Let me just take a few shares here.
You can just raise your virtual hand.
How are you guys doing?
Are you guys doing okay with day one?
Yeah?
All right.
See that?
Good.
All right.
It wasn't too much?
You guys are...
Okay, good.
I didn't want to lose you guys on day one, but I wanted to kind of jump you in gently,
give you a few things that you can play with on your own, like a few tools you can go
home for free and you mess up anything you want, we can fix it.
That's all right.
You don't have to worry about any of that.
So we're going to dig in more detail now because you're in VIP.
VIPs, it's a real deal.
We go really deep.
People bring their real life situations and we do a lot of stuff here.
So let me see.
I'm going to give it like another two minutes before I jump in, but let me...
Does anybody have anything in particular that jumped out at them?
Just raise your virtual hand.
I'll unmute you and just kind of see if there's something that in particular, like you were
like, man, I didn't know about that, or that's something I could definitely apply.
Anything like that?
Krisna.
I love that name.
Oh, Krisna.
Go ahead.
Hi.
How are you?
It's so good.
By the way, Concord is so beautiful and I'd love to come back.
It was so helpful to know that, do your trademark search before you register your company, do
you know?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's so important.
And especially in light of the fact that a lot of these companies are bootstrap companies
where they're investing retirement money or like college tuition money just to try
to build a startup.
Or it's like somebody who's dealing with an issue with their normal jobs, they're trying
to build another job and what a waste of money to like, do you know how much money people
spend on websites and logos and like stencil and sometimes business cards?
I mean, all these things.
And then all of a sudden somebody tells you, change it all.
It's like, I don't have a budget to change it all.
What do you mean change it all?
That's not even possible.
So, I mean, there is a possibility to try to seek a license from another, but typically
in trademark licensing, the big thing with trademarks is that you can't license your
trademark to another party who's not using it in a consistent manner where you're monitoring
the goodwill, like making sure they're using it the same way because the result is that
the public gets confused as to the source of goods.
They're like, well, hold it, there's this company that's doing like these tennis rackets
and this other one that's doing like ping pong paddles and like, hold it, who's who?
I don't understand.
And so it confuses the public.
So the government says, yeah, none of that.
You got to make sure that it's used properly.
And what we're going to do tomorrow is we're going to go into how do you determine trademark
infringement?
How do you know?
And I'm going to actually touch base with you here on this also, as I'm answering some
of your questions.
I want to dig into what are the factors for determining if I'm infringing somebody's trademark?
Because there's nine to 12 factors that you look at.
And it's a balancing test, you know?
And so I'm going to touch base on that first thing tomorrow, but I'll give you guys a preview
of it here as well.
So Samuel, go ahead, right here, my friend.
That handout you gave is amazing.
I'm a visual guy, just seeing where things fit, because all of this sounds like was like
spaghetti to me.
It's like it was all mixed up.
OK, trademarks, patents, and I've kind of dabbled in all, but I didn't really see the
big picture till now.
So thank you so much for that handout.
That's amazingly useful.
And I'll be going back to that over and over again, I'm sure.
That's fantastic.
That was the hope, is that because you're right, it is.
It's almost like an amorphous blob.
You're like, hold it.
What's the difference between trademark and copyright?
Like that can get really tricky.
Do you realize that the same thing can be protected under both trademark and copyright?
So I mean, think of it this way, a logo.
So let's say that Krisna, she created the logo, right?
She's the artist.
So now she creates it and she sells it to Brittany.
And now Brittany is like, I got this cool new logo, awesome.
So she goes and she files for a trademark application because you can protect logos
under trademarks.
But Krisna has rights under copyright law to the original artistic work.
And that's the same logo.
And so now you're going, well, hold on a second, hold it, hold it.
I filed a federal trademark.
mark application, and I've got a registration. And now the
artist comes out of the woodwork and says, I didn't say you could
do that. And so now Brittany says, Well, what do you mean you
didn't say you could do that I paid you 10 grand to come out
with an authentic, unique logo. And Krishna, I feel bad now
using her name, because he's such a nice person. Clearly.
Now I'm like, Krishna doesn't do this. That's the disclaimer.
We're just using her name, right? So this individual
basically says, No, no, I gave you a non exclusive license to
use the logo. I didn't give you a right. All right, title and
interest to the logo. I'm the artist. As the artist, I own
all right, title and interest to that logo. If you think of
NFTs, same thing with NFTs. People are buying NFTs thinking
that they own them, you don't own the NFT, you got a non
exclusive license to trade a baseball card, that's what you
got. You don't you don't own that thing flat out. And so you
can do literally anything you want, you got a non exclusive
license. Now there are certain companies that have caught on to
this. And so what they're doing now is they're they're providing
what's called a premium level. So you can get a premium NFT
where you now own all right title and interest to the NFT.
So people are spending 1000s of dollars more for those because
now it is 100% yours. Now you can license it to other parties.
So it's a very different world out there. And so I'm so glad
Samuel that that that helps. That was my heart and it is how
do I take this field that can be very confusing where certain
things are protectable multiple ways? And how do I make it so
that somebody can go Oh, there it is. Got it. Got it. Got it.
So that's my hope. I'm glad to hear that. So
alright, so let's jump in a little bit here unless somebody
else had something. TJ, did you want to say something, brother?
Are you all set?
No, I'm good. I mean, just with you last week on Noah, today
kind of recapped all of that. And I'm pretty much on board
with that the intent to file that application was kind of
jumped out at me. So like, I did a tiny home search on the
patent.gov, whatever. And, you know, I don't see anything
there. You kind of make it look like you got it, you know,
because the name is pretty simple, tiny homes, Montana LLC.
