Your Logo Was Made by AI. Do You Actually Own It?

A business owner prompts an image generator, picks the version she likes, and puts it on packaging, a storefront sign, and several thousand dollars of paid social. Eight months later a competitor launches with something close enough to confuse her customers. That is usually when the question reaches Braslow Legal: is this logo mine, and can I stop them?

The answer comes in two halves. You probably do not own a copyright in that image. You may still hold enforceable trademark rights in it. Those are separate bodies of law, and knowing which one you have decides what you can do about a copycat.

Does copyright protect a logo generated entirely by AI?

No. Copyright in the United States requires a human author, and material produced by a generative model without meaningful human creative input is not registrable.

The Copyright Office said so plainly in its March 2023 registration guidance for works containing AI-generated material, and it held the line in Part 2 of its Copyright and Artificial Intelligence report, issued in January 2025, which concluded that prompting alone does not give a user enough control over the output to make that user its author. The federal courts have agreed. In Thaler v. Perlmutter, the D.C. Circuit affirmed in March 2025 that the Copyright Act's author must be human.

The most useful example for business owners is still the Zarya of the Dawn decision from February 2023. The Copyright Office let the author keep her registration for the text she wrote and for her selection and arrangement of the images, but canceled protection for the Midjourney images themselves. That is the shape of most outcomes: your human contributions are protectable, the raw generated pixels are not.

How much human work is enough to claim authorship?

Enough that you could describe your own creative choices without describing the prompt. Redrawing the mark, reworking proportions, building original typography, or combining generated elements into an arrangement you designed can all support a claim to the human-authored portions.

Two practical consequences follow. If you file for copyright registration on a logo containing AI-generated material, you must disclose and disclaim that material, and a registration obtained without the disclosure is vulnerable. And your proof lives in your files. A folder showing eleven dated rounds of human editing is worth far more than a memory of having "cleaned it up."

Can you trademark a logo that AI helped create?

Yes. The USPTO has no human-authorship requirement, because trademark law protects a mark's ability to identify the source of goods or services, not the artistry that went into it. What matters is distinctiveness and use in commerce.

As of the fee restructuring that took effect January 18, 2025, the base federal application costs $350 per class of goods or services, with surcharges when an application uses insufficient information or lengthy custom descriptions. Build a realistic calendar around it. First examination has been running well past the historical norm of roughly three months, so a straightforward application can take a year or more from filing to registration. Check current USPTO pendency figures before you time a launch around a registration date.

Why the copyright gap changes how you enforce your brand

Because a competitor using a near-identical mark is a likelihood-of-confusion problem, not a copying problem, and confusion is exactly what trademark law addresses.

There is a wrinkle worth sitting with. Two unrelated businesses can generate strikingly similar output from the same model, and neither one holds a copyright to assert against the other. Priority of use and the strength of the federal filing become the entire fight. For a company operating in both Florida and New Jersey, common law rights that arise from use in one state will not follow you across the country, which is a reason to file federally earlier than instinct suggests.

What to change in your next designer agreement

• Require disclosure of every AI tool used and where in the file it was used

• Assign all rights that do exist, including the designer's human-authored contributions

• Get a warranty that no third-party material was incorporated

• Require delivery of layered source files and the revision history, not just a flattened PNG

• Confirm no other client has received substantially the same output

What Braslow Legal reviews before an AI-assisted logo goes on packaging

Three things, usually: whether the mark is clear to use, whether the filing covers the classes you actually sell in, and whether your designer paperwork transferred anything at all.

An AI-assisted logo can carry a brand for years and support a strong federal registration. What it will not do is hand you a copyright to wave at an imitator, which puts the weight on clearance, filing, and consistent use. If your mark went from prompt to packaging without review, correct that before you scale. Braslow Legal works with brands, businesses, and creative ventures across Florida and New Jersey on trademark clearance, federal filings, and the agreements that keep ownership clear from the start. Use the contact form to have your logo and your paperwork looked at together.

The Content Your Influencer Made Isn't Yours: Unless the Contract Says So

A brand pays a creator four figures for three Reels, the posts perform, and the marketing team drops the best one into a paid campaign and onto the homepage. Nobody did anything wrong on purpose. The brand assumed that paying for content meant owning it. It rarely does, and that assumption is what brings these files to Braslow Legal, usually after a creator's manager sends a takedown demand or a competitor runs the same footage.

Who owns a post the creator made for your brand?

The creator does, by default. Copyright belongs to the author the moment the work is fixed in a tangible form, and for an influencer video the author is the person who shot and edited it, not the company that paid for it.

That default sits in 17 U.S.C. § 201(a). Payment alone transfers nothing. A brand that pays an invoice receives the video file and an implied permission to use it as the parties clearly contemplated, which a court will read narrowly. Homepage placement and paid media are not what anyone contemplated when the deal was three organic posts.

Isn't influencer content a work made for hire?

