Okay, welcome guys to day one of VIP congratulations that you guys are actually in VIP.
My intention is really answer all of your questions in a lot of detail.
But same time, just keep in mind, I can't give you legal advice.
So what I mean by that is, I can tell you what the law says in certain areas.
But what I can't do is I can't tell you in this situation, you should do this or not
situation you should do that.
Or this definitely is infringement.
That's definitely not infringement.
I can't do that.
But I can show you what needs to be assessed and making the evaluation so that you can
make the evaluation or you can bring the information to your attorney being well informed, right
because the intent of this is not to phase out attorneys.
Matter of fact, I have a lot of attorneys that are actually sponsoring this meeting
that they, they call me up, they're really excited about doing this because they know
that the clients that come to them are better informed, which, you know, as an example today,
as I mentioned to you earlier, Joyce, I was talking to somebody for an hour explaining
the differences between design patents, utility patents, statutory bars, US versus foreign
filing, all sorts of stuff, and not a minute of that was billable, right?
Imagine doing that all day.
Like, I mean, you know, businesses that sell products, within a minute, you can sell 100
users, 1000 units, right?
Lawyers can actually bill the entire time that they're working, and that's it.
So it's it's not there's only so much time in a day.
So but what I'm trying to do really is get people to understand these concepts.
And so this is, this is proven to be really successful in doing that.
So I'm really enjoying this.
But I want to start out by just answering questions like, we covered a good amount today,
which is typically what happens day one is busy, day two is usually the busiest.
And then it starts to calm down.
Like day two, people are like, what, what, day one, they're kind of like getting their
their legs about them.
And so we covered a number of things, descriptiveness, we covered what trademarks are, I touched
base a little bit on domain names, I'm going to talk a little bit more about that here
going to do go in a little more detail on a trademark search here.
So you can actually see how to do trademark searches in a lot more detail what those fields
really mean.
But I want to just check in with you, Jay and Joyce and Miguel, if there are specific
questions you have, just either raise your virtual hand or unmute yourself and just go
right ahead. Yeah, Joyce, go ahead.
OK, I guess we'll take it one at a time.
I have several questions.
I didn't know I had questions until I was in the church.
I have been, I think, in 2001, I was given a like, like a written language from God.
And it's turned into it looks almost like art, but it's I'm putting it out for sale under
a gift of prayer.com, I think is the website I've chosen so far.
I might change the name after you.
But a friend of mine took it to Stanford linguist.
I was living in San Francisco at the time.
So I said, I don't know if this is language, but I don't know if it's real or not.
But anyway, what it turns out to be is there's it's just like almost automatic writing, but
Holy Spirit. And then it's got a lot of crosses.
And it turned out to be intercession.
And so I'm does that is that like a copyright or a trademark?
You mean fonts?
No, it's not fonts.
It's like I do literal page after page after page.
I do like single sheets that are like people say, pray for me about this.
So I pray and the writing comes out of me.
And it's when you say a writing, is it is it using are you creating your own language or are
using the alphabet or like what are you?
There is no alphabet.
So it's basically a creative writing.
Right. Yeah, that's copyright law.
Copyright. OK.
Yeah. All right.
Copyright law comes in now.
There's a number of different things that potentially that can break down into, but that's
copyright law. And yet we'll learn that later.
Yeah, we'll jump into that on day three.
OK. And then I just said, quick.
I tried to put notes, question marks.
Like, my question on the trademarks is like, it seems like, wow, if I've been using, and
this is one of my domains that I've had for years, but now I'm literally going to get
it active.
It's going to be a bit, it's been to be a business for all these years, but today's
the day, called Worthy Lamb.
And so that's a very, that's a common name.
There are many Worthy Lamb applications I looked on online, but mine is a character
in stories and products I would want to develop out of that.
So I didn't know if I could put trademark on that, even though it's such a familiar
phrase and, you know, words, and I don't think it's a descriptive, I was trying to understand
that descriptive thing.
Does that make sense?
You're saying Worthy Lamb?
So is it the character, is this like in a children's book or something like that?
So if there's a character in a book and it's called Worthy Lamb?
I mean, trademark comes into place where you're trying to identify goods or services, right?
So if I create like a character in a book, like whatever the name is, let's say like
Spider-Man, right?
That makes it easier because obviously it's a famous comic book, right?
So if I use Spider-Man in a book, it's not really using it as an identification of a
source of goods.
It's a character in a book.
A trademark identifies a source of goods or services.
So if I have like Spider-Man and underneath it, like I'm selling, let's say Spider-Man
comic books, and the title is Spider-Man, that's protectable because there's a series
of books under that name, right?
So that makes it protectable under trademark law.
If I have, let's say Spider-Man t-shirts or Spider-Man costumes, those are all protectable.
