So, if you are going to feature individuals – maybe your own employees -in any advert or other promotional material, be sure to get their written consent.
ContractStore has a model release form that could be used for this purpose

From that date new companies no longer have to state their objects in the Memorandum, and there will be a new model form of Articles of Association.

Company forms for filing at Companies House will also change.

To summarise, the changes will cover:

For full details of the changes, go to Companies House website

Clean Coast Services (www.cleancoastservices.com) keep beaches, marinas, harbours and tidal rivers free from rubbish, cleaning up the coastline and collecting waste from land and sea.

The business began in Plymouth, but the idea had such a positive impact in the area that they soon found it expanding.

Rikkie Carette knew that getting their contracts in order was going to be critical in securing business from customers such as the government agencies and councils they now work for.

He told us: “Google searches showed lots of companies to choose from, but most legal document sites made it hard to understand what I would get for my money.

“ContractStore’s explanatory notes made it very easy to understand what I would be getting and I quickly found out that the Service Agreement was just the sort of thing I was looking for.

“The process was very easy with no problems at all and the file came in such a way that I could easy change or delete any parts I needed to suit my needs.”

“I am very pleased with the contract, it’s exactly what I was looking for and very easy to understand and amend where needed.”

With such clarity and ease of use, Clean Coast can handle their own contracts, thus avoiding heavy legal costs whilst expanding the business to major customers.

Keep an eye on your intellectual property rights

From next year, possible website domain names are going to multiply wildly, as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that oversees the structure of the Internet, plans to open up the market for domain name extensions, that is, the .com or .uk part of a web address.

The possibilities for new addresses will be almost endless. Examples include city domains such as .berlin, .paris, .london and .nyc, and themed domains such as .music, .legal or .shop.

I’ve always thought that .om domains would be great for relaxation sites, and I’ve mentally renamed several site “.con”.

This new development will also open up a field day for domain squatters, or looked at another way, an opportunity for entrepreneurs to sell valuable new domains – or more troubling for some, new variations on existing domains.

It’s potentially an additional cost for trademark owners, although with so many possibilities name owners will have to draw the line somewhere. There are rules in existence to protect copyrighted names, so there would be some protection against domain name takeover, but its also likely that users will need to pay more attention to the extensions and this adds to the information burden.

A recent survey of consumers (carried out by The Future Laboratory on behalf of domain name registrar Gandi.net) revealed that many did not yet know of the impending changes, and their reactions were not very positive. It was generally felt that this will add to confusion and difficulty in using the internet.

Business owners need to draw up a plan to acquire the extensions that will be most important, and aim to get them quickly before enterprising gold-rushers grab the names and hold them to ransom.

You might of course decide you want to take the opportunity presented to buy up some domains yourself. You may even buy an entire domain, for example, .london so that anyone wanting to use that suffix would have to come to you. But if you do, remember that there will be contests over names and undoubtedly some test cases will eventually emerge. Do you want to be one of them? If not, make sure you are protected.

Browse ContractStore’s Internet Contracts collection here.

Take a look at our Intellectual Property collection here.

Apparently, this was interpreted as “a clear indication that the public do not feel they have a body to which they can turn in relation to legal services”.

Many thought it was the Law Society, and most who made a guess said it was the government. Are you one of the few people who knows its in fact the Solicitors Regulation Authority? The SRA commissioned the poll and are likely to be planning some marketing and brand awareness workshops as we write.