Minneapolis Employment Attorneys & Lawyers

Learn More about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

You’ve heard the term over and over throughout the years, but what exactly is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)? The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010. It is also referred to as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. The Act was implemented to improve the quality of health insurance, regulate the health industry, and provide more Americans with affordable health insurance.

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What Is an Option Pool?

An option pool is a way a startup company can acquire talented employees by offering them stock if the company does well enough to go public. Employees receive percentages of the option pool when they're hired, with the amount changing based on how early the employee joins the company and what their position within the company is.

An option pool is a percentage of a company reserved for employees. New companies create option pools by setting aside common stock shares, and granting these shares to employees as a way to pull new talent into a startup.

Option pools are also called employee stock option pool (ESOP.)

Companies use option pools because:

• They want to offer an incentive other than money when they don't have much capital
• They want to give employees a reason to work hard enough for the company to go public (to make the pool worth something)

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How Much Does It Cost to Patent an Idea?

If you have an idea to patent, there are two ways to approach it. You can:

• Write your own patent application. This is the cheapest way to get your patent application done. It costs an average of $900 for most inventors to receive a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
• Hire a patent attorney to file your application. With this option, you will hire a patent agent or attorney who will help you perform the research and fill out the patent application with the USPTO. This route can run anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 depending on the complexity and amount of time the application takes.

During a typical patent for an invention or process, much of the expense outside of advisor fees are fees imposed by the USPTO. Some of the fees associated with acquiring a patent include:

• Filing for a provisional pate

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With the rise of companies such as Uber and Lyft, the attempt to define the workplace role of the independent contractor is gaining serious traction. How can you be sure whether your next employee should be an independent contractor, and what steps can you take to ensure governmental compliance?

1. Understand What an Independent Contractor Is

To understand what an independent contractor is, think about when you hire plumber. When you need your toilet fixed, you are calling an independent contractor. You don’t tell your plumber what to wear or when you when he can come to work, and you certainly don’t provide vacation benefits or sick time. Independent contractors provide services to you or your business on a project basis. According to the SBA, independent contractors:

a. Have a busi

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Phantom Stock: What Is It?

Phantom stock is an employee benefit where selected employees receive benefits of stock ownership without the company giving them actual stock. It is worth money just like real stock, and its value rises and falls with the company's actual stock (or what the company is valued at, if it's not a publicly traded company). Employees are paid out profits at the end of a pre-determined length of time.

Also known as shadow stock, simulated stock, or phantom shares, phantom stock is provided as a bonus for hard work and longevity. One form of phantom stock is Stock Appreciation Rights.

There isn't one exact definition of what phantom stock is or how companies use it. The term can apply to any reward that takes time to mature. Usually, the award is for a specific number of units, or phantom shares, that follow the price of the company's actual shares — going up as the

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