Almost never, unless the creator is your W-2 employee. The work-made-for-hire doctrine covers work by employees within the scope of employment, or commissioned work that falls into one of nine specific statutory categories and is covered by a signed written agreement calling it a work for hire.

Those nine categories are narrow: contributions to a collective work, parts of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, translations, supplementary works, compilations, instructional texts, tests, answer material, and atlases. A standalone TikTok or a set of product photos from an independent contractor generally fits none of them, and labeling the agreement "work for hire" does not fix a work that is not eligible.

What actually transfers ownership

A written assignment signed by the creator. Section 204(a) requires any transfer of copyright ownership to be in a signed writing, which means an email thread confirming rates will not carry it. Note that authors can terminate assignments after 35 years on advance notice, an exemption that does not apply to true works made for hire.

Does a perpetual, worldwide license mean the content is yours?

No. A license is permission to use; ownership is the right to control and to stop others. A creator who grants you a perpetual, worldwide, royalty free license can still grant the same rights to your direct competitor next quarter unless the agreement says the license is exclusive.

Read the usage terms as three separate dials. Term is how long you may run it, and paid social rights are commonly granted in windows of three to six months with renewal pricing set in advance. Media is where it can run, and organic feed rights do not cover paid amplification, out of home, retail displays, or connected TV. Exclusivity is whether the creator may work with competing brands, in what category, and for how long.

Can you keep using the creator's face after the campaign ends?

Only if the release covers it. Copyright in the video and the creator's right to control commercial use of their name, image, and voice are two different rights, and an assignment of one does not carry the other.

Florida addresses this by statute. Section 540.08 requires express written consent before using a person's name or likeness for commercial or advertising purposes and gives the person a cause of action. New Jersey protects the same interest through common law rather than a statute, so a brand running in both states should draft to the Florida writing requirement as the baseline.

Why the music on that video can still cost you

Because the creator's platform license does not extend to your brand. In-app music libraries authorize personal, non-commercial use, and a commercial track cleared for a creator's organic post is not cleared for a brand account, a paid ad, or a whitelisted version of the same video.

Running it commercially generally requires two clearances: a synchronization license from the publisher for the composition and a master use license from the label for the recording. Boosting the creator's original post through branded content tools does not resolve it. Specify a commercially licensed track in the brief instead.

What Braslow Legal puts in a creator agreement

• An assignment of copyright, signed by the creator, with a fallback exclusive license if assignment is refused

• Defined term, media, territory, and exclusivity, each priced separately

• A name and likeness release drafted to satisfy Florida's written consent requirement

• A music and third-party materials warranty, plus a ban on unlicensed commercial tracks

• FTC disclosure obligations, tied to the Endorsement Guides and the 2024 consumer reviews rule, with penalties now exceeding $50,000 per violation

• Flow-down terms when an agency or production company sits between you and the creator

Paying for content and owning it are different transactions, and the gap only surfaces once the content becomes valuable. Braslow Legal works with brands, businesses, and creative ventures across Florida and New Jersey on creator agreements, licensing, and brand protection. Send your current influencer template through the contact form for review before the next campaign goes live.

Registered Isn't Finished: Trademark Maintenance Failures That Kill Good Marks | Braslow Legal

The certificate arrives, gets framed, and the file goes quiet for five years. Then a deadline passes unnoticed, or a maintenance filing draws an audit the owner cannot answer, and a mark with a decade of goodwill behind it is cancelled. Braslow Legal sees the same pattern repeatedly: the trademark was strong, the paperwork was not. Federal registration is a lease with renewal terms, not a purchase.

What is actually due after your trademark registers?

Two filings on a fixed schedule. A Declaration of Use under Section 8 is due between the fifth and sixth anniversary of the registration date, and a combined Section 8 and Section 9 renewal is due between the ninth and tenth anniversary, then every ten years after that.

Each window carries a six month grace period with a surcharge, and the governing anniversary is the registration date, not the filing date of the application. That distinction trips up owners whose application sat in examination for a year or more.

A third filing, the Section 15 Declaration of Incontestability, is optional after five consecutive years of use and worth making: an incontestable registration cannot be challenged as merely descriptive or lacking distinctiveness.

What does maintenance cost?

Under the fee schedule adopted in January 2025, expect roughly $325 per class for the Section 8 declaration, about $650 per class for the Section 9 renewal, a few hundred dollars per class for Section 15, and a surcharge on grace period filings. Confirm current amounts on uspto.gov, since the office revises its fees periodically.

What is a post-registration audit, and why does it cancel registrations?

It is a random USPTO review that asks you to prove you actually sell everything your registration claims. Registrations listing multiple goods or services in a class are eligible for selection when a maintenance filing comes in, and the office requests proof of use for specific items you did not submit specimens for.

The trap is a registration written broadly at the application stage. A clothing company that listed shirts, hats, socks, jackets, and swimwear but only sold shirts and hats will be asked to document the rest. Items you cannot support get deleted, post-declaration deletions carry their own fee, and an inadequate response can take down the entire class, not just the unsupported goods.

