Our experience is deepest with consumer products clients in these spaces:
- Apparel, footwear, and accessories
- Cars and trucks
- Consumer packaged goods
- Convenience stores
- Grocery stores
- Electronics
- Games and toys
- Medical supplies
- Outdoor accessories
- Personal care
- Sporting goods
- Vitamins and nutritional supplements
- Wholesale
Our work within the consumer product industry includes:
- Corporate and transactions
- eCommerce
- Intellectual property
- Advertising and marketing law
- Labeling and food safety
- Proposition 65 compliance and defense
- Licensing and distribution
- Customs and importation
- Country and trade sanctions
- Products liability
- Litigation, including class actions, consumer fraud, complex commercial litigation, shareholder disputes, and governance litigation
Corporate and Transactions
Stoel Rives’ corporate attorneys provide transactional and contractual support to retailers of all sizes. Our services range from start-up corporate formation, governance and funding through global company M&A strategy, real estate development, debt and equity financing, and creation of multi-state or cross-border contracts and agreements.
eCommerce
As the internet has become central to the success of retail businesses, our eBusiness lawyers strive to stay current on legal trends relevant to those businesses and remain well versed in the myriad legal issues they face. Whether a company is focusing on online communications, targeted marketing, shipping policies, or domain name transactions or disputes, our attorneys have extensive experience in these transactional areas.
Intellectual Property
For more than 30 years, Stoel Rives’ Intellectual Property group has registered, transferred and protected the intellectual property rights and assets of consumer products companies nationally and globally. The experience of the group spans all types of intellectual property including patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. Our attorneys are as skilled at counseling businesses on how to monetize IP assets as they are at fighting infringement by competitors or defending against claims that threaten your creations and investments.
Advertising and Marketing Law
Our Intellectual Property attorneys also advise sellers of consumers products on the laws relating to advertising and marketing. Our lawyers have expertise in advising clients on requirements of accuracy in advertising, defamation, product disparagement, multi-level marketing, and other critical issues that may arise in the advertising and marketing process.
Labeling and Food Safety
We advise and implement compliance with product packaging and labeling requirements; branding, e-commerce, and marketing law requirements; FDA requirements and investigations involving food-borne illnesses, recalls, and food processing compliance; organics and other certification programs; state and federal pesticide labeling, including under FIFRA; and obligations under various other federal and state laws and regulations.
Proposition 65 Compliance and Defense
We regularly work with companies, testing laboratories, experts, and industry scientists to assist companies with Prop 65 compliance. In addition, we help companies monitor Prop 65 regulations and trends, including proposals by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to add new chemicals to the Prop 65 list.
Licensing and Distribution
Stoel Rives’ attorneys help consumer products companies market and distribute products domestically and internationally and help with licensing. Increasingly, our clients are acting as both licensors and licensees. The subject matter of these licenses may be a patent, copyright, trade secret, know-how, or trademark, or a combination of various forms of intellectual property. Our attorneys have assisted clients with numerous foreign and domestic joint ventures and strategic alliances.
Customs, Importation, and Trade Sanctions
We help our clients importing good to the U.S., including on:
- Customs: We assist with applicable customs rules, procedures, and tariffs, and on relations with customs brokers, logistics companies, bonding companies, and other parties involved in importing goods to the U.S.
- Importation: We represent clients in matters involving the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).
- Trade Sanctions: We advise clients on compliance with the U.S. sanctions imposed on countries, governments, entities, and individuals, and administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of Treasury.
Products Liability
Our litigation attorneys represent manufacturers and distributors of consumer and industrial products in cases involving claims of loss or injury due to claimed defects and are able to manage and try products liability cases, including personal-injury and premises-liability cases, throughout the western U.S. and beyond.