toolkit — This toolkit assembles the Marksy corpus into a single reference for the deal paper that moves trademark rights: licenses, assignments, coexistence and consent…
- Small-Claims Copyright Enforcement Toolkit: The CCB, Takedowns, and Low-Value Disputes · Toolkit — Most copyright infringement is small - a photograph reused, an article republished, a design copied onto a mug - and federal litigation costs more than the…
- Printing the Part: 3D Printing, CAD Files, and the Intellectual Property That Travels as a Download · Article — Additive manufacturing does something no earlier technology did to intellectual property: it converts a physical article into a file, and a file moves in ways…
- Confidentiality Agreement Checklist: Definitions, Exclusions, Residuals, and Return of Information · Checklist — Confidentiality agreements fail on provisions nobody discussed, in situations nobody anticipated. This checklist runs one from form selection through drafting,…
- Publishing, Photography, and Author Rights Toolkit · Toolkit — Authors, photographers, illustrators, and the businesses that publish them are governed by a body of law that looks simple and is not: the grant of rights…
- Advising an Automotive or Mobility Business: A Practitioner's Guide to Vehicle Data, Supplier IP, Software Features, and the Aftermarket · Guide — This guide builds the legal architecture an automotive or mobility business actually needs, in the order the decisions arise rather than the order a textbook…
- Preliminary Injunctions in Trademark Cases: The Four-Factor Test After eBay and the Trademark Modernization Act · Article — Preliminary injunctive relief decides most trademark disputes long before trial, and the governing rules changed twice in fifteen years. This article traces…
- Synthetic You: Digital Replicas, Voice Cloning, and the New Likeness Statutes · Article — A convincing synthetic performance can now be produced from a few minutes of recorded voice and a handful of photographs, and the legal system has responded…
- Cosmetics and Personal Care IP Toolkit: Names, Claims, Packaging, and Ingredients · Toolkit — Cosmetics is a category where the brand carries almost all the value, the formulation is rarely patentable, and the words on the pack are regulated by several…
- Environmental Claims and Cleantech IP Checklist: Substantiation, Certification Marks, Patent Strategy, Carbon Credit Rights, and Supply Chain Evidence · Checklist — This checklist runs an environmental claims and cleantech IP position from the live estate inwards, because the gap between what a company has published and…
- Origin, Labelling, and Packaging Toolkit: Made in USA, Disclosures, Warnings, and Artwork · Toolkit — A package is a legal document that also happens to be a marketing asset, and it is governed by four regimes at once: customs marking rules that require an…
- Negotiating a Technology Agreement: A Practitioner's Guide to Scope, Service Levels, Data Rights, and IP Ownership · Guide — This guide runs a technology agreement from intake through signature, renewal, and exit, from the customer's chair with the vendor's constraints in view. It…
- Filing a Copyright Infringement Complaint in Federal Court: A Litigator's Guide · Guide — This guide walks a copyright infringement case from the first client meeting through filing, the defendant's first responsive move, and settlement, in thirteen…
- Standard Essential Patent Checklist: Declarations, Essentiality Review, FRAND Offers, Rate Evidence, and Remedies · Checklist — This checklist runs a standard essential patent matter from the policy that created the commitment through the licence or judgment that ends it. It opens with…
- Logistics and Supply Chain Technology IP Toolkit: Shipment Data, Platforms, and Network Rights · Toolkit — A shipment generates data about two parties who are not the logistics provider, which is the structural fact underneath every intellectual property question in…
- Is It Real? Authentication, Provenance, and the Warranties Behind a Work of Art · Article — The art market runs on two questions that no other market asks in the same way: is it by whom it is said to be by, and did the seller have the right to sell…
- Joint Development Agreement Checklist: Background IP, Foreground Allocation, Improvements, and Exit · Checklist — Joint development agreements fail on provisions nobody negotiated and obligations nobody administered. This checklist runs one in sixteen phases: identify the…
- What You Actually Own: Running an IP Audit That Produces Decisions Instead of Spreadsheets · Article — Most intellectual property audits produce a spreadsheet nobody reads and a bill nobody wants to pay twice, because they inventory assets without answering the…
- Name, Image, and Likeness Clearance Checklist: Releases, Licenses, and Post-Mortem Rights · Checklist — This checklist is the working document for clearing name, image, likeness, and voice in a commercial campaign, and it runs eleven phases from scoping the use…