Can you lose a mark you are still using?

Yes, through four routes that have nothing to do with whether customers still recognize your brand.

Non-use for three consecutive years is prima facie evidence of abandonment under 15 U.S.C. § 1127, and the burden then shifts to you to show intent to resume. Licensing without quality control, sometimes called naked licensing, can also forfeit rights, because a mark that no longer signals a consistent source stops functioning as a trademark. Failing to police infringing uses lets a mark drift toward the generic, which is how aspirin, escalator, and thermos became words instead of brands.

The fourth route is more common: a rejected specimen. A specimen is the real world proof of use you submit, and the USPTO rejects mockups, digitally altered images, and printer's proofs. For goods it must show the mark on the product, its packaging, or a point of sale display. A website screenshot works only with the URL, the access date, and a way to actually order.

Are those trademark renewal invoices real?

Usually not. Private companies scrape the USPTO's public database and mail official looking notices with real registration numbers, real deadlines, and fees several times the government rate, offering little beyond forwarding a form.

Two checks settle it. Official mail comes from the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia, and official email from a uspto.gov address. Fees are paid only through uspto.gov, never to a private processing center. The USPTO publishes a page of non-USPTO solicitations with examples in circulation.

Does a logo refresh affect your registration?

It can void it. A registration covers the mark as depicted in the drawing, and a change significant enough to count as a material alteration requires a new application rather than an amendment.

Tightening a wordmark's kerning is usually fine. Redrawing the logo, dropping a design element, or changing the wording is usually not, and the practical risk is a maintenance filing whose specimen no longer matches the registered drawing. File the rebrand before the old registration comes up for renewal, not after.

What Braslow Legal tracks on a registered mark

• Section 8, 9, and 15 dates calendared from the registration date, grace periods flagged separately

• The goods and services list audited against actual sales before the declaration goes in

• Specimens collected during ordinary business, not assembled the week of a deadline

• Owner name, address, and correspondence email kept current in USPTO records

Most cancellations trace back to a date nobody was watching. Braslow Legal handles trademark maintenance, renewals, and audit responses for brands, businesses, and creative ventures in Florida and New Jersey. If you hold a registration and cannot name its next deadline, sort that out now rather than during a grace period.

One Business, Two States: What Florida Founders Get Wrong About Operating in New Jersey (and Vice Versa)

A Fort Lauderdale company hires a salesperson who lives in Montclair. A Hoboken studio signs a lease for a second location in Tampa. Neither founder thinks of this as a legal event. Both have just picked up a second set of filing obligations, a second tax authority, and a second body of law governing contracts they already signed. The questions reach Braslow Legal in the same order every time: do I have to register there, what does it cost, and does my non-compete still work?

Do you have to register your business in the second state?

Almost certainly yes, if you have people, property, or a place of business there. Both states require a foreign entity, meaning one formed under another state's law, to obtain authority before transacting business locally.

Florida handles this through the Division of Corporations, under Chapter 605 for LLCs and Chapter 607 for corporations. New Jersey routes it through the Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services, and a business registering there also files an NJ-REG for tax and employer purposes, which is a separate step founders routinely miss.

Neither statute defines "transacting business" with a bright line. What matters is presence and continuity: an employee working from home in the state, a leased office or warehouse, inventory stored there, a contractor performing ongoing work. A single sale shipped across state lines usually is not enough. A remote employee usually is.

What happens if you skip it?

The most common consequence is procedural and expensive at the worst possible moment. In Florida, an unregistered foreign entity cannot maintain a lawsuit in state court until it obtains a certificate of authority, so the day you try to sue a customer who did not pay is the day you find the gap. Both states also expect back fees, and New Jersey back tax filings, for the period you operated unregistered.

What does qualifying in the other state cost?

Budget a few hundred dollars up front and an annual filing in each state, plus a registered agent with a physical address there.

Recent published fees put Florida's foreign LLC application around $125 and a foreign corporation around $70, with the Florida annual report due by May 1 and a $400 late penalty for profit entities that miss it. New Jersey's certificate of authority has been $125, with a $75 annual report due by the end of your anniversary month. State fees change, so confirm current amounts on Sunbiz and the New Jersey Division of Revenue site before you file.

The larger number is usually tax. New Jersey's Corporation Business Tax runs to 9 percent at higher income levels, with a minimum tax tied to New Jersey gross receipts, and New Jersey LLCs face a per-member partnership filing fee. Florida taxes corporate income at 5.5 percent and has no personal income tax. That gap is why the direction of expansion matters.

Which state's non-compete law applies to your employee?

Often the state where the employee works, not the state named in your contract, and the two states treat restrictive covenants very differently.

Florida is statutory and comparatively employer-friendly. Section 542.335 requires a legitimate business interest and reasonable terms, and it presumes durations of six months or less reasonable and periods over two years unreasonable for a former employee. Courts are directed to construe the covenant in favor of protection and are barred from weighing individual hardship to the employee. Florida's CHOICE Act, effective in 2025, extends further protection for higher-earning covered employees.

