Evansville, IN – February 5, 2021 – Gutwein Law, a full-service business law firm focused on helping innovative companies grow through high-level legal counsel, is expanding its presence in Evansville, Indiana. The firm recently added Ross T. Yates, a corporate attorney with deep experience in the healthcare industry, to its team. Ross represents sophisticated businesses, healthcare providers, private equity sponsors, venture capital funds, family offices, entrepreneurs, and investors in complex transactions.

If your business or nonprofit did not get funds from the first round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and maybe even if it did, you could get another bite at the apple. Your business/nonprofit may also be eligible to re-apply in the next round if you were rejected in the first round OR if you used up your first PPP loan (with some exceptions) if you can prove that your receipts are down at least 25% in at least one equivalent quarter from 2019 and 2020.

In August 2020, the SEC amended its definition of “accredited investor,” expanding the list of individuals eligible to invest in companies via private offerings under Regulation D.

The “accredited investor” definition is important for companies who intend to file safe harbor exemptions for private offerings under Regulation D, including under Rules 506(b) and 506(c). For more information on these exemptions, please see our previous blog post on this topic. Until the recent amendment, an individual did not qualify as an “accredited investor” unless that individual had either (i) an income exceeding $200,000 in the two most recent years (or $300,000 jointly with a spouse); or (ii) had an individual net worth (or joint net worth with spouse) exceeding $1,000,000 at the time of the purchase (excluding the value of the individual’s private residence).

Governor Holcomb’s Executive Order 20-43, signed on September 24, 2020 requires all businesses situated or operating in Indiana to create a COVID-19 response plan outlining measures and safeguards for the safety of employees, customers, clients and members of the public. The plan must be provided to all employees and posted publicly. Existing policies should be reviewed and updated to reflect current practices and standards.

The minimum requirements of the COVID-19 response plan include:

Recently, the Supreme Court provided some clarity and guidance to trademark protection for generic terms registered as a domain and used as a trademark. In Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B. V., No. 19-46 (U.S. Jun. 30, 2020), the Court held that the mark “Booking.com” is not generic and is capable of trademark registration, even though the term “booking” is generic for a class of goods and services related to online hotel registrations. Essentially, the Patent and Trademark Office was arguing for a bright line rule that the addition of a generic Internet-domain-name suffix to an already generic term, for a related category of goods, is also generic; i.e. one cannot trademark the term “generic.com” for a generic description of a category of goods.