But if I just have a character whose name is Spider-Man in a book, I'm not using it
as a source of goods or services.
It's just a character in a book, right?
So now the writing of the book itself, the comic book itself is protectable under copyright
law, right?
So any writing becomes protectable under copyright law.
But again, just having a random character's name in a book in and of itself, it's not
really a trademark.
I would have to use it as a trademark to actually be able to obtain certain legal rights as
a trademark.
I'm going to lower my table and sit down.
I've been standing the entire time.
Let's have this go down.
There we go.
All right, good enough.
So what was the, Joyce, I think you're muted, so.
Yeah.
What if I, my intention has always been to create products out of where they land, the
books.
So that's something that I was going to teach on tomorrow.
So there's a thing called an intent to use trademark application.
So trademarks can be, you can have an actual use application.
So I'm using it, actually using it.
That's called an actual use application under Section 1A.
Or there is, if I'm going to potentially use something, but I'm not using it yet.
That's called an intent to use trademark application.
So I can, that's a Section 1B trademark application.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right, let me go over to Jay.
And then if you have another question, you can jump back in.
Jay, go right ahead.
Jay, what is that in the background?
So I actually have a day job.
I work in IT computers, right?
So, yeah, that's an antique phone system that you're looking at.
Wow.
In the background, right?
Yeah.
So who knew, right?
That's massive.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I just, yeah, so whatever.
Yeah.
So I work for a Fortune 500 company.
And I'm more so just more so here because I really liked your AI law class.
That was fantastic.
Oh, thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
That was just, you know, hats off, right?
Top notch.
Thank you.
So as part of trying to talk about AI to my folks at work,
certainly I'm trying to expand.
I realized that there's a lot of IP law here
that I have no idea about.
And so just trying to get my feet wet,
and just as everyone else with, hey, I have an idea, right?
That was certainly not my intent joining the call,
but since I'm here, right?
You know, one of the thoughts that I had myself
was like to try to come up with some sort
of a school education program, right?
So I went and registered a domain, right?
But the, you know, from what you're saying, right?
Descriptive, right?
So certainly I feel like I fall
into that descriptive path, right?
So like, I can't register,
like United States college program, right?
And just to come up with, you know,
some training pointers, right?
And so certainly that falls, I think,
right into the descriptive, right?
So I think certainly I'm in trouble there,
but I'm not in it to make money, right?
So, you know, I have a day job, right?
You know, this would be for fun, right?
And just to try to help some folks.
So the question really comes up,
if I really don't care about, you know,
as long as I can trademark like the logos
and the website domain, you know,
so that no one could take it away from me,
really, that's what I'm concerned about.
I'm not necessarily concerned about somebody using it,
right, because I think in order for, you know,
an educational thing to be useful,
schools don't have money.
So certainly give the use away of those domains, right?
Or the logos and stuff like that, right?
So, you know, do you feel like there's some way
of protecting, you know, what I'm referring to
as just creating a protection for myself
so no one else can just grab it underneath me?
Yeah, it's a great question.
When we use names that are descriptive,
then you're right, we can't own those names
because other people can just use the same name.
We can't stop them.
However, you can come up with a clearly distinguishable logo
that doesn't include those words,
you know, that has a design in it.
You can have some kind of design that's unique.
You can come out with a brand like coloring.
See what people forget,
they think that brand only consists of like a trademark
and that's not the case.
Brand actually includes a lot of different things.
So it can include your color scheme,
it can include your fonts,
it can include like your voice,
the audio associated with it.
It includes like, it can include your copy,
the tone in your copy,
can include your trademarks themselves.
So if you try to do some level of protection
based on what you're building,
your trainings themselves would include like materials,
right?
So if it's an e-course,
then you're gonna have some kind of handouts probably.
Those are protectable under copyright law.
The logo itself that you utilize,
that's protectable under trademark law
if it's potentially available.
If you create a funnel or a website
and it has a certain color tone to it,
that's potentially protectable under trade dress law,
depending on how distinguished it becomes.
Like Russell Bronson has certain looks
that he has to his funnels.
Those are protectable under not only copyright law
for the text,
but under trade dress law for the design itself,
the look and feel, right?
So there's a number of different areas
where potential protection is available.
If that is the name that you're in love with,
then essentially the extent of your protection
will fall into the materials under copyright law,
the logo under trademark law,
and then potentially trade dress,
which is kind of harder to prove.
But those are really,
that'll probably be the extent of the protection
that's potentially available.
But more importantly, I think,
by using a descriptive name or business name,
not really that's a business, right?
But like a organizational name, right?
At least nobody else could, in theory,
register that name, right?
Correct.
They can't do anything like that, right?
So-
That is absolutely correct.