- Managing Fonts, Stock Assets, and Design Libraries: A Practitioner's Guide to Licence Scope, Embedding, Audits, and Substitution · Guide — This guide sets out how to run a licensed asset estate — fonts, images, illustrations, icons, templates, and audio — so that the organisation knows what it…
- Estates, Divorce, and Personal IP Succession Toolkit: Identification, Valuation, and Transfer · Toolkit — Intellectual property is the asset class estates and family lawyers are least equipped to handle, because it is invisible on a bank statement, produces income…
- Licensing Data as a Commercial Asset: A Practitioner's Guide to Rights, Scope, Derived Data, and Compliance Flow-Down · Guide — This guide drafts and negotiates a data licence in the order the terms should be settled, starting with the two that decide the deal - provenance and derived…
- Travel and Loyalty Brand Checklist: Programme Terms, Co-Brand and Partner Marks, Channel Control, Review Platforms, and Franchise Flags · Checklist — This checklist runs a travel or hospitality brand position from the flag agreement outwards, because in this sector the brand owner controls almost nothing it…
- Theatre and Live Performance IP Toolkit: Grand Rights, Creative Teams, Recording, and Venues · Toolkit — Live performance is the only major art form whose central product is not a copy, which is why its rights are the least understood and the most often assumed.…
- Section 337 at the ITC: The Fastest Border Remedy in Trademark and Trade Dress · Article — A brand facing dozens of interchangeable foreign sellers has a problem federal court cannot solve: every judgment runs against a defendant who can be replaced…
- Intent-to-Use Applications: Claiming a Trademark Before You Sell a Thing · Article — A Section 1(b) intent-to-use application lets a business claim a federal filing date for a mark it has not yet used, and under 15 U.S.C. § 1057(c) that filing…
- Who Else Is Liable? Contributory and Vicarious Trademark Infringement From Inwood to the Marketplace Era · Article — The person selling counterfeits is often judgment-proof, anonymous, or overseas. The landlord, the marketplace, the payment processor, and the shipper are none…
- Game Development Legal Checklist: Clearance, Asset Provenance, User Content Terms, Streaming Policy, and Live Operations · Checklist — This checklist runs a game studio's legal programme from first commit to sunset, in the order the work actually falls. It opens with the asset register and the…
- The Factory That Knows Everything: Tooling, Specifications, and the IP You Hand to a Contract Manufacturer · Article — Outsourcing manufacture means handing a third party everything needed to make the product — and, frequently, everything needed to make it for someone else.…
- Layering Protection for a Product Design: A Practitioner's Guide to Sequencing Design Patents, Trade Dress, and Copyright · Guide — This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on design protection, and it assumes you know why product-design trade dress always requires secondary…
- Registering a Non-Traditional Mark: A Practitioner's Guide to Drawings, Descriptions, and Functionality Refusals · Guide — This guide walks a non-traditional trademark application from triage to registration to enforcement, stage by stage, using a single client carried through the…
- Filing an Expungement or Reexamination Petition: A Practitioner's Guide to the Reasonable Investigation, the Prima Facie Case, and the Director's Discretion · Guide — This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on the Trademark Modernization Act cleanup tools, and it assumes you know the difference between…
- Coordinating a Multinational IP Dispute: A Practitioner's Guide to Forum Selection, Section 1782, Evidence Abroad, and Anti-Suit Relief · Guide — This guide takes a cross-border intellectual property dispute from the first commercial complaint to a global settlement, in the order the decisions have to be…
- What Is a Brand Worth? Trademark Valuation, Royalty Rates, and the Numbers Behind the Name · Article — Brands appear on balance sheets, in tax filings, in transfer pricing studies, in loan collateral packages, and in damages testimony - and each of those…
- Trademarks in Virtual Worlds: NFTs, Digital Goods, and the Rogers Line After Jack Daniel's · Article — When a digital artist minted a hundred images of fur-covered handbags and called them MetaBirkins, he produced the first jury verdict in American trademark law…
- Keyword Advertising Compliance and Enforcement Checklist · Checklist — This checklist runs a paid-search trademark matter from intake to docketing in eleven phases, each a set of concrete actions rather than principles. It starts…
- Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Materials Checklist: Source Identification, Community Consultation, Consent and Benefit Terms, Attribution Labels, and Filing Objections · Checklist — This checklist runs the use of traditional knowledge or cultural material from the first design review to the annual look back, in the order the decisions…
- Registering a Slogan, Hashtag, or Title of a Creative Work: A Practitioner's Guide · Guide — This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on slogans, hashtags, and titles, and it assumes you know why each category is treated differently. It…
