Solving problems often require a multiple disciplinary approach
1158_ 2/6/12 - Larry is up at the University of Colorado, in the Wolf Law building, to meet with long time favorites Phil Weiser (Dean of the Law School) and the enigmatic Dale Hatfield. We're talking about some acknowledgement coming up for Mr. Hatfield. It's all about the spirit of giving. That philosophy is what Phil Weiser associates with Dale Hatfield. And, one he feels he has learned a lot about from Dale who is, as Phil tells us, incredibly generous. Being such a humble man, it took cunning and skill to bring Dale here to share with us what motivates him and how he operates. To begin with Dale says, "It makes me feel good... when you're helping people - especially when there are challenges and people are dealing with difficult policy issues." The second thing Phil associates with Dale, after his spirit of generosity and giving is inter disciplinary analysis. Earlier Larry jokingly referred to Dale as a lawyer, and Phil points out, Dale knows more about telecom than the lawyers he work with... "Your career as an engineer and telecom technologist have added a lot to the world of telecommunication policy and business. When did you get this appreciation for inter disciplinary problem solving and what would you share with people about why that matters so much." (If you know Dr. Weiser, you recognize how he pulls information to help teach the rest of us, from the wise and experienced souls he regularly brings to his students and community, people like Dale Hatfield.) Dale said, "I began to learn fairly early in life that solving problems often required a multiple disciplinary approach. Decisions are just better when you have people from different backgrounds contributing to it. Especially in today's world where so many issues are not just technical but they have privacy implications, all these other things, economic implications for our economy..." Phil pointed out, "We are now receiving a very generous gift from Dale - the Hatfield Professorship, to someone who will teach, in the spirit that you embody of public service. This is going to be another legacy of what Dale has helped us build here at the University of Colorado. We also have a Hatfield Scholars and Research program that helps students do stints in public service as an intern. That is a program that Dale has shaped and just underscores his spirit of generosity. In the process of making this very generous gift Dale has alluded to what his next gift is going to be in supporting international education and engagement." There's more...
Related Links: About Silicon Flatirons || Dale Hatfield Profile || Phil Weiser Profile || Communication Technology Channel || Digital Broadband Migration conference || Mini-roast while Passing the Baton || In the News Channel || Keywords: Dale Hatfield, Phillip Weiser, Silicon Flatirons, Executive Director, Interdisciplinary, Law School, Internet's Ecosystem, Passing the Baton, Multiple Disciplinary Approach - bytes=7460888
LISTEN TO: Phil Weiser & Dale Hatfield, Silicon Flatirons Center, Law School, University of Colorado

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Jason Haislmaier: The law is a couple of steps behind the technology
1045_ 7/11/11 - One of the things that keeps Jason excited and interested in his work is that it is constantly changing and the law is always a couple of steps behind the technology, and sometimes desperately trying to catch up. Jason Haislmaier, Partner at Holme Roberts & Owen (HRO) in Boulder focuses his practice on IP and technology issues for emerging growth companies here in the Boulder/Denver corridor, out in California and Internationally and then also works with those same issues for larger companies on larger issues. These could be around protection of technology or intellectual property, commercialization, transactions, license agreements, outsourcing development agreements - really the full gambit of protection, commercialization and enforcement of IP rights and technology. As Jason and Larry talked, one of the areas that has come up recently is around the collection and use of, particularly, personally identifiable information and the privacy and security issues that come with that. Jason said, "We've had the commercial Internet for upwards of 15 years and we've had websites and web services out there collecting personally identifiable and other information from their users and from other third parties. And you've also had, over that time, an evolution of legal regulation and legal requirements on what you must be doing if you are obtaining that data, and then using that data. You also have a situation now, where we have, I think I would say conservatively over the next several years, a real situation where we're going to have some big sea change in terms of the legislative aspects" There's more detail, listen now...
Related Links: HRO Home || It's the Law Channel || Mastering Change || In the News || Keywords: Jason Haislmaier, Holme Roberts & Owen, Protection of Technology, Intellectual Property, Commercialization, Transactions, License Agreements, Outsourcing Development Agreements, 7/11/11 bytes=5693756
LISTEN TO: Jason Haislmaier, Partner at Holme Roberts & Owen in Boulder