So you don't have to worry about potentially
infringing upon somebody else's registration
because you're using the same registration
and you're using a descriptive term.
So by the mere fact that you can't own it
means that you can't infringe
because you can't own it, right?
So that means nobody can own it.
So that's one good thing that's available
with a term that's descriptive.
And in fact, what I've seen people do, you have to be really good at this, but you can become an
exclusive owner of something that is descriptive and then end up owning it, which is it's bizarre.
It takes a good 10 years to be able to prove that, but I've seen it happen.
So that's fine. I'm not trying to, you know, again, I'm not trying to make money on this.
Right. Right. Right. And one thing to keep in mind when when we're talking about owning things,
it's not always about, you know, making money. Quite often what what owning these things allows
us to do is we get to control the quality of what is provided to a third party so other people
aren't misled. All right. So as an example, let's say you have an incredible educational program
and you're genuinely helping people. If you want to maintain the authenticity of the quality so
that other people are not misled by people using shortcuts and people using like the wrong
processes, then you want to own your own name because then people know, oh, when you go there,
you're getting the real deal. You're getting the real training. You're you're obtaining a
certain quality that's going to transform your business versus another party who can now use the
same name and then draw people to them and give them something less than what you're actually
providing. So there's something about being a good steward of what we are blessed to have,
quite frankly. You know, it's like like we got this incredible idea. I'm like, wow, like that's
amazing. So now we want to make sure that whatever that is, that we're releasing to others like this
training. The reason why I own Protection Portal, the reason why you own like the logo is that
people can say, right, when you go there, that guy's going to take the time to make sure you get
it. And like, you know, he wants to make sure that what he's teaching is not wrong. Now, what if
somebody else used a name, like say I use a descriptive term, somebody else uses a descriptive
term, they can create their own program. People think that it's this program. They go in there
and they're getting the wrong information. They're getting misguided. So there's something about
stewarding it well ourselves. It's not just about making money all the time. At times, it's really
protecting what's been bestowed upon us so we can help others. Yeah, that was good. And just
going. Thank you. And then just the other one I had was on the on the earlier session. There was
on the I looked up a few sites and I noticed the term live and dead. What does that refer to? Yeah,
that's a great question. Let me show you. Let me pull that up. That's a really good question.
So
I'm really glad Jay that you brought that up because I never really had a member say that
before. But it's so important to protect your customers and audience base by making sure that
they're going to the right place when people knock things off. So that's that was a great,
great contribution. I'm so glad you asked. Yeah, it's unfortunate when, you know, often like when
we when we're building a business, we're thinking about our own financial gain, which makes sense.
Obviously, we're investing money in building something. But there's something about the fact
that you were entrusted with something that is important and that you're taking the time to serve
others really well. You want to make sure that they're receiving the quality of what you have
to give. And by doing that, by honoring that gift set that you have, by honoring that relationship
that you have with others, I think more is provided. You know, the ones who actually steward
well what they're given tend to get more. And so let me just show you this dead thing here. Can you
see that? Yeah, I see it. OK, great. So the reason when you click on this, you'll see live, you'll
see dead. Live means that the trademark is present, is currently alive, meaning it's enforceable. Dead
means that it existed at one time, either as an application or as a registration. And it's
currently dead, meaning that it doesn't it there's no legal rights associated with it.
So when I click on this, you'll see here abandoned to that. So abandoned means that the trademark
is no longer the federal registration is no longer enforceable. Now, the term abandoned like.
For trademarks, when something's dead,
does not mean that the party does not have
any legal rights in any way, shape, or form.
It means that they don't have a federal registration,
but they might still have certain common law rights.
A party can decide not to maintain a trademark.
They could say, you know what?
We're going to save money this year.
We're not going to renew this federal registration.
Because you have to continue to renew
your trademark every five years.
So they can decide, you know what?
We're not going to renew because we have like 300 trademarks.
We're going to let this one go.
We're not using it that much.
But since they've been selling product
throughout the United States, they
may actually have certain legal rights under common law,
even though they no longer have rights
under a federal trademark.
However, the big thing on this one, if you notice,
is there is no registration number.
See that?
So if it's dead and there's no registration number,
that means that it was filed and abandoned.
And the way you can prove that is you just
click on this button right up here.
It is a TSDR.
You click on the TSDR.
It shows you the status of the case itself.
Abandoned because no statement of use or extension request
timely filed with the notice of allowance was issued.
So that's basically telling you that they filed the application
and the case was allowed, but they didn't
file the statement of use.
And so for that reason, the case went abandoned.
And you can even click on the documents
here and see exactly what happened.
See intention to use.
That's an ITU's intention to use.
They filed an extension.
And then they didn't file anything.
The USPTO sent them a notice of abandonment.
And then it went abandoned.
OK.
