To ring in the 2026 new year, Kentucky will join the 19 other states that have enacted comprehensive state data privacy laws. The Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act (“the Act”), going into effect January 1, 2026, applies to any person conducting business in Kentucky or anyone producing goods/services that are targeted to Kentucky residents and meet specific thresholds. A whole new group of consumer rights takes effect with the new law and noncompliance can produce new liability for businesses that run afoul of these provisions, so now is the time for all business owners to familiarize themselves with the new law.

What We Saw in 2024:

The Federal Trade Commission routinely develops, amends, and enforces various rules related to consumer protection including transparency and choice requirements, many of which involve consent, privacy, and data security.

Your employment attorney has been advising you that you need to audit your independent contractors and overtime-exempt employees to comply with new rules, while your accountant has been working with you to help avoid audits by the IRS. The word “audit” might as well be spelled with four letters. We all know that “audit” is a loaded term, striking fear in the hearts of battle-scarred survivors of audits gone by. There’s one more audit that you probably haven’t heard much about, however, and this one is vital in the ceaseless march to build and protect your brand: The intellectual property audit.

Potential trademark infringement and other issues regarding intellectual property rights are part and parcel of developing and marketing new products in a competitive market. In protecting their own intellectual property, businesses need to be proactive on the front end and determined to protect their intellectual property rights when they are infringed.

Something employers, employees and contractors don’t often consider is the ownership and attribution of copyrighted property created for an employer on behalf of an employee. Copyright has value, so the ownership of it might sometimes come into dispute. Clear agreements as to the ownership and attribution of intellectual property provide insight – i.e., any works created by an author as a result of the course and scope of that author’s employment with a company are company property. What happens, however, when a clear agreement isn’t in place? Who owns the intellectual property then?