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Do more of what you do well is a great motto
997_ 4/11/11 - We are with Mike Fries, President and CEO of Liberty Global, who earlier this year spent some time in Davos at a fantastic, marvelous conference. Also joining us is Garth Jensen a partner at Holme Roberts & Owen. Garth set the stage with some background, Mike Fries runs a worldwide operation, primarily in Europe, "As you see technology bringing the world closer and business becoming more global, what are some of your thoughts as you attended this conference in Davos?" Mike replied, "I've been going every year now for 6, 7 years and what happens is the conference has evolved - but your experience within the conference evolves too. The first year I was there I did spend quite a bit of time milling about, experiencing and enjoying different types of events and speeches and panels. But every year since I've become more and more programmed in the sense that I'm involved in an industry partnership group for the telcos. The quality of people you have is world class, of course. For me to be able to interact in a two to three day period with the CEO of Georgia Telecom, CEO of Google, the CEO of Microsoft, all in a relatively small, informal environment and to understand where we're each coming from, with respect to our businesses and to our challenges, is a positive thing. And I always learn something. I always learn something I didn't know coming in. I'm happy to be, and lucky to go." Garth asked, "How do things you learn actually get translated into your services for your customers?" Mike shared his thoughts. "I would say as a CEO you have to have a vision, a clear articulation of where we're going and what we're doing and so I find, in many ways, I come out of there with a better sense of our direction; I understand better where our competitors are going or what they're thinking. So it helps define and refine your strategic vision of your business and your products and your services. So ultimately consumers benefit. Garth pointed out, "Mike I've known and worked with you for about 20 years and your career has been very impressive. You've worked with a lot of the country's best known and most well regarded business people during your career." Mikes reply, "I have been lucky to work with, of course John Malone, who I think is arguably the best boss you could ever have, from so many different perspectives. And of course, Gene Schneider who was a great mentor to me in many ways. I learned a lot from both of these guys." There's much more...
Related Links: Communication Executive of the Year - Photos of Gala Celebration || Liberty Global, Inc || Holme Roberts & Owen || CTP's 11th Annual Communications Executive of the Year and Ascent Award || CTP Home || Podcast Directory || Keywords: Mike Fries, Liberty Global, John Malone, CTP Exec of Year, Garth Jensen, HRO, Communications Technology Professionals, Cable Industry, Ascent Award, Liberty Media, UIH, United Cable, TCI Channel:Law 4/11/11 bytes=9803967
LISTEN to Mike Fries, President & CEO, Liberty Global with Garth Jensen, Partner, HRO, LLP

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Intellectual Property, Trade Secrets, Patents, Copyrights
1015_ 5/16/11 - It isn't often that we get to share the personal character of an interview but we've decided this was the time to do so. After all that is what w3w3 aims to do, connect people and resources. Neal Cohen a partner at Holme Roberts and Owen - Boulder, is a delightful guy with a great sense of humor and a fun story. Neal grew up in Queens, New York, attended public school and one of the activities he got involved in was fencing, even before high school. He fenced in high school, the public school athletic league, went on to college and got a scholarship to fence in college, and then fenced after college until he was almost 30 years old. All of that predated his legal aspirations. Larry asked for more background. Neal went on, "Well fencing, as you can imagine, does not go a long way to paying many bills. So I had a lot of jobs to support my fencing habit." After college, Neal was a high school English teacher (which also didn't pay very well back then). He was a health club manager and he was a New York City cab driver. (Imagine, a cab driver that speaks English and knows his way around town!). "Which”, Neal said, “oddly enough, was the best paying job of the three, but had its own little challenges. It didn't hurt to have a foil in the front seat...in some circumstances." Larry said, "Mark Weakly mentioned you are a magnificent litigator. Would you mind getting into some of the litigation issues?" Neal told us,when he started out, the firm he was with did a lot of 'securities litigation'. "That", said Neal, "is sort of how I cut my teeth, in securities litigation." Most attorneys don't stay in one area their whole career and so Neal grew into doing 'employment litigation' and employment litigation invariably leads into 'trade secret litigation' because employees will change employers and take trade secrets with them, sometimes. They're not supposed to, of course, and that always leads to 'trade secret litigation', which is one of the areas of 'intellectual property'. Trade secret litigation took Neal into patent litigation and that lead to copyright litigation and other areas like that. This led to Neal's sub-specialty, patent litigation and he's been doing that for fifteen years. "When I was in law school, I met a cute girl who was sitting near me.. .Listen, there's much more...
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP Home || It's the Law Channel || Blog || Podcast Directory || Keywords: Neal Cohen, Litigation, Mark Weakley, Holme Roberts & Owen, Entrepreneur, Intellectual Property, Coca Cola, Trade Secrets, Patents, Copyrights - 5/16/11 bytes=7322543 LISTEN to Neal Cohen, Partner, HRO-Boulder