New Jersey has no non-compete statute. Enforcement runs through common law, where a court weighs the employer's legitimate interest against hardship to the employee and harm to the public, and will narrow an overbroad clause rather than enforce it as written. A Florida choice-of-law clause will not reliably rescue an agreement a New Jersey judge considers unreasonable against a New Jersey worker.

With the FTC's proposed federal non-compete ban set aside in litigation, state law remains the controlling framework in both places.

Does your trademark protect you in both states?

No. Unregistered rights arise only from actual use, and they stop at the geographic edge of that use. Building a reputation in Broward County gives you nothing in Bergen County.

Federal registration is the fix, at a base USPTO fee of $350 per class of goods or services, and it covers both operations plus wherever you expand next. State trademark registrations exist in both states and cost little, but protect only within that state.

How Braslow Legal approaches a two-state footprint

By sequencing it. Qualify the entity where you actually have presence, rewrite the employment and contractor agreements for the law that will govern them, then get the mark on file federally before the second location opens.

Operating across Florida and New Jersey is manageable when the paperwork matches the reality of where your people and property sit. Braslow Legal is licensed in both states and works with brands, businesses, and creative ventures on foreign qualification, restrictive covenants, and trademark protection. Use the contact form to have your current setup reviewed against both.

What Does It Cost to Have a Lawyer Review an NIL Deal? (2026 Guide)

The short version: most NIL contract reviews are flat-fee engagements, and the price depends on the deal’s complexity - a single-brand social media agreement is a very different document than a multi-year apparel deal with exclusivity, morals clauses, and equity. At Braslow Legal we quote a flat fee after a free consultation, so athletes and families know the exact cost before we read a single page. What you are paying to avoid: giving away your name, image, and likeness for longer, broader, and cheaper than you realize.

Why NIL contracts need review at all

NIL deals are marketing contracts, and they are drafted by the brand’s lawyers, not yours. The provisions that cost athletes money are rarely the compensation line. They are the term and exclusivity - how long the deal runs and which competing brands you are locked out of, where an exclusive apparel clause signed as a freshman can block a bigger offer as a junior; usage rights - whether the brand can keep using your content after the deal ends, and whether it can edit or repurpose it; morals and termination clauses - often one-sided, letting the brand exit instantly while binding you; and compliance conflicts - school policies and Florida law both restrict certain categories and disclosures, and a deal that violates them risks eligibility.

What drives the fee up or down

A flat-fee quote follows the document. A short-term social post agreement with standard terms sits at the low end. Fees rise with multi-year terms, exclusivity, group licensing interactions, equity or revenue-share compensation, agency representation agreements layered on top, and deals involving minors - which in Florida can require additional formalities.

Florida’s NIL rules in brief

Florida was one of the first states with an NIL statute, and the legislature loosened it in 2023 to let schools facilitate deals more directly. The rules still matter: certain product categories remain off-limits, disclosure obligations apply, and high school athletes operate under a separate and stricter framework than college athletes. A deal that is fine for a college junior can end a high schooler’s eligibility.

What a review looks like at Braslow Legal

You send the contract; we review every provision, flag what is market and what is not, and give you a plain-English summary with specific redlines to request. If the other side pushes back, we negotiate. Neil Braslow has represented athletes, creators, and gaming businesses across Florida and New Jersey, and teaches sports law as an adjunct professor - this is a core practice area, not a sideline. The consultation is free, and the fee is quoted flat before we begin.

Quick answers

How much does an NIL contract review cost?

It depends on the contract’s length and complexity. Braslow Legal quotes a flat fee after a free consultation, so you know the full cost up front.

Can high school athletes in Florida sign NIL deals?

The rules for high schoolers are separate and stricter than for college athletes, and eligibility consequences are severe - review the current FHSAA framework before signing anything.

What is the biggest mistake athletes make in NIL deals?

Signing long exclusivity terms early. Locking yourself to one brand as an underclassman can cost far more than the deal pays when bigger offers arrive later.

Do I need a lawyer if I have an agent?

Agents negotiate value; lawyers review enforceability, rights, and risk. Your agent’s agreement is itself a contract worth independent review.

This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney advertising.

How Much Does It Cost to Start a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit in Florida? (2026 Guide)

The short version: launching a Florida 501(c)(3) takes roughly $345 to $670 in required government fees - $70 to incorporate with the State of Florida, plus an IRS application fee of $275 (Form 1023-EZ) or $600 (full Form 1023). If your organization will solicit donations in Florida, add a state charitable registration that starts at $10 and scales with contributions. Attorney fees are separate, and at Braslow Legal we quote a flat fee after a free consultation, so you know the full cost before we start.