And, you know, tiny comes up, you know, in the, in the, in the
breakdown of the keywords, but nothing comes up like that. So
I was just wondering, you know, I'm kind of a do do it yourself
kind of guy. And by nature, and I'm like, why can't I just file
that?
Yeah, it's a good question. So let's jump in. Now. Chevelle is
here as well. Chevelle is an attorney, as far as I recall.
Chevelle, can you hear?
It might be recording on her side. All right. So she's asking
here. Hey, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. What
area law do you practice?
I do criminal but I also do some intellectual property work.
Fantastic. That is great. I'm a former prosecutor.
All right. All right, girl. You got brothers and sisters in the
house. That's good. That is good. So here's the deal. I
want to, I'm going to start out with your situation, TJ. All
right. And this is why VIP is here. We're going to elaborate
on something here. Okay. The name that you mentioned, tiny
homes, Montana. All right. In the trademark world, you cannot
obtain a trademark for something that's considered to be
descriptive. Okay. Now, what does descriptive mean?
Descriptive is, think of it this way, the name right now is
descriptive is, think of it this way, the name red door is
somebody own the name red door in construction. That wouldn't
be permissible. Why wouldn't it be permissible? Somebody unmute
themselves and tell me why it wouldn't be fair for somebody in
construction to own the name red door. Anybody?
Common term, common term, boom. So if, if somebody owned the
name red door in construction, that means nobody could then
use the name red door. So that means when you go to Home Depot
and somebody selling red doors, they'd have to say like, blood
colored doors for sale, like they couldn't say red doors
because, because somebody owns the name red door. However, what
can happen instead is that somebody can own the name red
door in a different field. So there is this, there is this
name Red Door for perfume, right? Because Red Door is not descriptive of perfumes. So let's take that
distinction.
to TJ, your specific situation, right? I believe you should touch base with an attorney, quite
frankly, to finalize this. But here's the situation. Tiny Homes, Montana. If what you're
going to be using that name for is Tiny Homes being sold in Montana, then you've got a problem
because what you're talking about is something that's potentially descriptive. And this is why
you should speak to an attorney to make sure, okay? I don't want to give you legal advice
because there's no legal advice here. But if the trademark that you are going for
is descriptive of the goods that you're trying to cover with that trademark,
Chevelle will tell you they will not allow it. They won't allow it. Because when you file,
tomorrow I'm going to show you in a trademark application all the parts. And what they do is
they look at the goods or the services and they say, okay, are those goods basically described
by the name that they're going for? If the answer is yes, then they won't allow it. Go ahead,
TJ. You were going to say something. Oh, yeah. So it's custom built Tiny Homes is the sub name
of it. Right. And the service that you're providing is providing manufacturing of Tiny Homes.
Right. So for the wheels to the roof inside and out, make it your own. Yeah. Yeah. And I know,
I know because, you know, Robin and you know, that group and they're very good at what they're
doing. Oh, yeah. So you know what you're doing. Right. I would say in the trademark world,
you want to touch base with an attorney because the things that you're talking about are
descriptive of what you're actually providing. You're providing custom Tiny Homes. Right.
So if I'm providing custom, I'm just going to I'm not going to give you legal advice in this. I'm
just saying in general, if I'm if I as an individual and providing custom Tiny Homes to the
public, and I call it custom Tiny Homes, then nobody can really describe the service that I'm
providing because they'd be infringing my trademark. And so therefore, the government
won't allow that. So you need to come up with something that's very unique. The area of
trademarks in general, just so people understand, this is typically the most difficult area of IP
for people to come up with something authentic. People are more likely to come up with a new
invention than they are to come out with a unique name. And that seems weird. It seems almost
counterintuitive. But you put a bunch of nerdy inventors in a room like myself. I'm going to
come up with an invention. I mean, we're geeks, you know, just put us in a room, you know, the
juices start flowing. All of a sudden we're like, I mean, Helene's here. You put that woman anywhere
like she'll come up with an invention. That's what she does. She's invents. And so coming up
with an invention is easy. But here's the thing. There's only so many letters in the alphabet.
And there's only so many words in the English language. So with there being millions upon
millions upon millions of trademarks out there, it's kind of hard to come out with a new sequence.
And so when you have a new name, the first thing I want to touch base with you all here on
is intent to use trademark applications. Okay? Because if you come out with an authentically
new name that nobody has come out with before, and you're not using it yet for products, you're
not using it yet for services, don't wait to file. Do not wait to file your trademark application.
Why? Because somebody else may come up with that name and the trademark office works as a first to
file system. So you may use it for three weeks. And then TJ is like, Hey, I got this awesome idea.
I'm going to go file for something. And he files for the exact same name that Sandy came up with.