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863_ 6/28/10 - Turn Your Audience into Contributors
A lawyer and a venture capitalist surround two partners in a new startup. Laurel Durham, attorney at Holme Roberts & Owen LLP introduced her guests for this interesting discussion, "Today we're joined by Toby Murdock, CEO and founder of Grogger. We're joined also by Mike Lewis, another officer and founder of the company, and we're very lucky to be joined by Chris Marks who is with Tango Group and also Invest Colorado Fund1, which recently led an early stage bridge financing round for Grogger." Toby gave an overview of what Grogger does. "Grogger is a publishing service and if you have a website or a blog and you want to open it up so anyone can contribute, we enable that and then provide tools to manage those contributions from the crowd. That's it in a nutshell - we do a lot of services beyond that, but in general if you have a website and you want lots of publishers, we can make that happen." When Chris was asked what made him interested in Grogger he said, “We saw them up at Venture Capital in the Rockies in February and really got interested in what they were doing because we think it represents a big shift in what's going on in media today in terms of contributions from the crowd." There was more discussion about 'crowd sourcing' and TechStars and Chris went onto say, "One of the things we're seeing here in Colorado, which is really positive for our environment, is a lot more out-of-state capital looking for investments here in Colorado. In our first fund which we've been operating for over three years, we put about $15 million to work in Colorado early stage companies. Those companies attracted about $30 million in additional capital from in-state and about $80 million additional capital from out of state." Listen for more...
Related Links: Grogger || Chris Marks Blog || Colorado Fund 1 || Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP || Keywords: Toby Murdock, Mike Lewis, Chris Marks, Laurel Durham, Grogger, Tango Management Consulting, Holme Roberts & Owen, HRO, TechStars, Entrepreneurs, 6/28/10 Chnl: HRO It's the Law bytes:7056094
Listen to: Laurel Durham, Chris Marks, Toby Murdock & Mike Lewis