So that's what that dead and live means.
But if you notice that there is no registration number,
then that means that it was only an application, never
advanced to actual registration.
Yeah.
So then just the only follow up question,
which I'm glad you picked Nike because I was actually
looking at the same one.
So I see the word Nike and I see they felt the need
to also trademark like Nike Air or Nike Go, right?
Does that mean that Nike Fred is available for use?
That's a good question.
So you notice that they have Nike as well, right?
So let's say you had Nike Fred or something like that.
And you wanted to use it for footwear.
The fact is that they own Nike for footwear.
So you cannot take a federally registered trademark
and add a word to it to try to get around trademark
infringement.
So if their federal registration is within your registration,
that's a problem.
Or within your trademark, that's a problem.
OK.
And so the reason why they've created multiple trademarks
is just to see why is that the only purpose for that or?
No, they have different brands.
And so they'll have different trademarks for different brands
that they're utilizing.
So you'll have like Nike Air, Nike Luna, Nike Vapor.
Those are different lines.
Now, they own the word Nike.
So if somebody came out with Nike Lunar,
they would obviously infringe even if they only own Nike.
But if they use Lunar alone, they probably
wanted to own the name Lunar.
But probably were not able to get a registration for Lunar
alone.
So they added the word Nike to it
to make it more distinct so they can get their registration.
Because if you tried to own the name Air alone for sneakers,
you probably wouldn't be able to.
But once you add Nike in front of Air,
you can get a registration.
So it could be a number of reasons
why they add the word Nike in front of it.
It could be just that as a brand,
they always use the name Nike before the other word.
Some companies always do that.
They always have their normal name before their trademarks.
That's one way that some brands work.
And then the other thing is some of these words
that come afterward, Nike, are just basic words
that other people would have.
Like the word town.
You can't own the word town.
So does that mean I'll go back to the descriptive discussion
we had at the beginning?
Does that mean that if I come up with some snappy name
or something like that that's very unique,
that I can then trademark descriptive names after that?
like they did with Nike town. Well, if you have your own, let's say you have your own distinct
trademark, right? Let's say it's like Feshier is your trademark. You can, and you can get a
federal registration for that. You could add any descriptive term you want after that, because
all they're going to count on is the trademarkable portion. That's it.
It's like Microsoft Excel. Well, the word Excel exists. Like Microsoft doesn't work on the word
Excel alone. They, you know, so it's like, you would have to have a situation where.
So like Nike Air, right? So, you know, yeah. Nike Air, good example. Like Nike Air, right? So
Air is a descriptive name, you know, presumably, right. The Air and the Seekers, right. So it's
describing this. Yeah. Like this one right here, Nike Golf, like they have right there, Nike Golf.
Right. I mean, golf is descriptive. I'm sure this trademark is being used for golf. If I click on it,
what does it say? Footwear. I'm sure this is all being used for golf. Right. Well, they can't own
the word golf alone. See, and it even says here, no claim is made exclusive right to use golf
apart from the market shown. Right. So then in theory that I could, you know, make, if I could
get like a weird name, I don't know, Zana or something like that. Right. If I could make up
some weird name and then put that in front and then put the descriptive term afterwards,
then that may be trademarkable. Correct. And the reason why it's trademarkable is because that
first word is trademarkable, not because the second word is trademarkable. Right. So, but,
but I could get two trademarks, right. I could get the trademark on the weird name and then I could
then do like they did with Nike Town or Nike Air. Yes, that's exactly right. So, and that's what a
lot of companies will do. They'll own the, the unique name alone is the company name and then
they have all these brands. Right. Right. Right. Okay. That's good. Yeah. I mean, Samsung, like
Sony, there's a number of them. I used to represent Boston. Actually, I still represent Boston
Acoustics. Boston Acoustics has many, many, many different types of speakers. Now they're way
smaller than they used to be. They got bought out by Denon and Marantz, which then got bought
out by Massimo. Right. But, you know, they, they had all these different lines, but it was always
the Boston, blah, blah, blah, like Boston Acoustics, Microsystem, Boston, blah, blah, blah. It was
always Boston, Boston, Boston. So, yeah. So you, you come out with a, although in that case,
what was interesting in the United States, we were able to get a registration for the
name Boston for audio speakers. In China, we couldn't because in China, the word is the,
the law says that you can't get a trademark for a geographical region and Boston is a geographical
region. Right. Right. And so in China, we could never get the registration. So we had to do some
unique thing. We actually did the, we got a registration for, this was really cool.
We get a registration for the Chinese characters that said Boston, but we filed it as an artistic
work instead of a wordmark. Oh, okay. That's how we bypassed the whole system, you know, and we won.
But sometimes you got to get really creative. Right. Right. I'm surprised you were able to
get Boston. That, that certainly sounds like a descriptive term, right? Cause they're right.
