Internal Revenue Code Section 1202 provides for the exclusion for noncorporate taxpayers of gain on the sale of qualified small business stock (QSBS) held for more than five years. For stock acquired after September 27, 2010, the exclusion is 100%. Tax attorney Bill Joseph takes a look at what this means for stockholders in this Stites & Harbison Client Alert.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has had a turbulent start to 2025. The U.S. administration issued an executive order implementing a federal hiring freeze on January 20, 2025. This action halted the USPTO’s plans to recruit approximately 800 new employees, primarily patent examiners. IP attorneys Grant Ehrlich and Youngmin Lee take a look at the order in this Stites & Harbison Client Alert.

On June 5, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its opinion regarding whether an individual in a majority group must submit additional “background circumstances” in order to prove a prima facie case under Title VII’s disparate treatment provisions. Employment law attorney Shannon Antle Hamilton take a look at the opinion in this Stites & Harbison Client Alert.

The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) is a major bipartisan legislative effort to reset the boundaries of what types of inventions can be patented in the United States. The most recent versions were introduced in the Senate on May 1, 2025, by Senator Thomas Tillis (R-NC) and Senator Christopher Coons (D-DE) (S.1546), and in the House on September 6, 2024, by Representative Kevin Kiley (R-CA) and Representative Scott Peters (D-CA) (H.R.9474). This bill has broad implications, particularly in life sciences, software, and emerging technologies. IP attorney Mandy Decker takes a look at the bill in this Stites & Harbison Client Alert.