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734_ International multi-jurisdictional trademark filing options - Part 2 of 2
(Listen: Part 2 of 2 - International) Melody Harris and Samantha Sturgis, attorneys at Holme Roberts & Owen LLP (HRO), just conducted a program that had to do with 'Multi-Jurisdiction Filing Options' (The Madrid System), Community Trademarks (CTMs - European Union, 27 countries) and Registered Community Design (RCDs - Euro union, only for last 12 months). If you're thinking of expanding your business beyond the U.S., doing manufacturing in China or maybe trading goods in Europe, that's when you really need to think about trademark protection and that's frankly when you need to engage good council to help you through that process. Today Melody and Samantha are talking about some of the strategies to help you contain the costs involved and how you protect your brand out in a global market. (Listen: Part 1 of 2)Samantha pointed out, "In the US you gain Trademark rights by using Trademarks. You don't have to register a mark because it can be protected under the common law. However we recommend that our clients using trademarks, register the trademark, and register it at the federal level." Melodie added, "The first thing we want to do in thinking about filing a United States Trademark Application is whether or not somebody else might be out there already using that brand. So we recommend doing a trademark search before spending money to file an application which they may not have the ability to prosecute through to the end because someone else might be in line ahead of you. So it's really important to do at least, what we call a 'knockout' or quick search. Once we have the actual search process done, then we want to look at the application process. There are two different ways of filing applications in the U.S. You can file it on what's called a 'use base', which means you're already using the mark. Otherwise you file on what's called 'an intent to use' basis." Watch out for trademark trolls. There's much more...
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733_ International multi-jurisdictional and national trademark filing options - Part 1 of 2
What you don't know can cause you and your organization some unbelievable financial pain. Melody Harris and Samantha Sturgis, attorneys at Holme Roberts & Owen LLP (HRO), just conducted a program that had to do with 'Multi-Jurisdiction Filing Options' (The Madrid System), Community Trademarks (CTMs - European Union, 27 countries) and Registered Community Design (RCDs - Euro union, only for last 12 mos). While Larry has owned businesses in five countries and has a registered trademark for w3w3(R) he learned a great deal. Samantha pointed out, "In the US you gain Trademark rights by using Trademarks. You don't have to register a mark because it can be protected under the common law. However we recommend that our clients using trademarks, register the trademark, and register it at the federal level." Melody added, "The first thing we want to do in thinking about filing a United States Trademark Application is whether or not somebody else might be out there already using that brand. So we recommend doing a trademark search before spending money to file an application which they may not have the ability to prosecute through to the end because someone else might be in line ahead of you. So it's really important to do at least, what we call a 'knockout' or quick search. Once we have the actual search process done, then we want to look at the application process. There are two different ways of filing applications in the U.S. You can file it on what's called a 'use base', which means you're already using the mark. Otherwise you file on what's called 'an intent to use' basis." There's much more...
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen LLP || US Patent and Trademark Office || US Copyright Office || It's the Law Channel || Keywords: Melody Harris, Samantha Sturgis, Holme Roberts & Owen LLP (HRO), Trademark, Copyright, Multi-Jurisdiction, Madrid System, European Union > Channel: Law 9262467 bytes 11/2/09 LISTEN

629_ Going global necessitates a comprehensive arbitration clause
International arbitration is private dispute resolution that the parties agree that they are going to submit their disputes by contract to one or more arbitrators to resolve the dispute. The advantage to arbitration internationally is that the United States is not a party to any treaty with anybody, not even Canada, which would make our court judgments enforceable abroad. For that reason international arbitration is crucial. “International Arbitration is crucial for business today!” David Wilson, Holme Roberts & Owen partner with guest Josefa Sicard-Mirabal, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Josefa went onto explain, "There is no international commercial court of compulsory jurisdiction that would allow us to go to it to resolve our disputes. So, international arbitration comes to level the playing field. You don’t go to anyone’s specific court, but you create a private court where you select the arbitrators, and under certain rules of arbitration, you run the process. ICC advises that from the beginning, you insert an arbitration clause." Listen for specific insights...
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen LLP || ICC Home || ICC Arbitration || Josefa Sicard-Mirabal Bio || It's the Law Channel || Keywords: Josefa Sicard-Mirabal, International Chamber of Commerce, ICC, David Wilson, Holme Roberts & Owen, Arbitration, International> Channel:CTP Bytes= 11105910 > 3.2.09 LISTEN

822_ 4/12/10 -
Business people and international arbitration
In today's global market, rules and regulations governing the business activities vary from country to country, culture to culture and international arbitration becomes a very important part of 'the contract'. At w3w3.com we've heard some amazing stories about these conflicts. We went to David Wilson, partner at Holme Roberts & Owen LLP (HRO) for some advice. David's guest was Josefa Sicard-Mirabal who serves as Director of Arbitration and ADR in North America for the ICC International Court of Arbitration. In this capacity, she represents and promotes ICC dispute resolution services in the United States and Canada, and advises North American attorneys and companies on all phases of arbitration, including negotiation of arbitration clauses, requests for arbitration, procedural issues and enforcement of arbitration awards. David said, "We're talking about some best practices for business people in international arbitration. From a business person's stand point, how you can make the experience of international arbitration more effective and actually more cost efficient for your company." Josefa describes clauses that have been drafted that really make it more difficult and costly for the business people. "One example would be putting in requirements for an arbitrator to have certain characteristics - which would make it very difficult to go out and find an arbitrator within that time frame that fits the qualification. So it is possible to make the qualifications too specific to be realistic. 1.) So we don't want to over specify arbitrator qualifications. 2.) Time frames for completion of the arbitration exist within the arbitration process. Additional specifications might very well work against you." Josefa has a proverb she uses often, "Dress me slowly because I'm in a rush". What that means is sometimes when you want to get a thing done very fast; you need to pay attention to the details.
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen LLP || ICC Home || ICC Arbitration || Josefa Sicard-Mirabal Bio || It's the Law Channel || Going Global Arbitration Clause || Keywords: David Wilson, Josefa Sicard-Mirabal, Holme Roberts & Owen LLP, HRO, International Court of Arbitration, ICC, ADR, Arbitration, Litigation, Global 4/12/10 bytes: 7527239 Chnl: HRO LISTEN to David Wilson & Josefa Sicard-Mirabal