- Evidence and Expert Witness Toolkit for Trademark and Copyright Disputes · Toolkit — This toolkit is a curated tour of everything in the Marksy library about proving an intellectual property case — what the evidence is, who carries it, and…
- Bringing and Defending a Lanham Act False Advertising Claim: A Practitioner's Guide · Guide — This guide is the operational half of the Marksy article on Section 43(a)(1)(B), and it assumes you already know the elements. It runs a false advertising…
- Proving Trademark Damages and Disgorging Profits: A Practitioner's Guide After Romag · Guide — This guide is the execution manual for the money side of a federal trademark case, built as fifteen numbered stages from the pre-suit financial audit to the…
- Copyright Registration Checklist: From Deposit to Certificate · Checklist — This checklist runs a single copyright claim from the first intake question to the docketed litigation calendar, in eleven phases a practitioner can work top…
- Distinctiveness and Genericness Toolkit: From Fanciful to Generic and Back Again · Toolkit — Distinctiveness is the master variable in trademark law, and a mark's position on it is not fixed: marks climb from descriptive to protectable and fall from…
- Names, Flags, and Offense: The Content-Based Section 2 Bars After Tam, Brunetti, and Elster · Article — In seven years the Supreme Court struck two provisions of Section 2 and upheld a third, and the reasoning it used to do all three is not what most…
- Free to Enter, Expensive to Run: Sweepstakes, Contests, and the Law of Promotions · Article — A promotion is a lottery unless the organizer removes one of three elements, and running an illegal lottery is a criminal exposure that ordinary marketing…
- Advising an Insurer or Broker: A Practitioner's Guide to Policy Wordings, Rating Algorithms, Data Sources, and Distribution Agreements · Guide — This guide takes a practitioner through an insurance engagement in the order the work has to happen, beginning with the wording register because every later…
- Aerospace and Drone IP Checklist: Technical Data Rights, Airworthiness Records, Export Classification, Supplier Terms, and Imagery Use · Checklist — This checklist audits an aerospace or uncrewed systems programme in the order the questions actually arise, beginning with export classification because that…
- Standing Up a Multi-State Privacy Compliance Program: A Practitioner's Guide to Applicability, Notices, Rights, Assessments, and Contracts · Guide — This guide builds a multi-state privacy program in the order the work actually has to happen, which is not the order the statutes are written in. It starts…
- Responding to a Filing-Mill Problem: A Practitioner's Guide to Sanctions, the U.S. Counsel Rule, and Reporting · Guide — A practitioner facing a filing-mill problem is usually facing one of four different problems, and the right response depends entirely on which. This guide…
- Maritime IP Checklist: Design and Hull Form Protection, Shipyard and Transfer Terms, Classification and Survey Records, Equipment Supply Agreements, and Voyage Data Rights · Checklist — A nine-phase working checklist for the intellectual property attaching to vessels, yards, and marine equipment. Phases one and two build the design and rights…
- The Pipes and the Spectrum: Telecommunications Infrastructure, Network Equipment, and What a Carrier Actually Owns · Article — A telecommunications business is an unusual intellectual property client because the thing it sells is not a thing it owns. Spectrum is licensed from the…
- Retail Media and Shopper Data Toolkit: Data Rights, Clean Rooms, Measurement, and Consent · Toolkit — A supermarket knows what a household eats, when it runs out, and a great deal it was never told. Retailers have discovered that this information is worth more…
- The Aisle Is an Advertising Network: Retail Media, Shopper Data, and the Rights Inside a Basket · Article — Retailers discovered that the most valuable thing they own is not the shelf but the record of what left it. This article explains what a retail media network…
- Domain Portfolio Checklist: Registration, Renewal, Monitoring, and Recovery · Checklist — Fifteen phases that take a domain portfolio from an unknown pile of registrations to a controlled program with an enforcement calendar. The order is deliberate…
- Design Patent Checklist: Article of Manufacture, Drawings, Broken Lines, Filing Deadlines, and Infringement Analysis · Checklist — This checklist runs a design patent program from the design review that should trigger a filing to the enforcement decision that tests it, with gates at the…
- Advising a Logistics or Supply Chain Technology Business: A Practitioner's Guide to Shipment Data, Platform Terms, Network Effects, and Customer Rights · Guide — This guide is for counsel responsible for the intellectual property position of a freight, logistics, or supply chain technology business, and it is organised…