The Florida incorporation fees

Every Florida nonprofit begins as a Florida not-for-profit corporation. Filing Articles of Incorporation with the Florida Division of Corporations costs $70 total - $35 for the articles and $35 to designate your registered agent. Online filings are typically processed in one to three business days. The articles are also where many self-filed nonprofits go wrong: the IRS requires specific purpose and dissolution language before it will grant tax-exempt status. If that language is missing, you will have to amend and refile - and your IRS application will be delayed by months.

The IRS application fee: $275 or $600

Federal tax-exempt status requires an application to the IRS. Form 1023-EZ ($275) is a streamlined online form for organizations that project $50,000 or less in annual gross receipts for their first three years and have less than $250,000 in assets - most small community organizations qualify. The full Form 1023 ($600) is required for larger organizations and for certain types - including churches, schools, and hospitals - regardless of size. Choosing the wrong form is a real risk: filing the EZ when you were not eligible can put your exemption in question later, while filing the full form unnecessarily costs an extra $325 and months of waiting.

Florida charitable solicitation registration

If your nonprofit will ask Floridians for donations - including through a website donate button - Florida law requires annual registration with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services before you solicit. The fee is based on contributions received during your last fiscal year, starting at $10 for new and small organizations. Small charities raising under $50,000 may qualify for a simplified exemption registration.

Ongoing annual costs

Florida’s annual report is $61.25, due between January 1 and May 1 each year - missing it triggers a steep late fee. The IRS Form 990 series has no filing fee but is required every year, and three consecutive missed filings trigger automatic revocation of exempt status. Charitable registration renews annually at the contribution-based fee.

What does an attorney add?

Formation paperwork is the visible part. The value of counsel is in the parts that surface later: IRS-compliant articles and bylaws, a conflict-of-interest policy your board actually follows, correctly choosing between the two IRS forms, and structuring fire districts, first aid squads, and other special-purpose entities correctly from day one. Braslow Legal has served as counsel to nonprofits, fire districts, and first aid squads, and we handle formation as a flat-fee engagement quoted after a free consultation.

Quick answers

How much does it cost to start a nonprofit in Florida?

Roughly $345 to $670 in government fees: $70 to incorporate in Florida, plus $275 or $600 to the IRS, and charitable solicitation registration if you fundraise.

How long does IRS approval take?

Form 1023-EZ determinations often arrive in a few weeks to a couple of months; full Form 1023 applications commonly take six months or longer.

Do I need to register before fundraising in Florida?

Yes. Florida requires charitable solicitation registration before you solicit donations from Florida residents, renewed annually.

Can I file the cheaper Form 1023-EZ?

Only if you project $50,000 or less in annual gross receipts for your first three years, have under $250,000 in assets, and are not an ineligible type such as a church, school, or hospital.

This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Fee amounts are set by government agencies and may change. Attorney advertising.

How Much Does It Cost to Register a Trademark in Florida? (2026 Guide)

The short answer: most Florida businesses should budget $350 to $700 in government filing fees for a federal trademark covering one or two classes, plus attorney fees. At Braslow Legal, most trademark matters are handled on flat fees quoted after a free 30-minute consultation — you know the full number before any work begins.

Here is the full breakdown of what you will actually pay in 2026, including the surcharges most first-time filers never see coming.

The USPTO base filing fee: $350 per class

The United States Patent and Trademark Office charges a base application fee of $350 per class of goods or services. A class is a category of products or services — clothing is one class, retail services another, software another. Many businesses need only one class; plenty need two or three. Two classes means $700 in filing fees, three means $1,050, and so on.

The surcharges that catch self-filers

The USPTO’s current fee structure rewards clean applications and penalizes messy ones. Using a custom description of your goods instead of a pre-approved entry from the USPTO’s ID Manual adds $200 per class. Leaving required information out of the application adds another $100 per class. These surcharges exist because free-form applications take examiners longer to review — and they are one of several reasons careful drafting pays for itself.

Florida state registration: cheaper, and much weaker

Florida also offers state-level trademark registration for $87.50 per class through the Florida Department of State. It is inexpensive, but it only protects you inside Florida — it will not stop a competitor in Georgia or California from federally registering the same name and boxing you in. For almost any business that sells online, federal registration is the one that matters.

Attorney fees: what you are actually paying for

Attorney fees vary by firm and scope, driven mostly by the depth of the clearance search and the number of classes. At Braslow Legal we offer flat fees for most trademark matters, with your quote provided shortly after a free 30-minute consultation. The value is mostly in what does not happen: applications that do not get refused, descriptions that do not trigger surcharges, and brands that do not have to be renamed a year in because nobody ran a real search.

The costs nobody budgets for

If the USPTO refuses or questions your application, an office action response adds cost — and roughly half of applications receive one. After registration, maintenance filings come due between the fifth and sixth year and roughly every ten years, each with their own fees. And the most expensive scenario of all is not registering: rebranding after a conflict — new signage, new domain, new packaging, lost goodwill — routinely runs into tens of thousands of dollars.

Quick answers

Can I register a trademark myself to save money?