But the big thing is that the name Boston is not descriptive of speakers. Oh, right. Oh, I got you.
There's nothing. It always comes down to what are the goods or the services. That's how it,
that's how you look at it. The goods and services. If the term is descriptive of the goods and
services, that's the problem. If it's not descriptive of the goods and services, you're fine.
Very good. All right. Excellent. Thank you. Absolutely. Yeah. Great questions. Joyce,
did you have another question? Actually I should check and see if Miguel has a question. Miguel,
do you have a question as well? And if you do, you'll have to unmute, but we'd also love to see
your face on camera. If you're with us, I don't see that he does. Joyce go right ahead.
You just have to unmute.
Okay. When you were talking about trademarks, if we see no trademark on others like that
worthy lamp thing that I was thinking about, if we look at their website, their products,
whatever, and there's no trademark showing, does that help determine that I might be the first one
to claim it? Or what does that mean? Because I was a little confused about,
but then you said it was first to file for wins. And
but i'm trying to determine i mean we do the search but then don't some people put trademark
on and they didn't really trademark it anyway or copyright it yeah you you remember you have
certain legal rights under trademark law even if you don't file anything right right so you can use
a tm the second you start using the trademark in interstate commerce you can use a tm okay
so you don't even need a federal registration okay because i was just wondering if it just
seems risky to me you know i just want to be sure but you start using it and then somebody
i'll do the search but then if somebody shows up then i guess i'm paying you $600 well what
you want to do is you you compare you compare your trademark to the others right meaning
what are the goods or services i'll give you an example let me walk you through this okay
oh let me share my screen again
okay so this is a trademark that's owned by nike right
you see the goods here yes footwear clothing namely caps gloves right these are the actual
goods so that limits them there it does it okay so let's say that somebody came out with nike golf
for flowers that has nothing to do with footwear hats jackets pants rainwear shirts shorts box
sweaters sweatshirts t-shirts vest visors and warm-up suits wow that seems risky for them
i could make nike golf greeting cards or well but here's the thing and the reason why i mentioned
before is that if somebody has a famous trademark they get a lot more strength
the federal district court will give them much more leeway because they'll ask okay
why in the world did you use nike golf for plans like that's they're gonna ask that question though
like you know what what in the world does nike golf have to do with plants
and you know it might be a little difficult to defend that well um you know we just i just
randomly came up with it i decided to come up with my new floral line called nike golf
just randomly yeah that doesn't make sense yeah it'd be a little difficult okay to do that so
for that reason um i tend to tell people stay far away from famous trademarks if the only reason
why you're using a trademark is because it's famous don't use it it's it's just a bad idea
because they are they are really um like i like i said i've been up against mcdonald's
microsoft um these guys are highly litigious you know they want to fight yeah you know they have
and a lot of these have these companies have in-house counsel which means they're already
being paid the lot the corporation is not paying extra money to hire a lawyer they already own the
lawyers but the lawyers work for them so they're just sitting around looking for something to do
like don't justify themselves yeah yeah definitely do not give them an excuse to
to do something um not not a good thing okay i think that answers my question so
i'm not sure what question was but okay good good all right let me show you
uh let me go into the search let's go a little more into the search over here just so you all
um since you guys are here in vip now i need to get your questions answered but
you get to see a little bit about some extra features here so looking under the fields
i use non-punctuated word mark a lot um but let me show you these other ones so you know what they
mean you're not you're never going to use abandonment date because you're not going to
know what the date is um you're not going to use affidavits that's usually used if if there were
something filed with with the uspto but you're not going to deal with that assignment recorded
that's the date um so let's say you you have a trademark it was filed in your name and you want
to sign all right title and interest to your company you would file an assignment that's
what that assignment is okay so but you wouldn't know the date of recordation so you probably
wouldn't look at that attorney of record if you want to see all the things that i filed you could
look up by name just type it in there you're never going to use a basic index you're never
going to use that coordinated class cancellation date you won't care change the registration you
don't care current basis so that's like the section
1A or 1B. 1A is an actual use trademark application, meaning you file the application
with a specimen showing that it's actually being used. 1B is an intent to use application, so that's
you know, you file the application saying I will use it in the future, I'm not using it now,
and then at some point you're going to have to show proof of actual use. So
it's called a section 1B application. It's called an intent to use trademark application.
One of the hardest things for people to come up with is a new trademark, like a name that nobody
else has ever used. Very difficult to come up with because there's only so many letters in the
English alphabet and only so many sequences that you can use, so it gets kind of difficult to come
up with a new name. So if you come up with a new name and you're not using it for a product
or service yet, you can actually file an intent to use application instead of an actual use
application. An intent to use application is under section 1B, and with that filing,
you can file your application, get it allowed, but not registered, and then at the point of
getting allowed, you have to show proof of using it. You can file extensions for three whole years
until you actually use it. So there's a lot, there's a lot of leeway that the United States
Patent and Trademark Office gives you if you come up with a new name and you're not ready to use yet.