- Trademark Dilution Under the TDRA: Blurring, Tarnishment, and the Fame Threshold · Article — Federal dilution law protects a very small club — marks so widely recognized by the general American public that a second user erodes their distinctiveness or…
- Carve-Out, Divestiture, and Brand Separation Toolkit: Splitting Assets, Transitional Rights, and Migration · Toolkit — A carve-out asks a question no company has ever had to answer about itself: which half of the business owns each thing. This toolkit assembles the working…
- The Clock You Did Not Know You Were Running: Patent Term Adjustment, Extension, Terminal Disclaimers, and Double Patenting · Article — Patent term looks like a simple arithmetic problem and is not. This article separates the four mechanisms that determine when a patent actually expires - the…
- The Artist's Other Rights: Moral Rights, VARA, and Attribution in American Law · Article — American copyright law protects the economic rights of authors comprehensively and their personal rights barely at all - and the narrow statute that does…
- Running a Competitive Intelligence Programme: A Practitioner's Guide to Lawful Collection, Reverse Engineering Records, Hiring Controls, and Contamination Response · Guide — A working guide to designing, governing, and defending a competitive intelligence function. It opens with the framing that resolves most questions: the law…
- Alcohol Beverage Brand Checklist: Label Approval Filings, Appellation and Origin Claims, Distributor and Tier Compliance, Advertising Review, and Trade Dress Evidence · Checklist — This checklist audits an alcohol beverage brand in the order the questions actually arise, which is not the order clients present them. The regulatory category…
- Games and Interactive Entertainment IP Toolkit: Mechanics, Assets, User Content, and Live Operations · Toolkit — A game is two things at once - a set of rules, which copyright does not protect, and an audiovisual work, which it protects well. This toolkit collects both…
- Trade Show and Exhibition Checklist: Pre-Show Filing Sequence, Booth and Display Clearance, Confidentiality and Meeting Records, On-Site Enforcement Procedure, and Post-Show Follow-Up · Checklist — A ten-phase working checklist for the intellectual property side of an exhibition programme, sequenced backwards from the show date. Phases one and two set the…
- Running or Defending a Data Scraping Program: A Practitioner's Guide to Terms, the CFAA, and Contract Claims · Guide — An operational guide for both chairs in a scraping dispute, built around a source-by-source analysis rather than a single program policy - because four sources…
- Negotiating an AI Vendor Agreement: A Practitioner's Guide to Training Rights, Output Ownership, Indemnities, and Model Governance · Guide — This guide negotiates a model agreement and then does the work that actually reduces the risk, which is not the negotiation. It starts by identifying the…
- Deciding What Stays Up: Content Moderation, Platform Policy, and the Rules Nobody Voted For · Article — Every platform that hosts user content becomes a private regulator. The rules it writes are enforced against people who never agreed to them in any meaningful…
- Common-Law Priority Evidence Checklist: Proving First Use and Market Penetration · Checklist — This checklist assembles the evidentiary record behind a common-law trademark priority claim in ten phases, from the litigation hold on day one to the signed…
- Splitting a Company in Two: Carve-Outs, Divestitures, and the Brand That Has to Go Somewhere · Article — A carve-out asks a question nobody had to answer while the business was whole: which half owns this. This article works through the four categories every…
- Publishing Agreement Checklist: Grant, Royalties, Warranties, and Reversion · Checklist — Sixteen phases for reviewing or negotiating a book contract, ordered by what is obtainable rather than by the order clauses appear in the form. It opens with…
- Anticircumvention Risk Checklist: Technological Measures, Exceptions, Exemption Fit, Trafficking, and Documentation · Checklist — This checklist assesses and reduces Section 1201 exposure for either side, in the order the questions should be asked rather than the order the statute is…
- Handling Intellectual Property in an Estate or Divorce: A Practitioner's Guide to Identification, Valuation, Transfer, and Continuing Obligations · Guide — This guide is for counsel administering an estate or advising in a divorce where intellectual property is among the assets. It proceeds in the order the work…
- Trademark Integrity Toolkit: Fraud, Bad Faith, and Abusive Enforcement · Toolkit — Trademark misconduct runs in two directions, and this toolkit curates the Marksy corpus on both. On the register side it covers fraud on the USPTO after the…
- Whose Brand Is It? Founder, Partner, and Co-Owner Trademark Disputes · Article — When a business breaks up, the brand is usually the most valuable thing nobody documented. This article explains how American law decides who owns a mark when…
- The Sale That Ends Your Rights: Exhaustion, First Sale, and the Gray Market Across Three Regimes · Article — One authorized sale can end the right to control what happens next, and the rule differs across patent, copyright, and trademark in ways that decide real…