U.S.-based applicants can file without an attorney, but a large share of self-filed applications hit refusals or surcharges that proper drafting would have avoided. If the brand matters, the savings are usually an illusion.

How long does trademark registration take?

Most applications take roughly 12 to 18 months from filing to registration — longer if an office action needs a response.

Is a Florida LLC enough to protect my business name?

No. Forming an LLC only stops another Florida entity from registering the identical name. Brand rights come from trademark law, and federal registration is what protects the brand itself.

Ready for a real number for your brand? Start with a free 30-minute consultation — you will speak directly with attorney Neil Braslow, and you will have your flat-fee quote shortly after. You can also read more about our trademark and copyright practice.

This article is general information, not legal advice. USPTO fees are current as of August 2026 and can change.

Forming a Nonprofit in Florida: 501(c)(3) Basics and Common Legal Pitfalls

A group of parents wants to formalize a youth sports scholarship fund. A church congregation is spinning off a food pantry into its own organization. A local arts collective wants grant eligibility it can't get as an unincorporated group. All three end up asking the same thing: what does forming a nonprofit in Florida actually require, and where do people trip themselves up along the way? At Braslow Legal, founders come in after they've already filed paperwork more often than before, which usually means fixing a problem that a little planning would have avoided.

Florida makes the mechanics of starting a nonprofit fairly straightforward. The legal traps show up later, usually in the gap between what the state requires and what the IRS actually wants to see.

Incorporating With the State of Florida

Nonprofits in Florida organize under Chapter 617 of the Florida Statutes, the Florida Not For Profit Corporation Act. The first real step is filing Articles of Incorporation with the Division of Corporations through Sunbiz, which costs a modest filing fee and typically processes within a few business days online. The articles need a distinguishable name, a registered agent with a Florida street address, and a clearly stated purpose describing what the organization does.

Florida law requires at least three directors on the board, and they can't all be related to each other. This trips up plenty of small, family-run charitable efforts that assume a spouse and an adult child can round out the board alongside the founder. They can't, at least not as the entire board, and the state will reject articles that don't reflect proper structure once it starts scrutinizing tax-exempt eligibility down the line.

Bylaws aren't filed with the state, but they're legally required and shouldn't be an afterthought. A conflict of interest policy isn't optional either once you apply for federal tax-exempt status, and the IRS looks for one specifically.

Getting to 501(c)(3) Status

Incorporating with Florida creates a nonprofit corporation, but it doesn't create tax-exempt status. That comes from the IRS, through Form 1023 or the shorter Form 1023-EZ for smaller organizations, and it's a separate process with its own timeline and its own requirements.

The single most common mistake founders make is drafting Articles of Incorporation before understanding what the IRS actually requires for 501(c)(3) qualification. The IRS expects specific language in the organizing document, including a purpose clause limiting the organization to exempt purposes and a dissolution clause dictating that any remaining assets go to another tax-exempt organization if the nonprofit ever winds down. Skip either clause, and the IRS will kick the application back, forcing an amendment to the Florida articles before anyone can move forward. That's a fixable problem, but it costs time and an extra filing fee that a properly drafted initial filing would have avoided.

Common Pitfalls That Surface After Formation

A few issues show up again and again once an organization is up and running.

Mission drift creates real exposure. A nonprofit can only operate within the purpose stated in its articles, and expanding programs beyond that stated purpose without amending the documents puts both state standing and federal tax-exempt status at risk.

Missing the annual report deadline is a quiet but serious problem. Florida requires an annual report through Sunbiz each year, and organizations that miss it face administrative dissolution, which effectively ends the nonprofit's legal existence and can disrupt bank accounts, grant eligibility, and contracts already in place.

Charitable solicitation registration gets overlooked constantly. Any Florida nonprofit soliciting donations from the public needs to register annually with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services under Chapter 496, separate from anything filed with the Division of Corporations or the IRS. Plenty of well-meaning founders assume incorporating and getting IRS approval covers this, and it doesn't.

Board governance issues tend to surface during audits or grant applications rather than at formation, when a funder asks for board meeting minutes that were never kept, or a conflict of interest policy that exists on paper but was never actually followed.

Building the Foundation Correctly the First Time

Most of what goes wrong with a Florida nonprofit traces back to documents drafted quickly, without an eye toward what the IRS will demand a few months later. Getting the purpose clause, dissolution language, board structure, and governance policies right before filing saves founders from amendments, delays, and awkward conversations with funders who want to see clean paperwork. If you're forming a nonprofit in Florida and want the entity structured correctly from the outset, the attorneys at Braslow Legal can help you build articles, bylaws, and governance policies for forming a nonprofit in Florida that satisfy both state law and IRS requirements the first time around.

AI-Generated Content and Copyright: Who Owns What When a Machine Helps Create It

The short version: U.S. copyright protects human creativity, not machine output. Content generated entirely by AI cannot be copyrighted, a prompt alone does not make you an author, and mixed works are protected only as to their human-made parts — which must be disclosed to the Copyright Office when you register.