A decimal mark you never use, a description of the mark, that's like if it's a logo,
you know, you're kind of describing what the logo looks like, right? Now what's interesting is this
other thing here, design description, is very similar to description of the mark.
So if the mark is a design, that actually describes the description of the
design description. Description of the mark here is more like,
actually, I know it's going to be easier just to show you. Let me just come over here. Oh,
I got it too. The engine shuts down after a while so that everybody can use it.
Peter, you're teaching too well.
Yeah, let me see. I'll show you guys, I'll show you what that means in real life so you don't
have to guess. There it is, footwear. Was it a good display? And the good thing again, you guys
are VIP, so you get the replays for like 90 days. So you can go back and look at this later
to see what things mean. All right, so if I come over here, Nike.
Here it is, see description of the mark, the color, the logo is blue, see how it describes
the mark itself. That's what it's actually doing. All right, so now what's interesting though is
that there is a description of the, what's the other one? Let me go back.
Description of the mark and then design description, that's the other one. So if
it's a design mark, it does the same thing. It just describes what the design looks like.
Disclaimer statement, you're not going to use that. You're not going to use this distinctive
of limitation thing. If you want to see all the trademarks filed in one day, just put it in the
date by clicking following date. Full mark, I suggest if you ever do a trademark search,
never to choose full mark because full mark is like the exact same trademark, which means you're
not going to get anything that's related to it where there might be a potential likelihood of
confusion, meaning that you might be liable for infringement. You're only going to get the exact
same thing. So I tend to tell people don't use that, use the non-punctuated word mark instead.
Goods and services are exactly that. That's why I chose down here for footwear.
It's exactly what it's used for. International class,
the international classes, I will explain to you guys tomorrow. Every good or service
has a number associated with it. And so I'm going to show you what those numbers are and
how you can figure them out. International registration number, that's just a registration
number. Live or dead, you already know, we walked through that. You don't have to worry about these.
All right, now we get to the ones I like. Non-punctuated word mark, love that. That's
essentially, it has your mark in it, plus it could include more. Original filing basis is section 1a
or 1b. Other data, don't care. Owner's name, if you want to see all the trees.
Marks that are owned by your competition.
That's what you choose.
Owner's name.
And you search for that company.
Name and address.
I mean, you can put in the name and address if you want,
but most people just use the name.
Priority date, you don't care.
The reason, what priority date does is,
let's say you file an application
and somebody else files an application.
The priority date's the earlier date.
So whoever filed first wins.
And so you're looking at the filing date,
but then priority date is,
let's say you file in a foreign country
and within six months, you seek rights in the United States.
You can do that.
It's called foreign filing off of a single application,
but you have to do it within six months.
If you do that, then it'll have a separate priority date.
Physical filing date is the actual filing date.
Pseudomark, you're not gonna know or care about.
Published for opposition, you're not gonna care.
Prior registration, you're not gonna care.
Registration date, you're not gonna care.
Renewals, registration number.
If you know the actual number of the registration
of another party, that's where you enter that.
Section 44 is you won't do.
Serial numbers, second you file a trademark application,
you get that number.
You can type in that number and file the trademark.
Serial, you won't care.
Single design code, you won't care.
This one, you won't care.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Yeah, you won't care about any of the rest.
So that's kind of a breakdown of all the parts
that can be looked at for a trademark application.
There's a lot of different parts that you can use.
Joyce, yeah, go ahead.
You did it again.
Under owner name and address,
do we have any responsibility when we're checking
because of that common law geographical requirement?
Does that make sense to you?
Common law, you said like Denton, Destin, Florida.
And if I'm checking to see, I'm going in for area,
if I'm looking, anyway, do you understand what I'm saying?
Yeah, I'm pulling it up.
I know what you're talking about.
Hold on a second.
I'll show you.
All right, here we are on the screen again.
Let's do a submit query.
Let's just grab Nike Motiva.
Okay, and here you should have, see owner right there.
And there's the address, right?
That's it right there.
So they filed it.
If they have a registration,
then all you really care about is the federal registration
because they own all the United States.
If they filed an application,
this is actually more complex than I'm explaining to you,
but you asked, so I'm going to give you the answer.
So if they filed an application
and then the case went abandoned
and they didn't get a registration,
then what that tells you can be,
maybe it was rejected
by the United States Patent and Trademark Office,
whatever the case may be.
They may still have certain legal rights to the trademark,
even though they don't have a federal registration.