- Managing Discovery in an IP Dispute: A Practitioner's Guide to Preservation, ESI Protocols, Source Code Review, and Protective Orders · Guide — A step-by-step guide to running discovery in an intellectual property dispute from either side. It begins with the preservation trigger, the hold notice, and…
- Agency Engagement Checklist: Pitch and Spec Work Terms, Deliverable Ownership, Third-Party Asset Schedules, Approval Records, and Transition on Exit · Checklist — This checklist audits an agency relationship from either side. It is organised around a single structural fact: the standard ownership clause cannot mean what…
- Life Sciences Patent Toolkit: Hatch-Waxman, Biosimilars, and Regulatory Exclusivity · Toolkit — Life sciences patent practice runs on a statutory architecture that has no analogue elsewhere: an artificial act of infringement, an automatic stay triggered…
- Trade Secrets and the DTSA: Protecting What You Cannot Register · Article — Trade secrets are the only major form of intellectual property with no registry, no examiner, and no certificate — protection exists only so long as the…
- Managing Platform Account Risk: A Practitioner's Guide to Verification, Appeals, and Continuity · Guide — This guide is the operational companion to the article on platform suspensions, and it is organized the way the work actually happens: what to build before…
- Employee Invention Checklist: Agreement Scope and Statutory Carve-Outs, Disclosure and Review Process, Ownership Confirmation Records, Compensation and Award Terms, and Departure Handling · Checklist — A ten-phase working checklist for the employee invention programme, covering the documents that must exist before anybody asks for them. Phases one and two…
- Building an Export Compliance Program for a Technology Company: A Practitioner's Guide to Classification, Deemed Exports, and Licensing · Guide — This guide builds an export compliance programme for a company whose principal exports are technology, software, and know-how rather than hardware. It starts…
- The Provenance Premium: Auctions, Collectibles, and the Intellectual Property in Things People Collect · Article — A collectible is a physical object whose value comes almost entirely from information about it. Who made it, when, how many exist, what condition it is in, and…
- Cybersecurity Governance and Disclosure Toolkit: SEC Rules, Safeguards, and Vendor Risk · Toolkit — Cybersecurity has become a disclosure and governance obligation as much as a technical one, and the legal exposure now attaches to what a company says about…
- Producing a Live Performance: A Practitioner's Guide to Underlying Rights, Performer Agreements, Recording, and Venue Terms · Guide — This guide takes a producer's counsel from an option to an opening night and beyond it, in the order the decisions actually arrive. It starts with the…
- Drafting an Identification of Goods and Services: A Practitioner's Guide to the ID Manual, Scope, and Amendment · Guide — This guide walks a practitioner through drafting, filing, defending, and amending an identification of goods and services, one stage at a time, using a single…
- IP Security Interests and Financing Toolkit: Recordation, Perfection, and Enforcement · Toolkit — Taking security over intellectual property requires two filings in some cases, one in others, and the wrong choice leaves a lender unperfected against exactly…
- Fraud on the Trademark Office: What In re Bose Actually Requires · Article — Fraud on the USPTO is the most frequently pleaded and least frequently won claim in trademark law, and the reason is a single 2009 opinion. This article traces…
- Building a Medical Device IP Portfolio: A Practitioner's Guide to Claim Strategy, Regulatory Timing, and Aftermarket Control · Guide — This guide builds a medical device intellectual property portfolio as a sequence of decisions tied to the regulatory calendar rather than to prosecution…
- Patent Eligibility Checklist: Claim Drafting, Alice Screening, and the Prosecution Record · Checklist — Eligibility is decided at the drafting desk years before anyone argues about it, which makes this a checklist you run before filing rather than after a…
- Cultural Heritage Digitisation Checklist: Rights Assessment, Diligent Search Records, Access Tiers, Community Consultation, and Takedown · Checklist — This checklist runs a cultural heritage digitisation programme from collection scoping to annual reporting, in the order that reduces the work rather than the…
- Inside Patent Prosecution: Office Actions, Restrictions, Continuations, and the Path to Allowance · Article — Patent prosecution looks like correspondence and is actually a structured negotiation with rules, clocks, and a permanent record. This article explains what…
- Selling to Children: Toys, Juvenile Products, and the Brand Rules That Are Not Trademark Law · Article — The toy business looks like an ordinary consumer goods trademark practice and behaves nothing like one, because most of the rules that govern it are not…