And Sandy goes, who's this TJ guy? Like, how'd he come up with my name? Well, the fact is that he filed before,
even though Sandy has been using it for three weeks, he filed before. So now the situation is
TJ can get the federal registration as long as he didn't steal it from Sandy, right? Because he's
got to sign a declaration. You'll see tomorrow when we in VIP, when we go through a trademark
application, there's a declaration you have to sign saying you didn't steal the name from somebody
else, right? So assuming that he didn't because TJ wouldn't do that. So he goes and he files,
even though Sandy came out with it first, the situation is going to be TJ has the potential
of owning that name throughout the United States. And Sandy gets nailed into the specific geographical
region where she's already using it and cannot expand. That's what could potentially happen
because Sandy didn't file first. So it's a first to file system. You want to file,
you come out with the name.
file it's called an intent to use trademark application it's under section 1 b 1 b
all right b as in boy an actual use trademark application falls under section 1a
a as in apple okay so when you work with your attorney and you say you know what
and i've had this people have come to me and say i went to my attorney and i said hey i've got this
name and they said are you using it yet and i said no i'm not and the attorney said well then
you can't do anything that's not true you file a section 1b application now what will happen is
your application will go through the process right so you'll file your application it goes
through the process it'll get examined it'll get allowed and once it's allowed it will not issue
all right it won't issue until you file a petition to change it from an intent to use application to
an actual use application once you file that it'll change from a 1b to a 1a and your registration
will go forward but here's the thing this is the cool thing about the government the way they did
this they said well you know what you might be doing manufacturing testing you might be testing
the market it could be like a million different reasons why you're not using it yet they will
allow you listen to this they will allow you up to three years of extensions on your trademark
application so let's say you're thinking to yourself well hold it i've got a really cool
name but i'm not really um i'm not really ready to to use it so but i'm not going to use it probably
for another year and a half because that line within my business is not going to be brought
forward that's not in my profit center yet i'm thinking about it but it's not there yet
it's okay file your trademark application and once you get your allowance then you can file
what's called an extension so you file an extension to get to actually filing your your statement of
use because you're not using it yet so you file an extension and you have to provide a reason why
you're following your extension your attorney will walk you through this and one of the reasons could
just be testing the market still in manufacturing phase that's okay you can get up to three years of
extensions so don't end up shooting yourself in the foot when you find out somebody else filed
before you because you didn't file because you didn't know you could file intent to use as a way
around the whole system any questions on that yeah yeah good yeah so i i have the llc and but that i
can't use because it's too descriptive no you can't use an llc no no that's a great question tj
okay all right tj just raised a really good point he says what if i file with the secretary of state
for an llc that is descriptive that's okay another one with that right there's no problem you could
file as descriptive you could say you know peter's peter's challenges i could file with secretary
of state for that right so there's no problem with that the problem is if you're trying to
make sure that you own that name so nobody else can own it now why would you want to actually own
a name let's back up for a second why does anybody care about trademarks i mean who cares why can't
you just do business like who cares if you provide a good service or you provide a really
good product or service then you're going to gain a following it's just going to happen people are
going to see man tj is like he does these custom small homes and man like that's a reasonable cost
hey do you hear about tj's company yeah what's the name of the company oh well it's you know
custom built blah blah blah whatever it is right now let's say that somebody else starts doing
custom built little homes so now they're they're using custom built little homes so now there's
custom built homes montana somebody else says i want to use custom built homes montana right tj
can't stop them from using custom built homes because that's just descriptive like samuel said
earlier so since it's just descriptive he can't stop them from using the same name so all the
money and all the goodwill that he's put to or even if you like he's been gifted like like divinely
gifted with a certain talent and he wants to bring that talent forward people are not going to be able
to know what is authentically what tj is bringing forward or not when they go onto a website because
somebody's going to use the exact same name and so they might purchase services from somebody who
is not the author
authentic, original provider, or they may provide,
they may purchase products, whatever it is.
But the situation is that they're not really,
they're not working with TJ
because he doesn't have an authentic name.
He doesn't have an original name.
He doesn't own the name.
Now, if instead he comes out with like,
you know, like come up with a name, let's say,
let's say Power, I'm just going to come up with something,
right, Power Shielded Homes.
It's just called Power Shielded Homes, right?
And nobody's ever used that, Power Shielded Homes.
And now he provides this high quality service,
custom built, good prices.
Then people are going to look for that name.
They're going to seek that name.
They're going to go on Google, search that name.
And nobody else can use that name because he owns it
when he files a trademark.
That's why you use trademarks, okay?
Any other questions on that?
Yeah, so I can keep the business name as a business name,
but for a trademark name,
I got to come up with something else that's unique.
Yeah, and in general for everybody here,
just so you understand, you don't want to,
it's typically not a great idea to have one name
with the state, another name with the service,
another name with the product.
It's like, you can do that.
Like if you're Microsoft, you could have Microsoft,
then you have Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word,
you know, Microsoft PowerPoint, right?
Those are different product lines, right?
But if you're going to spend all the money on an LLC,
it's a great idea to actually use a name
that you can own yourself, that's authentic,
that you can utilize as like your home brand, you know?
And then if you come up with products underneath it,
yeah, by all means,
you can have different authentic names for those,
like three different product lines,
each one has a different name, right?
Like Denon & Morant's, D&M Holdings, right?
Which is owned by Sound United, one of my clients.
So they have many different product lines,
but it all falls under D&M, right?
Or Sound United,
and then there's a bunch of different products.
So you can, by all means, TJ,
you could have the generic name company,
then you can have the product that's being sold
have a unique name,
or the service that's being provided have a unique name.
It's a little more difficult to have a service
have a unique name from the company name,
because you typically want the service
to be associated with the company, right?
So you're building up all this brand recognition
for the main company name,
but then you got to build all this brand recognition
for the service when the company is providing the service.
So why would you like spend all this time and money
building up a following for the company name,
and then spend all this time and money
building up a following for the service?
It's like, just use the company name.
It makes it more powerful.
It's like, you see that name and pow,
it's like, oh, that's the service I want,
because you recognize the name.
Brittany, go ahead.
I was kind of wondering about that, about a DBA then.
Like, can you have a company name that's not unique
or that is descriptive,
and then you don't have a trademark DBA,
and mostly-
People do that all the time.