2012

Phil Weiser & Dale Hatfield, Silicon Flatirons

2011

Neal Cohen Intellectual Property, Trade Secrets, Patents, Copyrights 5/16/11
Mike Fries, Libety Global & Garth Jensen 4/11/11
Jason Haislmaier, HRO-Boulder IP, Tech & Privacy Regulations & Requirements

836_ 5/3/10 - Due diligence and relationships with investors
" Because if due diligence is left undone, it can undo potential relationships with investors". Larry talked with Mark Weakley, Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen, Boulder about this important and touchy subject. Larry asked, "What are some due diligence issues that could kill a deal? Mark shared what was almost an overwhelming group of points ...important for every entrepreneur to be aware of. "IP ownership, I would say. Just make sure you don't have joint ownership - make sure the company owns it! Often the technology that is developed, has been incubated or developed, then they form a company. So the organization of the company should include an assignment of the inventions; describe what the inventions are and make sure it's comprehensive. That's part of what is the consideration that the founders are paying to receive the shares of stock. Also have an invention assignment agreement and a non-disclosure agreement - most law firms that work with these companies have these as a form document. It's not like you have to pay a lot of money for them - but get one from a firm that does a lot of that work. So make sure that everyone that does work for the company has signed an agreement that says the IP belongs to the company. A contractor working for you has every right to file for a patent, as do you, but dual ownership makes the process of owning the technology, moot. On the cap table side, it is often unclear who owns what. We recommend not only do you document who owns what, issue stock certificates, that's the evidence of ownership." Listen for more how-to steps... Mark also pointed out that this and many other important topics to entrepreneurs including how to raise capital will be covered at the RVC Colorado Capital Conference on 5/12/10. See you there.
Related Links: Colorado Capital Conference || Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP Home || It's the Law Channel || Rockies Venture Club || Keywords: Mark Weakley, Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP, Due Diligence, Investors, Colorado Capital Conference, Entrepreneurs, Capital, IP > 5/3/10 Chnl: Law/Entrepreneurs bytes: 8456048 Listen to Mark Weakley, Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen

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757_ Patents can make or break a company
We all know what a patent is, right? Generally, we do. "A patent covers a new invention that has to be new and useful, novel but not obvious." Well, OK... what does that really mean? Larry interviewed Mark Yaskanin, Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP who heads up the Patent Group and Scott Bialecki, Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen LLP who heads up the IP Litigation Group. "A patent is actually a teaching of the invention, it explains the invention and it is a limited monopoly for a period of 20 years from the filing date of the application and it gives the patentee the right to exclude others from practicing an invention that's described in a patent. People need to understand that just because they get a patent doesn't necessarily mean they can actually practice the technology covered by the patent." What we see in the energy area, are all these ideas that come up, but at different points in the cycle. That could be an idea, another point in the cycle is they've filed a provisional application - another point is that they've filed a non-provisional application or that they've actually got a granted patent and they have, eventually, some sales of the product. And of course wherever you are in that cycle, there are different values associated with that. "One area that is getting a lot of attention is the energy field. We've seen clients come to us with expectations to purchase a target company and they would like to know what this target company has in terms of Intellectual Property, is it good IP and what really is the scope of what they're buying. This also applies to companies seeking to sell. Regardless of what side of the proposition you're on it definitely helps to have a patent attorney take a look at the IP and help figure out what is it you're buying or what is it you can do to help position things better to sell." Listen for more details...
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP Home || It's the Law Channel || It's the Law Archives || US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) || Keywords: Mark Yaskanin, Scott Bialecki, Holme Roberts & Owen, Patents, IP, Litigation, Entrepreneurs > Channel: Law 13656428 bytes 12/14/09 LISTEN