A marketing director generates a set of product images with an AI tool, drops them into a campaign, and later wants to stop a competitor from lifting the same visuals for their own ads. A novelist uses an AI assistant to draft transitional scenes, then tries to register the finished book. A musician trains a vocal model on years of his own recordings after losing his voice to illness, and needs to know if the resulting songs belong to him. Each of these situations runs into the same question the U.S. Copyright Office has spent the last few years working through: AI-generated content and copyright ownership don't follow the same rules people assume.

The short version is that copyright still requires a human author, but that rule is more nuanced in practice than it sounds, and the details of how a tool was used often decide the outcome.

Where the Human Authorship Line Actually Sits

The Copyright Office's position, laid out across its 2023 registration guidance and its 2025 report on generative AI copyrightability, is that a work generated purely by a machine with no human creative control cannot be registered. The Office reaffirmed this after Dr. Stephen Thaler tried to register an image his AI system produced entirely on its own, listing the machine as the author. Courts sided with the Office at every level, and the Supreme Court declined to take up the case in early 2026, leaving the human authorship requirement intact.

Typing a prompt and accepting whatever the model produces doesn't count as authorship, because the expressive choices, the exact rendering, composition, and detail, are being made by the system rather than the person. The Office has explained that complex AI models are inherently unpredictable, so a person entering the same prompt twice might get two different results, which signals a lack of the kind of control copyright law expects from an author.

What Actually Does Qualify for Protection

The distinction that matters is whether AI functioned as a tool assisting a human creative vision or as a replacement for it. A photographer using Photoshop to edit an image doesn't lose authorship over the edited photo. The Office treats certain AI uses the same way. When a human selects, arranges, or substantially modifies AI-generated material with real creative judgment, the resulting work, or at least the human-authored portions of it, can be registered.

A useful real-world example involves country artist Randy Travis, who lost most of his ability to sing after a stroke. His team trained an AI vocal model on his existing recordings and used it to convert another singer's performance into Travis's voice for a new song. The Copyright Office registered the work, because the AI was functioning as a tool carrying out a human creative team's vision rather than generating independent expression on its own. That distinction, tool versus author, is the one to watch.

A graphic novel combining human-written text with AI-generated images offers the opposite lesson. The Office registered the book but specifically excluded the individual AI-generated images from protection, since arranging existing generated images into a story isn't the same as creating the images themselves.

What This Means for Businesses Using AI Tools

Companies building marketing materials, product content, or creative assets with AI tools need to think about ownership before they build a business around the output. If a design was generated by AI with minimal human input beyond a prompt, nobody owns the specific visual, meaning a competitor can copy it without infringing anything. Businesses relying on AI-assisted work should document the human contribution as it happens, keep records of edits, selections, and creative decisions made after generation, and disclose the AI involvement honestly on any copyright application, since the Office requires that disclosure and has denied applications where it wasn't provided.

Contracts matter here too. A brand hiring a freelancer or agency that uses AI tools should spell out who owns the resulting content and confirm the freelancer isn't submitting purely machine-generated material without disclosing it, since a copyright claim built on an undisclosed AI foundation can unravel later.

Registering Work That Mixes Human and AI Contributions

Applicants registering a work containing AI-generated material have to identify the human author, use the standard application, and describe the human contribution in the application itself. The Office reviews these on a case-by-case basis, and a registration obtained without proper disclosure can be challenged or corrected through a supplementary filing. Getting this right at the outset avoids a registration that looks solid until someone actually tests it.

Where This Is Headed

The law here isn't fully settled, and the Copyright Office has acknowledged that its analysis could shift if AI tools evolve to give users more direct control over expressive output. For now, the safest approach treats AI as a drafting or editing tool rather than a stand-in for the creative work itself. If your business relies on AI-assisted content and you need clarity on what you actually own, or you're facing a dispute over material generated with these tools, the intellectual property attorneys atBraslow Legal can help you sort through the ownership questionsAI-generated content and copyright law raise before they turn into a costly problem.

Quick answers

Can I copyright content I made with ChatGPT or Midjourney?

Only the parts you authored. If you meaningfully selected, arranged, or revised the material, those human contributions can be protected — the raw AI output itself cannot.

Does typing a detailed prompt make me the author?

No. Under current Copyright Office guidance, the expressive choices in the output are made by the system, so prompts alone do not create authorship, no matter how detailed.

Do I have to tell the Copyright Office that AI was involved?

Yes. Applications must disclose AI-generated material that is more than minimal, and omitting it can put the registration at risk.

Non-Compete and Non-Solicitation Clauses in Florida: What Changed and What Business Owners Need to Know

The short version: Florida now runs two non-compete regimes side by side. Traditional agreements still follow the reasonableness rules of Section 542.335, but under the CHOICE Act, higher-earning employees who get proper notice can be held to non-competes of up to four years — and courts must enjoin likely violations. Every Florida employer’s template deserves a fresh look.