Great question.
Yeah, great question.
People do that all the time.
Is that kind of a workaround then, if you've got-
Well, here's the thing though.
You still got to be careful
about trademark infringement with DBAs, right?
So just because it's a DBA does not mean
that you're away from trademark infringement,
because you're doing business as that name.
So let's say I have A to E challenges, right?
But my DBA is Microsoft Excel.
Microsoft's not going to go, oh, well, it's only a DBA.
Nope, I'm getting a knock on my door,
which is more likely either cease and desist or-
What about the other way around, Peter?
Like, what if your company name is descriptive
or maybe not unique enough?
Can you pick out a DBA that you could trademark
and then build-
That's a great question.
Brand recognition there.
Yeah, that's a great question.
Yeah, you can.
You can do it that way.
Gain your brand recognition through your DBA.
By all means, you can file your trademark application
for your DBA.
You can do all that.
Yeah, absolutely.
But that's a great question.
Do you run into problems that,
like, do you run into that same Goodwill problem?
People have to write their checks out to the company name.
You always have to say,
no, my real name is my first name,
but I go by my middle name, essentially,
but for your business.
No, what you just said is, like,
the biggest nightmare that people run into in business,
where they have, like, this is so funny.
they have like a main business,
but everybody's using a DBA.
Or they have like a main business and nobody uses DBA.
And they're like, well, hold it,
which do I follow the trademark on?
And I say, well, why do you have a DBA in the first place?
Can we go back to our foundation just for a minute here?
What exactly was the purpose of the DBA?
Like, is it that you formed a company
and then all of a sudden you're like,
well, that name isn't great,
so now I want a DBA so that I can use the DBA.
Well, maybe you just want to change the name
of the company then, in which case you don't have to do,
because you're never using the company name, you know?
So there's different ways to do it.
You should speak to your attorney
and see what way works best for you,
because your specific use is going to,
is going to dictate the answer to that.
You know, like, am I using it on the website?
Am I using it on Stencil?
Am I only in personal contacts with individuals?
What's the audience?
There's a lot of factors to look at to kind of determine,
do I want to protect my DBA
or do I want to protect my company name
or do I want to protect both?
But in general, what I do, like I have a company
and then I have a DBA, they're so similar.
Like, they're very close.
You know, it's just that everybody started using
something different.
So I was like, all right, fine, I'll make that the DBA,
you know, but in general,
you try to have the company name the same as,
because it adds confusion, right?
The whole intent behind trademarks
is to limit confusion, right?
Because to determine infringement,
what you look at is, is there a likelihood of confusion
in the public, in the consumer's eye?
So when I look at Brittany's trademark
and I look at Ginny's trademark,
is there a confusion between the two, right?
That's how you determine trademark infringement,
which we're talking about tomorrow.
But now when I look at my DBA
and I have my main company name and I have my DBA,
when people hear the two, are they going to get confused?
Because if I'm adding confusion,
I'm decreasing what I'm making as a company, all right?
Like I want to gain a following behind my services,
behind my products, so I want clarity.
Clarity is very important.
It has to be very simple to follow.
And if what's going on is between my company name
and my DBA, people are like,
well, am I going after the company or is this the DBA?
Or is it like, how are they being used?
I don't understand.
And if you can just use one, just use one.
There's no real, people kind of,
they fell in love with the idea of DBAs.
And they're like, oh, well, that's really cool.
I got a DBA.
It's like, well, yeah.
So now there's another layer of people
to actually have to understand
before they really get to know your services,
because you now have two names, not one.
So, and obviously a DBA means
that that's the name the public's seeing.
Well, if that's the name the public's seeing,
then why don't you own it?
Just make it the name of your company.
You can do DBAs.
I'm not saying don't do them.
I'm just saying they can get confusing to the public
when they just don't understand like what's going on here.
Samuel, go ahead.
We'll come back to you, Brittany, go ahead.
Okay, yeah.
So my question has to do with website names now
associated with the company,
because that's always the next biggest problem.
Are those trademarkable?
And what do you do if somebody else has the name that you-
So when you say a website name,
do you mean like domain names?
Yeah, domain name, right.
Okay, all right.
So we'll touch, actually, you know what?
I'll touch base on this now,
and then I'll see if I cover it a little bit tomorrow
as well.
So if you have a federal registration for your trademark,
what you'll find is that people will immediately
file for a domain name
that is the same as your federally registered trademark.
And then they will reach out to you
and they will seek to make thousands of dollars off of you.
That's just the way they do business, all right?
There are companies that will literally watch
the USPTO registry and see,
oh, Samuel just got a trademark.
Go buy that.com immediately.
That's just, that's how they work.
It's horrible, but that's what happens, okay?
Now, there is a way around this, okay?
It's through ICANN.
There is a way to enforce your legal rights
to your trademark,
if you have a federally registered trademark,
and the other party is using the exact same domain name
as your trademark.
You can actually enforce your rights against them.
They're not allowed to do that, okay?
And so you can use ICANN.
I think what I'll do is I'll post a link
in the Facebook group.
Larissa, can you ping me on that?
just so I don't forget, just write down ICANN reminder,
Peter ICANN, okay?
It's called the Domain Name Dispute Policy.
And so you can challenge somebody registering
a domain name that's the exact same name
as your federally registered trademark, right?
There's a way to do that.
So to answer your question though,
if I have a website, I have a domain name.
So whatever the domain name is,
I can actually file a federal trademark application
for that domain name.
Obviously you wouldn't put in the .com or anything like that.