748_ We know these licenses are enforceable
In an interview, a number of years ago, a Red Hat representative indicated they were being derided by people in the open source world for being too commercial. This time Larry interviewed Jason Haislmaier, partner at Holme Roberts & Owen, LLC Boulder. Larry says Jason is known as the 'open source legal guru in Colorado'. Jason went onto say, "I think now you really think of open source as being synonymous with commercial usage. It wasn't always that way, Open Source had its birth as what we called 'free software' which was really academic, it was far more ideologically based around the freedom of the source code than it was looking to have a commercial application. We can charge or we cannot, but it's still a license, and we know these licenses are enforceable, which is taken for granted. It's the same thing 'proprietary software went through back in the 90s, there was a time when we didn't have a legal precedent. It wasn't until we had a court case in the mid-90's that it was actually determined, that we could actually point to a case that said that. Same thing with open source licensing until very recently. Again, answering the obvious for a lot of folks, but more importantly for companies that are staking either their futures, the money of their investors, public money in the case of public companies on open source licensed based business models. We now have that much more legal assurance and I think that's certainly one of the factors that has contributed to the increasing use of open source software...listen for more...
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen, LLC Home || It's the Law Channel || SFC - Crash Course: Open Source || Find It || Keywords: Jason Haislmaier, Holme Roberts & Owen, LLC, Open Source, Licenses, Red Hat, Business Models > Channel: Law 13735626 bytes - 11/30/09 LISTEN

652_ Doing Business in Mexico can be very profitable...if done right
Starting a business in Mexico can easily take two plus months just to get the doors open. If you are going to start doing business in Mexico through an M&A it's a great deal trickier. Troy Braegger of Holme Roberts & Owen discussed the ins and outs with Daniel del Rio (Abogado) of Basham, Ringe y Correa, S.C. in Mexico City. They focused a great deal on the cultural differences and then went on to a macro overview of Mexico going back to the beginning of NAFTA and up through the economic challenges in 2008-09. In Daniel's presentation at the HRO offices in downtown Denver, he outlined the top M&A considerations: Historical background of M&A in Mexico; Necessary transitions; The challenges & trends; The difficulties of regulations, current business trends; Key sectors; Decision making and negotiations; Understanding client's needs; a different time pace; Power of Attorney challenges; The power of attorney differences are one example out of many that if understood and handled properly can make a significant difference in becoming a profitable center. Legally speaking there is so much more, listen now.
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen LLP || It's the Law Channel || Basham, Ringe y Correa || Find It Page || Keywords: Troy Braegger, Daniel del Rio, Holme Roberts & Owen, Basham, Ringe y Correa, Mexico, M&A, Power of Attorney, Client Needs, HRO - Channel:Law Bytes= 11793870 > 4.20.09 LISTEN

701_ Energy Evolution Speaker Series: Smart Grid Technology
Melody Harris, Senior Council, HRO Denver moderated a panel of experts discussing the latest in energy in a series called Energy Evolution Speaker Series. Larry interviewed Cameron Brooks, Senior Director of Market Development and Policy Strategy for Tendril Networks. Larry started out with, "Explain Smart Grid, we've heard it, but I'm not sure everyone understands it." Cameron replied, "The easiest way to understand what the Smart Grid is, is that it's really an overlay of information technology and control systems to our traditional electricity network. So in its highest form, it gives consumers the ability to interact with the grid. Instead of being passive consumers they can now understand what their usage is in real time and be able to modify their behavior - and I think it will enable, in the future and in many markets today, things like dynamic pricing, real time pricing to match what really happens on the supply side of electricity where prices change quite a bit. When asked, How will it help consumers make better usage of their electricity as well as saving money? Cameron had another great analogy, "In its simplest form, (and this analogy is used quite often) you can think of purchasing electricity today as though, maybe, you go to the grocery store and there are no prices on the shelf, you get what you want and maybe you're charged by weight and then at the end of the month you get a bill. You have no idea whether you filled your cart with caviar or with cottage cheese. One of the things it will do, it will enable consumers to see within their home, how their usage varies and what is causing their bill to go up quite a bit." There's much more...listen now...
Related Links: Tendril Networks || Holme Roberts & Owen LLP || It's the Law || Event Photos || w3w3.com Blog || Keywords: Cameron Brooks, Tendril, Energy Evolution Speaker Series, Smart Grid, Melody Harris, HRO, Holme Roberts & Owen LLP, >> Channel: HRO/It's the Law 4043235 bytes - 7/27/09 LISTEN

