Understanding the basics of intellectual property law is a good first step for business owners and the three most common protective measures include a trademark, a patent or a copyright.

Is 14 too young to get into coffee? It wasn’t for Randall Echevarria. He grew up in Crescent City on the California/Oregon border, and the small town’s first coffee shop gave him his very first job. He started as a barista and moved up in the ranks over four years, his favorite part being the beverage development. Turns out, this high school gig was just warm-up.

PG&E piloted the Summer Jobs Program in Fresno in 2012, then expanded it to Sacramento and Bakersfield in 2013. Since the program’s inception, PG&E has invested nearly $4 million to help 900 high school students find summer jobs.

New businesses can struggle with ‘timesaving’ apps and tools that require too much learning and not enough advantages.

On New Mohawk Road in Nevada City, the 27,000-square-foot facility has three components: a training academy, business accelerator and coworking lab for established companies. The academy will include classes that can last from a weekend to up to six months. The Green Screen Institute will hire industry experts on a contract basis to teach the classes. The idea is to develop the workforce needed for the influx of virtual reality and augmented reality companies.

Imagine picking up your marriage license at the mall, or registering your baby’s birth at a kiosk near the escalators. Seems hard to imagine, right? It’s almost too convenient. But these are realities for one neighborhood in Nice, France, where locally-made Cisco technology is changing the way residents interact.

ExtraPlate puts homecooked meals on the map as an on-demand food marketplace that works like Uber or Lyft for hungry consumers.

George Lucas is reportedly considering his home state of California as the location for his proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Let’s ponder for a moment why Sacramento might be the perfect place.

I’m a 27-year-old high school English teacher, but my long-term goal is to open a performing arts school. I’m torn between obtaining an MFA so that I may bring a strong creative background to my future students, and earning a business degree so that I may learn how to run the school. I worry the MBA will be too broad but that the MFA will be less valuable.

After plans for a massive upgrade to the historic Crystal Ice and Cold Storage building went up in smoke, Mike Heller and his team were forced back to the drawing board — here’s how they forged ahead.