It's the body of the domain name itself, right?
So if I have a website at, you know, nike.com,
I can file a trademark for Nike, you know?
And so now if somebody uses nike.com,
I can go after them under their Domain Name Dispute Policy
and say, you can't use that name.
That's my name.
I have a federal registration for it.
Does that make sense?
Sure, and under the Domain Name Dispute Policy,
can I also, if somebody's,
what if somebody's been using that,
actually has been using that domain name
that I now have registered, can I claim it?
All right, so if there's a few factors to look at
under the Domain Name Dispute Policy,
they also look at whether or not they're using it
in a manner that is not similar to you, right?
So let's say like you own Red Door for perfume, right?
And there's a construction company that owns Red Door.
You know, you're getting Red Door,
you're getting them to let go of Red Door,
it's not gonna happen,
because they're using it properly.
They're using it in a different manner.
There's no likelihood of confusion, right?
It's, they're just using it, you know, whatever manner.
But I've had situations where one client,
it was pretty messed up.
One client actually had a trademark
associated with wallets.
And then all of a sudden this company out in China
purchases the exact same domain name
and then starts marketing wallets, right?
So we threatened to go after them
under the Domain Name Dispute Policy.
But instead of using the exact same name,
they had like one more word in there.
And so it became difficult
because it's not the exact same name.
So this is why I told people,
if you come up with a new name,
go and buy the domain name.
Like before you even file a trademark application,
go buy the domain name.
See if it's available.
Just go get it.
Like, they're so cheap.
Go to namecheap.com.
Is that it?
Cheap names or namecheap?
Let me see.
Cheap names.
Cheap names?
Yeah, let me show you guys.
That's namecheap.com.
No, I thought it was namecheap.
Is it?
Yeah.
I own so many domain names, it's crazy.
I think I own like 30 of them.
He is the domain king.
Well, Pedro Odeo owns more domain names
than anybody I've ever heard of.
He owns thousands.
Let me see.
Let me share this.
All right, you guys should see my screen now, right?
So this is namecheap.com, okay?
They're so cheap.
Look at this, six bucks for a domain name, $6.
They're so inexpensive.
I own kingdom.law, kingdom.law.
That's my domain name.
So it better say it's not available.
So let's see.
Yeah, see, it's not available.
They can't find it.
Taken, see?
For $35,000.
Yeah, well, I got it way cheaper than that.
Way cheaper than that.
But if you look at these other ones,
like kingdom.xyz, 200,000, you know, 7,800.
So those are like customs.
Those are ones that everybody wants.
And here's a premium here, 34,000.
But if you come up with an original name
that nobody has, then look for it.
Now, here's something I'm gonna show you
that probably nobody's ever told you about.
Do not, how do I put this nicely?
Do not search for a domain name
unless you're gonna buy it, okay?
Here's the reason why.
These companies that have domain names available for sale,
they monitor the searching.
They don't tell you that, but they monitor the searching.
So now when you go in there
and you do a search for a specific name
and you don't purchase it,
what you'll find sometimes is the next day
when you search for the same thing,
the price just went up by like $2,000, $500, whatever.
Because they see that now there's an interest in the name.
So what you do is you determine,
am I interested in this name or not?
Do your trademark search, find out if it's available.
If it is available, buy the domain name immediately.
boom, get the.com, you know, immediately.
All right, now you can even buy the .net, .info,
whatever, they're so cheap.
I mean, literally like six, $7 for many of them.
So spend 50 bucks and buy a whole number of them, okay?
Now you go in and you can, you know,
you can close the deal,
but what you don't want to do is go to their site,
do a search and they say, okay,
well, I think I'm interested in that.
I'll come back tomorrow and buy it.
Don't do that because I've heard too many times
people come back tomorrow and the price is different.
That doesn't mean it's going to happen to you.
I'm just telling you what's happened to a lot of people.
Okay, because they have search engines
that tell them where the interest is.
And then they increase the prices many times.
So Connie, hello.
Hi.
I noticed after I, Tracy has a similar question,
but I, we've owned our business for a while.
We had one business and we were opening something
and I have done some research,
but that doesn't mean I really understood everything.
So one of the things was we're publishers
of print and digital.
And now we're in the post-production for an audio,
full cast, music, sound effects, all that stuff.
So in that we created a new company
because that was my understanding
that I had to have another company.
So it has its own name,
but both of them have the first tag.
The first, there's two names with each of them.
And so since we're already public,
it's Graffling Group and Graffling Resonance.
Resonance is for the audio books.
Did we need to make a brand new company
or did, and we are going to do video games soon.
So-
Let me do this.
Let me, what you're asking is more corporate law.
And I know the answers,
but I'm not going to give legal advice here.
What I will do though,
is I'm going to answer something that actually is,
which is when you have multiple trademarks
that have the same core, right?
So as an example, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word,
Microsoft PowerPoint, right?
Those all have Microsoft.
The question is,
do you need to file trademark applications for all of them?
Okay.
I'm going to answer that
because what you're running into
is more of a corporate law issue.
It's like, all right, we formed this other thing
and now we're going to have an entity there
that's going to deal with this.
And now we've got another one here.
What you need to actually check into
is actually your original corporate formation documents
and what do you form, you know, in your LLC.
And you need to dig into that with an attorney
to understand what exactly was the right way
to create your structure.
Because there's issues with,
this is not legal advice, I'm just saying in general, okay?
There are issues with, you know,
who has controlling rights of each entity,
who has the decision rights of each entity.
And then is one entity licensing the name
to the other entity?