754_ Raising money for your startup
Larry talked with Mark Weakley, Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP, Boulder about a frequently asked question from entrepreneurs. "The recurring question is, 'what kind of corporate entity should I form, a corporation or limited liability company?' There haven't been a lot of regulatory changes, nothing is driving this, but I have this conversation, every week with new clients. The questions comes up often because there are lots of opinions out there from people that entrepreneurs talk to about what they should be. I think contrary to those opinions, there aren't hard and fast rules, but there are different considerations to go over. I think that the prudent thing is for an entrepreneur to have appreciation of what the different forms of business entities are, and why certain investors are predisposed to one or the other. Then it's a matter of saying, OK, based on the facts that I know and where I think we are going, how should I set this up, now?" Larry asked, "Getting right into it, what are the differences between these C, LLC and S corporations?" After getting into the differences between a corporation and a LLC. Mark pointed out that, "Early-stage entrepreneurs want to know what form of business entity should they use, particularly if they intend to raise money be it from friends, family, angels or venture capital funds. Entrepreneurs receive as many opinions on this question as the number of people they pose the question to. Some of those facts are known now, so the hard part is the conjecture on facts that won't be known until sometime in the future." Before Mark addressed this question, "Is it true that venture capitalist investors will always require their portfolio companies to be corporations?" he detailed the primary pros and cons for choosing a LLC versus a corporation. This is very important information for entrepreneurs ...listen for more...
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP Home || It's the Law Channel || It's the Law Archives || Podcast Directory || Keywords: Mark Weakley, Holme Roberts & Owen, LLP, Corporations, S Corporation, LLC, Entrepreneurs, Capital, Taxes > Channel: Law 15212378 bytes - 12/7/09 LISTEN

717_ Changing times creates challenges, choices and competitive advantages
"If there is one lesson that history has taught us, it's that even in the midst of what would seem like the greatest point of confusion - that is perhaps when some of the greatest competitive advantages are created." David B. Strong, Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen Denver. Dave is also the immediate past president of the Association for Corporate Growth Denver. "It's been a wonderful past year and my involvement in ACG Denver has just been a wonderful experience." Larry asked Dave about the new and evolving tax changes business is facing. "For those folks who don't deal in the technical workings of tax every day, I think we're in an interesting time because tax during difficult economic times tends to take the stage in way where it's a tool to help create and spur economic development, that's kind of the bottom-line. So we've heard a lot of noise around that, particularly in the beginning of the year when the new tax proposals came out and the Obama Administration put things into place. The question I get a lot is, As a business owner what do I need to know? What's going on in 'tax land' that I need to be aware of? The most basic way to put it, in addition to all the economic incentives that were created by the relief program, aside from tax, you know direct economic expenditures." He talked more about business taxes and incentives and went onto discuss private equity. "I get a lot of Private Equity questions around the so called 'Carried Interest Legislation' which started in middle to late 2008 and really got legs leading up to and through the election. These rules would change the way in which a lot of partnerships are taxed. And the perceived 'evil' is the way in which hedge funds. Listen for more...
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen || It's the Law || HRO Taxes || ACG Denver Home || ACG Channel || Keywords: David Strong, Holme Roberts & Owen, Association for Corporate Growth Denver, Tax, Competitive Advantage, Private Equity, Obama, Carried Interest Legislation, Change, Channel: HRO - It's the Law / ACG 11686873 bytes 9/14/09 LISTEN