And so like, if they just abandoned the case,
it doesn't mean they're not using it internally.
The way you want to determine
if they're using something internally
is something I'll explain to you guys all tomorrow,
which is called the Wayback Machine.
It was created by MIT and using the Wayback Machine,
you can look at their prior websites
to see if they're still using that trademark.
So, but for now, if it's a federal registration,
it doesn't even matter.
Like doing a search doesn't even matter
because they own all of the United States.
It's not just-
I didn't realize, that's what I didn't realize
is that the trademark gives you the only thing to say.
Yeah, but in this case here, like Nike Motiva,
it's a 1B, which is what?
An intent to use application.
It's not an actual use application.
So that means that they filed it.
They said, we're going to potentially use it
and they haven't used it yet, right?
And they have three years.
They get up to three years of extensions.
Up to three years of extensions you can do, yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, it's all, it's possible.
So the reason why people do this
is they come up with a unique name
and they're like, wow, this is a great name
but we don't want to lose potential rights to it.
So let's file an application.
We just can't file an actual use application.
We have to file an intent to use application
because there is,
there is,
there is no actual use yet.
And we also don't want another party to use it.
So that's why the file is section 1B,
which is an intent to use application.
Do you tell us how much the application is cost to file?
Or is it-
Yeah, so a trademark application,
like my law firm charges $1,200 as a flat fee.
And that includes the preparation of the application.
It includes, actually includes
the United States Patent and Trademark Office's
fee itself as well.
So like, cause the USPTO charges $250 or $350,
depending upon if you file a TEAS application or not.
TEAS, tomorrow, since you guys are in VIP,
you guys are actually gonna see
all the parts of a trademark application.
Cause I'm gonna walk through filing one online.
So everybody can see every single part
and ask any question that they want
on an actual application.
But the fee that I charge is like 1,200.
I mean, law firms charge anything from like 1,500 to 2,000.
And I've seen it up from that for an application.
But what I do is I try to do a flat fee for everything.
So it includes the filing costs, the USPTO fee,
all the way up into the first office section.
So that's basically one fee for like 10 months,
which makes people a lot.
In my experience, it makes people a lot happier
if they can manage their legal costs
as opposed to getting mysterious extra bills.
There's nothing, there's a few things more annoying
than thinking your business is doing great
and then randomly getting a bill for 2,500 bucks.
And you're like, what was that for?
Like, hold it.
What are you talking, what is this?
And so we try to make sure that none of that happens.
We just do, we try to do everything on flat fee if we can.
All right, and Peter, just for clarification too,
like didn't we have someone once they really didn't want
to fully do the whole process for the firm filing properly
because there's a proper way to do it
and in proper ways, obviously,
which is the nuances you guys get to learn here.
And then she didn't want Peter to handle something.
He kept recommending it and then she came,
when it came back 10 months later.
Oh yeah, it crashed, it was wrong.
He was so upset that it was, he was like,
I tried to-
Yeah, it was really, and just to be,
people know I'm not like,
there's no obligations, obviously.
I'm training you guys to set a good example in my heart.
This is not, you know, this isn't me trying to get clients.
I mean, if it happens, great, but that's not the intent.
But if you've never filed a trademark application
on your own, it's highly suggested that you don't
because you make a mistake, like you choose the wrong,
let's say you miss something in the recitation of goods
or services, or like you can end up in a situation
where you can't fix it,
in which case you got to file another application.
And that's what she ended up doing.
She ended up having to file another application
and it was unfortunate because she lost the priority date
of the trademark application filing.
Now she had been using an interstate commerce,
but that only gave her rights in a specific like city.
She lost legal rights throughout all the United States,
which is, I've seen the worst nightmares in trademarks.
I'm not trying to scare people into stuff,
but I've seen some really sad situations.
And the thing about trademarks is they're so easy.
Like, you know, it's not like writing a patent
that takes a long time.
Like, these are things you can do easily.
Like, I don't mean like filing yourself.
I mean, it's quick.
Like, it's not like a three week process.
There's not tons of review.
You know, these are things that should not be
remarkably complex and can be filed once and done, right?
And so you just, you don't want to make mistakes
on silly things, which again,
is one of the reasons why I did this.
All right, let me see if there's one more question or so.
I'll answer that and if not, we'll close for today
and we'll jump in tomorrow.
It's like going in deep tomorrow.
Miguel's been quiet.
Miguel, are you working in training?
Miguel's like, Miguel's recording.
All right, well, let me close there.
If you guys, like if you guys are in VIP
feel like this was beneficial to you,
I would go into Facebook group and let people know
so that they can experience.
it as well. They can get so many answers that they like. But I think we have like seven or eight
people that are in VIP. Yeah, there's a few. Not everybody can make it every day, but it is really
beneficial too to share it with other people just because the great part is other people usually
come with questions you may not have considered, which is, I mean, this is my favorite part.