You know, like where's the IP?
Who owns the IP?
Right?
Because you have three names that are kind of related
to have the same core name.
But if the first entity owns the IP,
is the second entity taking a license from the first entity,
you know, so that it can utilize the name or not?
Or like, there's all sorts of complicated issues
you want to touch base with an attorney on that.
But let me at least address something
that I think everybody here will appreciate.
What if you have the same core name in multiple trademarks?
So like Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint,
Microsoft Word, those are three different names.
Now you can handle this multiple ways.
You can file a trademark application for each one
that's three of them.
And your typical class for a trademark applications
between $1,000 and like 1,500, depending on who you use.
That's just for filing.
Then it gets examined.
Tomorrow we're going to talk about this in more detail,
but it gets examined.
You might get a rejection.
Then you got to respond to the rejection.
Then you'll hopefully get an allowance.
So there's some fees along the way,
but you're paying three times the fee, right?
What if instead,
since you're using Microsoft every single time,
can you just get the trademark for Microsoft alone?
And then just have the extra word next to it?
The question is, do you ever use Microsoft alone?
If you're always using that name with another name,
then you're never really using that trademark alone.
You're never using that word alone.
It's always Microsoft something,
Microsoft something, Microsoft something.
But if you're using Microsoft with something else,
then you can file for Microsoft alone.
Then one thing you could do is you could,
every single time you list Microsoft with another word,
you could put the circle R next to the word Microsoft,
because you own Microsoft, right?
So what I've had a number of situations
where clients own multiple lines,
like multiple lines of products,
but they're all under the same main name,
but they don't wanna say, okay, this is the Z model.
This is the Z100 model.
This is the XTZ model.
So they just own the main name.
And then what they do is they put the name,
then the circle R,
then they put like whatever models after it.
So that if anybody stole the name with the model number,
then they would commit trademark infringement, right?
Because they're using at least the name.
See, that's one way to do it.
But here's the problem.
What if somebody uses the second name in the name?
So what if somebody just decided to say,
well, all right, fine.
You wanna play that game, Peter?
I'm not going to use Microsoft Excel.
I'm gonna just use Excel.
Well, now I got a problem
because I don't own Microsoft Excel.
I own Microsoft alone, right?
So now I can't stop this person from using Excel alone
because now I'm doing like this,
this likelihood of confusion analysis.
And so they say, well, what do you own?
I own Microsoft.
What are you using?
Excel.
Okay, they don't even look similar.
So now it falls into a whole other body of law,
which is the common law area that I talked to you about.
I'm just letting you, I'm telling you this at a top level.
This is really complex.
I'm just letting you know that this is not simple,
but this is how it play out, just so you know.
So now you're using Microsoft Excel.
They use Excel alone.
You would go after them anyway.
You would say, yeah,
they're not violating my federal registration for Microsoft,
but I'm using Excel.
They took part of my trademark.
They put it in theirs.
So I may not have a federal registration
for Microsoft Excel.
I have a federal registration for Microsoft alone,
but I'm using Excel as well.
And they're taking it for the same goods.
Under common law, I'm going to go after them.
I don't have a federal registration.
Under common law, I've been using it.
I want them to stop.
That's how you would go after them is under common law.
But you couldn't go after them
under your federal registration
because your federal registration is only for Microsoft.
You see how complicated this is?
Like this isn't like very simple stuff.
This is why what I tell people is,
if you have a name that you're using,
get a federal registration for it.
Own the domain name.
Very simple things to do, right?
Do your trademark search.
Now, if you have multiple names that you're using
and you can't afford to file trademarks on each one,
then make sure you're using that core name alone
at least once.
If you are, then every time you're using that name
with something else,
put that circle R after the name alone.
Not after the whole thing
because you don't own the whole thing.
You only own that little part, right?
But just know that when it comes time
to renewing your trademark,
and they're going to ask you
to send what's called a specimen,
proof of use of your trademark in interstate commerce.
They're going to ask for a picture of it.
When they ask you for that picture,
you're likely not going to be able to use
that picture of Microsoft Excel
because you're not using it alone.
You can try.
Sometimes it'll work.
Sometimes an examiner will be nice.
And say, all right, fine, we'll allow that.
But sometimes they're not.
Sometimes they're going to say, well, no,
you own Microsoft.
That's your federal registration.
Show me an example of use of Microsoft alone.
So you got to make sure you're using it
at least once alone.
Does this all make sense?
It's tricky, but these are tricks to the trade
that you can use to make sure that your company is strong,
that people don't use your names
and that you're successful.
Without spending a ridiculous amount of money,
because you may have five or six different brands
using that same name.
So take that main name, use that main name for your sales,
but then you have different brands.
You can list those and then use that circle R
after the main name in the bigger name, right?
So it's telling the public, I own this main name part.
So now if you run into problems,
you may not be able to stop them
under federal trademark law.
You may have to go after them under common law.
It's a way to do that.
Talk to your lawyers.
The lawyers should know this.
If they don't know it, get another lawyer
because they should know this stuff.
So Tracy.
Go ahead.
You got on mute, you got on mute.
Hi, yeah, sorry, thank you.
Well, I hate to, let me ask,
the person that just spoke,
I think she was referring to my question
when she says it was related.
So I'm soon to get into the film business.
I'm actually writing a book first
and I don't know if there's something
that you can tell me about that,
associating it with future getting into the film business
within one to three years.
And my question originally was,
I've always had an idea that I would have an umbrella,
this is probably what you were trying to refer to,
but an umbrella LLC.
You got it.