A Tampa medical device company spends eighteen months training a sales rep on proprietary pricing models and a client list built over a decade. She leaves for a direct competitor six months later. Whether the company can stop her turns on the same question business owners across the state are asking: was there a non-compete clause in Florida that actually holds up, and does it cover what they thought it covered?

Florida has always been friendlier to employers on this front than most states, but the rules shifted meaningfully in 2025. The Florida CHOICE Act took effect on July 1 of that year and layered a new, more aggressive framework on top of the existing statute. Business owners who haven't touched their employment agreements since then are likely working with outdated documents, and employees who assume these clauses are unenforceable are operating on old assumptions too.

The Baseline That Still Applies

Section 542.335 of the Florida Statutes has governed restrictive covenants since the late 1990s, and it remains in effect for any agreement that doesn't qualify under the new CHOICE Act framework. A non-compete under this statute is enforceable if it's in writing, signed, tied to a legitimate business interest such as trade secrets or substantial customer relationships, and reasonable in time, geography, and scope. Courts have generally treated restrictions of six months or less as presumptively reasonable and anything beyond two years as presumptively unreasonable. Most non-competes signed by Florida employees, especially those earning modest to mid-range salaries, will keep being evaluated under this older framework.

What the CHOICE Act Actually Changed

The CHOICE Act didn't replace section 542.335. It created a separate, optional path that gives employers stronger enforcement tools for a specific category of highly paid workers. To qualify as a "covered employee," a worker's salary has to exceed twice the annual mean wage for the relevant Florida county, a threshold that lands somewhere between roughly $80,000 and $150,000 depending on location. Healthcare practitioners are excluded entirely.

For employees who clear that bar, a covered non-compete can run for up to four years, doubling what courts had generally treated as the outer limit under the old statute. A covered garden leave agreement can require an employer to keep paying an employee's full salary and benefits for up to four years while barring them from working elsewhere, even though the employee isn't doing the job anymore.

Getting the benefit of these longer terms isn't automatic. An employer has to advise the employee in writing of the right to consult an attorney, give at least seven days to review the agreement, and have the employee acknowledge in writing that they're receiving confidential information or customer relationships as part of the deal. Skip any of those steps and the agreement falls back to the older, more limited statute.

The four-year term is the headline number, but the more consequential change is how courts handle disputes once filed. A judge is required to issue a preliminary injunction stopping a covered employee from working for a competitor once the employer shows the agreement qualifies and a violation likely occurred. The employee then carries the burden of proving, by clear and convincing evidence, that they won't use confidential information or perform similar work, or that the employer breached its own obligations. That flips the usual dynamic where an employer has to prove ongoing harm before a court will freeze the situation, and an employee may find themselves blocked from a new job before the dispute is resolved on the merits.

Non-Solicitation Clauses Follow Different Rules

Non-solicitation agreements restrict a departing employee from pursuing former clients or poaching former coworkers rather than barring them from working in the industry altogether. They get evaluated under the same legitimate-business-interest framework but tend to draw less judicial pushback, since restricting contact with a defined list of clients someone personally serviced is easier to defend than a blanket prohibition on working in the field. Agencies, financial advisory firms, and other sales-driven businesses often get more practical value out of a well-drafted non-solicitation clause than an aggressive non-compete that invites a fight.

What Business Owners Should Actually Do

Reviewing existing agreements against the new framework is the first practical step, since a contract drafted before 2025 won't automatically pick up CHOICE Act protections just because the law changed. Employers who want the longer terms and the injunction advantage need new agreements, or amendments, that satisfy the notice and disclosure requirements from the start, and that means identifying which employees actually clear the compensation threshold before applying that language to them.

For employees, assuming a signed non-compete won't hold up is a risky bet in Florida. Courts here enforce these agreements regularly, and the 2025 changes make that even more true for higher earners. Reading the geographic scope and compensation threshold before signing avoids a far more expensive conversation later.

Building Agreements That Hold Up

Florida's restrictive covenant law rewards precision over aggression. A non-compete clause in Florida that's broader than necessary invites a court to modify it, and one that skips the CHOICE Act's procedural requirements loses the benefit of the new law without gaining anything in return. Whether you're structuring agreements for key employees, negotiating an exit, or facing a dispute over one already in place, the business and employment attorneys atBraslow Legal can help you draft anon-compete clause in Florida that fits your actual risk and holds up when it counts.

Quick answers

Are non-compete agreements enforceable in Florida?

Yes — Florida is among the most enforcement-friendly states in the country, and the CHOICE Act made qualifying agreements with higher earners stronger still.

Who counts as a covered employee under the CHOICE Act?

Generally, employees earning more than twice the annual mean wage of their Florida county — roughly $80,000 to $150,000 depending on location — who received the required notice, review period, and acknowledgments.

How long can a Florida non-compete last now?

Up to four years for covered employees under the CHOICE Act. Agreements outside that framework still follow the older reasonableness limits, where about two years is the usual outer bound.