Here at Aftermarket Law, we’re big fans of copyrights. They are used to protect original artistic works, from movies and songs to books and video games. Copyrights are essential for protecting many everyday aspects of the automotive aftermarket industry, from your marketing materials to your instruction manuals. You may have heard of Google vs. Oracle, a high-profile Supreme Court case that waged on at the start of Read More

After a long, pandemic-fueled break, automotive trade shows are finally back. The largest in the world, Germany’s Automechanika Show, returns in September, leading up to SEMA making its triumphant return in November 2021. As most automotive companies know, however, most of the work preparing for SEMA takes place between April and August. In our last Blog, we highlighted how copyrights play an essential role in Read More

It’s finally that time of year again: after a long break, automotive trade shows are back on the market. After a virtual version in 2020 that was virtually non-existent, SEMA returns in person this November. Leading up to that, there are a lot of pre-shows, as well as Walmart’s private show in August and the Automechanika Show in Germany in September, which is the largest automotive trade show in the world. While Read More

Some of the most important assets that any business possesses are their Trade Secrets. Trade Secrets are, simply, any information that provides financial value by being kept secret. It is what makes you unique: anything that would result in knockoffs and cheap imitations if your competitors got their hands on it. Trade Secrets are the key to your success. And yet, many companies treat their own Trade Secrets Read More

When it comes to actually selling your product, determining the price is a bit complicated. You are presumably not the only one selling your product - you want it to be in stores at Walmart and Advance Auto Parts and online at Amazon. Even if you are only selling parts directly to repair shops, those parts are being sold to the consumers by the shops and not by you. That means that you do not have complete control Read More

A memorable brand will be essential to the success of any new company, product line or service.  A truly great idea must have its own brand -- one that people associate instantly with your top line products, services or approach.   The best products emerge from thousands of failures -- the best brands have to land on the first try.   At BRADFORD, we are constantly called upon to brand our client’s products -- a Read More

Over two thousand companies work in the automotive aftermarket. Many of these companies still do not utilize the proper legal protection to help their business succeed. They will try to handle everything in house and end up woefully unprepared to deal with the legal business challenges that eventually face them. At Aftermarket Law, we have been working with the aftermarket industry for over fifteen years. Here is Read More

Few sports are more all-American than racing. Speeding cars, roaring horsepower and vast amounts of smoke are all part of the experience, which is why in 1970, Congress exempted racing vehicles from regulation under the Clean Air Act. Even now, however, it is not well understood how the Clean Air Act affects those retailers who stock aftermarket products for race cars. The short version is that as an aftermarket Read More

This is the second post in Aftermarket Law’s series on Amazon’s new Utility Patent Neutral Evaluation Procedure.  For the first post in the series, click here.  This post discusses the general advantages of the Amazon Utility Patent Neutral Evaluation Procedure and then presents a case study of one of our recent proceedings.  Every case is different, and previous results are no guarantee of future performance.  But Read More

In recent years, the popularity of racing, both off-road and on the racetrack, has exploded in the United States. This $5 billion per year industry is a testament to our country’s long standing passion for the automobile. Thousands of aftermarket manufacturers feed that passion with performance parts that help a car race better on the track or go off-road.  There’s a prevalent myth in the automotive aftermarket that Read More