And then underneath,
I've always felt that I would have
a for-profit film company,
a nonprofit film company where I could do documentaries
and certain things for the public.
And then a recording company, what?
They're almost like subsidiaries, yeah.
Oh, okay, see, this is where, yeah.
That's okay, that's okay.
And so anyway, yeah, that was my question.
And then I had another one, another smaller,
but very key foundational question
that I'm getting a little confused about.
So go ahead.
Yeah, so let's start out with your question about,
you're an author, right?
You're writing a book.
And then somebody is gonna take that
and they're going to use it in a movie, okay?
All right, let's-
Well, I'll probably be doing a movie apparently,
I'm told about it, but whatever, anyway, yeah.
Are you doing the movie or is somebody else doing the movie?
Well, I probably will.
I have other movies I'm gonna be doing first, I think, but.
All right, the reason why I'm asking you that
is because when we get to day three,
we're gonna talk about copyrights.
Okay.
And under copyright law,
the author of the book
owns all rights, title and interest to the book.
If somebody creates another work off of the original work,
that's called a derivative.
Okay.
The only person who has rights to deal with the derivative
is the original author, that's it.
So if you are going to ask a production studio to create,
like I have a client right now, Kingdom Warriors, right?
They're doing all this work associated with books
and movies and all sorts of deals, right?
So there's the rights to the original book
that belong to the original drafter of the book,
but then there's rights that are associated with a movie.
Well, they can't take the book and turn it into a movie,
just deciding to do it.
The original creator of the work owns that.
So if somebody wants to render that into a movie,
they have to get rights from the original,
the original creator of the author, right?
That little piece I do know, yeah.
That's the first part.
The first part for you to figure out is,
am I doing the movie?
If you're doing the movie, then none is the problem
because you're not gonna sue yourself, right?
You can license to yourself.
I hope not.
Unless you have some serious split personality issue,
I'm not too worried about this.
In which case, I'd like to film that conversation.
But in any case, separate from that,
separate from that, I think you're okay.
But the point being that,
remember that the drafter of the book
owns all rights that are an interest to the book.
The person who's doing the movie
has to get rights from the drafter of the book.
So they have to license over
if you're going to hire somebody else to do it, okay?
All right, so that's part one.
But separate from that,
you're talking about your main entity
and then you have these subsidiaries
that are doing different things, right?
So what you wanna do is similar to what I was discussing
just when I was answering the prior question for Connie.
You wanna speak to a corporate law attorney
to make sure that the way the formation
of each of these entities and the licensing
that's being done between the entities is done well.
It's done the right way.
Let me explain to you why.
Intellectual property, patents, trademarks, copyrights,
those are called intellectual property, right?
They have value, okay?
So all the money that you're spending on trademarks,
copyrights, patents, all of those things,
those all fall under what's called intangible assets.
All right, so it's a business expense.
Those are all business expenses.
So you need to be talking to your accountants,
your tax attorneys and saying,
I spent X amount of dollars
getting my trademarks for my company.
That's an intangible asset.
That's a business expense.
That should be taxed at this level, not this level.
like, and I should be getting a write off for this, like you, you need to talk to your,
you know, understand these things. What happens is most people just create a company to start
doing things, they spend 30, 40, $50,000 in something, they don't realize that that's a
business expense. You know, they don't realize it's an intangible asset, it's actually considered
as an asset, it has a depreciation, it has, there's different values associated with it.
So the big question is, which of your entities do you want to own the asset?
That's a big deal. All right. The reason why is because you might have one entity formed in the
United Kingdom, or another entity formed in Washington, DC, they have different tax brackets.
One's taxed at 25%. One's taxed at a much higher rate. So you want to figure out which of your
entities should own your intellectual property. All right. Once you figure that out, then you
assign all right title and interest to that entity. Now what happens is all those expenses
are coming at a lower bracket. And now you're, you're, you're working within the tax system,
like you're, and then on top of that, you want everything assigned over to an entity because
you don't want to personally get sued for certain things, right. So if you have all right title and
interest to your intellectual property assigned over to an entity, your chances of getting sued
personally are lower. I'm not going to tell you that it's not going to happen because I've
personally sued corporations and the presidents of their companies. And then the other side has
to file all sorts of documents trying to get them out saying, you know, Mr. Lee is not, he's not
associated with, you know, the patent. And I said, Oh, really? Then why is Mr. Lee listed as the
inventor? Oh, um, we, uh, well, um, yeah, exactly. I'll see Mr. Lee in court. Bye. So, you know, it's,
you want to make sure that, uh, of the, the assets for assigned to the right entity. This is why you
need a corporate law attorney and an IP law attorney to kind of work together because you
have a more detailed structure, right? It's, it's not, it's not as simple as I'm Peter Nieves. I
have this name. I file under that. I assigned it to my company. Done. It's like, no, you have
entities, sub subsidiaries, you know, you may have certain rights for different entities that you
personally hold on. So as let me add one more thing here, because this is important to everybody
here. We're going really deep. You guys are not like, you guys are not Kool-Aid. Like you guys
are really deep. I'm just saying, cause usually this is day four. You guys are like day one,
like in the deep end. Uh, I'm impressed. I'm very impressed. Um, and this is why I like doing this.
So, okay. If in fact you own all right, title and interest in the, let's say there's company a,
then there's subsidiaries B, C, and D. All right. Now you, as the president of company,
let's say a have the right to make decisions on behalf of company a right. Okay. But you assign
all right. Title and interest over to entity C. Okay. But entity C, you don't have all right.
