Too often, expansion-minded business owners opt for a strategy offering trademarked products or services through licensing arrangements or distribution or dealership systems only to discover, well into the game, that what they have really done is turn themselves into franchisors—“accidental franchisors,” maybe, but franchisors nonetheless.

This is good news for the entrepreneur who runs a sophisticated business operation capable of meeting the many punctilios of California franchise law. It is bad news for the entrepreneur who doesn’t. In fact, it can spell disaster for the unwitting entrepreneur who steps over the fine line that separates franchising from other commercial arrangements involving trademarked goods or services.