But if they have questions you maybe didn't consider, you're like, oh man, I didn't even
think of that. So it's just a really fantastic contribution. So the more people are in,
the better, you know, the interaction just grows getting better and better.
So yeah, that is a really good point that what you find is the larger the group gets for VIP,
the more people learn in that time because they're all running into different scenarios.
And now you're like, whoa, I didn't even know. Yeah, they're all brilliant. You guys all are.
Yeah. But I'm just trying to make myself available to help everybody. So
happy to answer any questions. And so with that, one question. Yeah, go ahead, Jay.
So you see that the copyright logo on the bottom of websites, right? Does that,
you know, just on websites, I mean, obviously, nobody went and took that website and,
you know, took the images of it and then submitted it all for, you know, copyright,
you know, legal copyright, you know, what, what is the, can you just slap copyright logos on
anything that you've created or? Yeah, so I'll answer that in two ways.
Number one, the reason why Ray's laughing right now is because actually we have done exactly that.
We filed copyrights on a website. So I had a client called Bill Cope. He was out in Texas.
And he creates websites for dentists. And what was happening is people would come see his site
and they copy the whole site. And then they just, they have their own dental, you know,
they just copy it and run it and copy it and run it. So one day he reaches out to me and says,
Hey, I got your name from somebody at Georgia Tech. And so it is when I worked in Atlanta,
Georgia. And he says, I don't know what to do. Like, they're just, they're copying my website.
And, you know, and it's really frustrating. He says, and by the way, my wife's teeth are
on my website. And so people are taking pictures of my wife teeth and my wife teeth are all over
the internet. I said, Bill, why are your wife's teeth on your website in the first place? I mean,
that's the bigger question. But in any case, I said, well, we can't stop them under copyright
because you have certain legal rights to your copy and your images under copyright law. So
this is what we're going to do. We're going to print out your website. I'm going to file a $65
and back then I think it was $55 copyright application at copyright.gov. And then we're
going to send cease and desist letters to everybody. And we did. And then Bill said,
you know what, I'm paying legal fees for you to send these letters out. I want them to pay me
for the money that I'm using, you know, on you. I said, actually, that's a good idea. That's fair.
You know, they're committing copyright infringement intentionally in most cases.
So why not get your legal fees back? Then Bill said, well, since I made like, you know, the $750
for the modification of a letter, you know, I've spent a lot of time and money building this.
I think I should make $2,500 for infringement. And so cease and desist letters started going out
for $2,500 and people were paying them. Then Bill realized, hold it. I can make more money
sending cease and desist letters out to other people than I can making dental websites.
And that's when I said, Bill, I can't represent you anymore. This is getting out of hand, buddy.
You're starting to extort, you know, mom and pop dentists and I can't do this. This feels bad.
It's like that logo, let's get ready to rumble, right?
Exactly. Right. Yeah. And so that's a long way of basically saying, yes, people do actually file
a copyright for their website and their images. And that's how you do it. You just print off
your website and just submit it as an application. And if there's like a page or two that are really
important, I would file that separately because what you learn on day three is that copyrights
protect the essence of your copyright. So if you file a 500 page document and somebody copies one
paragraph, there's a low chance of copyright infringement. But if there's like five pages
that are really important, then.
I don't know if those are gunshots or what.
You could almost faintly hear that rumble.
They're like bang, bang, bang, bang, like, yeah, I think those are gunshots.
Wow.
Okay, cool.
Anyways, hopefully people are okay.
But um, so the, you can file for the copyright application for the website.
Now separately, how do you use that notice?
It should be circle C, and then the year that this thing was modified, and then the
owner, right?
It should not be circle C, copyright, the year and the owner, because that's essentially
saying copyright, copyright.
So anybody who's a lawyer laughs whenever they see copyright, copyright, they go, oh,
they don't understand IP law.
So you can either write the word copyright, or you can do circle C, and then the year
and the owner, but you never write copyright, copyright.
Okay.
And then the owner can be the individual or it could be the entity that owns it.
And we'll talk more about that on Wednesday.
Excellent.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
My pleasure.
All right, my friends, well, you have an incredible evening.
And I'll catch you tomorrow for day two of trademarks.
We're going to touch base a little bit on AI and trademarks as well.
We'll be hitting based on a number of different things in trademark law.
And then since you guys are on VIP, you actually see the actual filing of a trademark application.
I'll demonstrate it all for you guys.
So you understand all the parts.
So you can get all those parts together when you send it to your lawyer, which will decrease
your cost.
Okay.
Very good.
Thank you.
All right.
Have a great night, everybody.
Take care.
Thanks, Peter.