You don't have the power to make decisions on behalf of entity C because you have a different
board or you have a different, whatever the case is. I don't know what your structure is. I'm just
using this as an example. So you assign all right, title and interest over to entity C.
I thought you said entity A. Wait a minute. So you're talking about the same entity.
Okay. Right. So let's say there's entity C, there's entity C, but then there's entities B,
C, and D. Okay. So here's the main company and then there's B, C, and D. Got it.
Okay. All right. So just use that as an example. All right. Yeah. This is,
this is like stuff I deal with like every day. It's this. Okay. Yeah. So now Tracy says, you
know what? The writing portion and the movie portion is really associated with entity C,
right? That's the entity that's doing that. So we're going to sign all right. Title and interest
to that within entity C. We're going to keep it at entity C, right? Let's say that's the decision
she made, but she has the rights to make decision in entity A, but when it came to the formation of
entity C, Max and Axel and Tracy have all the rights to make the decision on behalf of entity
C. So now Tracy says, man, you know, this has been going really well. I want to make a series.
You know, there's a movie there's been a, there's been a, a book. I want to make a series out of
this. And so Tracy says, okay, I'm going to go call up this production studio, blah, blah, blah.
All of a sudden, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have used it.
I did. I did follow you, though. I know it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I should have said because Tracy Lovings here and Tracy, you know,
Oh, right.
is here, so that doesn't work.
But the point being that you may not have the rights to make decisions on behalf of Entity C.
So you have to make sure whatever entity you assign a right title or an interest in the intellectual property to,
you maintain the decision making rights.
OK, good. Yes.
People do this wrong all the time.
So they have entities, sub entities.
They have like three or four different entities.
And then they have the control rights to this one.
But then they want to do something with an asset that belongs to that one.
But they don't have the right. They don't have the control rights there.
But they assigned all right title and interest.
So now they get mad and they're like, hold it.
I want to I want to make a series.
And the board says we don't want to make a series.
And you say, I don't care, board, that you don't want to make a series.
I created this. This is my entity.
This is what they're like. Nope, I don't think so.
You assigned all right title and interest to Entity C. Entity C, their board has the right to make decisions, not you.
So then what happens is you get mad and you say, well, fine, I'm going to transfer the rights back.
Well, you just committed fraud.
You just committed something that is not on behalf of the company.
It's not fraud.
You committed an act that is against the the better of the company.
And so now you're committing like you're doing big problems, big, big legal issues.
I'm saying all this for one reason. Figure out where you want the IP rights to sit first.
And then if you want to maintain control of what happens with those assets,
you better make sure that you're you have the controlling like portion of that entity.
Either if it's for a board, you better make sure you have the decision rights for the board.
Or if it's in a partnership, you better make sure you own 51 percent.
Whatever the case is, you want to continue to make the decisions on behalf of these assets, these chairs that are in the house.
And you better own the house. You can't just say, hey, I gave this house to my daughter.
Now I'm going to go in and take the chairs out. No, you gave the chairs to your daughter.
They're hers now. OK, that's what I just walked you through is litigation.
That's where a lot of litigation happens. And so if you heed what I just told you,
you will bypass a tremendous amount of litigation with partners and businesses,
with ownerships of IP, with all sorts of things, I mean, issues that are very painful.
So just, you know, I know it was complicated. Go back and watch the video.
It'll be there. Yeah. Well, to remember when I'm actually doing it in the near future.
Yeah. But I know I tracked with you. Thank you. That makes perfect sense to me.
Yeah. I'm going to take one more, Sandy, and then we're going to close for today.
Obviously, just remember, we've got four more days of this, guys.
You guys are like already in the ocean. I thought we were going to be in the kiddie pool.
You guys are like in the ocean, like surfing right now.
And so that's awesome. Like, bring it. I'll answer anything. I don't care.
OK, I want to go ahead, Sandy. I appreciate this last conversation.
I heard you talk to Krista Dunk. So I got the copy. My copyright on my book is pending.
Very smart. Yes. Well done. Well done.
So here's my understanding of what you're saying as a structure and entity.
Let me see if I got this correctly, because I'm going to have a profit center.
I'm also going to create like a membership site, like a movement.
But then I also have my book, my book writing. So do I create a main business name?
And under that are these entities like profit center movement authoring?
Is that what I do? Great question. All right. So.
I'm going to tell you what. People typically do.
You have to determine what you're going to do for yourself, right?
Because I can't tell you what to do here. Right.
Only, you know, and this is why you should sit down with an attorney and kind of walk through.
This is what I'm doing. These are the different entities. These are different assets.
I want to like figure out what goes where. But here's here's what a lot of people do is.
When they're looking at like entities, when they're looking at forming different entities,
when it comes to intellectual property, they typically put the IP in the company
that is going to have the lower tax bracket and where they're not going to have a lot of potential liability.
Right. So like so it's like all the value of the company is in a right.
And so but a doesn't really make the product.
You know, the product's only made by.
by entity B, right?
This specific product.
So what they might do is like the patents
associated with trademarks, copyrights,
they might put it into B only, right?
They might not put it in the main company
because what they don't want is for somebody
to sue the main company.
The main company is worth millions, billions, right?
They don't want somebody getting at that.
So they're like, all right,
well, I'm gonna put it in this little entity here.
That's where the product is.
That's what a service is.
You know, if in fact there's some liability,
then hopefully only the assets in B are gonna get hit.
Hopefully they can't get to A.
Matter of fact, I was just in a lawsuit
where somebody sued, it was a troll.
I don't know if you ever heard of this term, right?
In patent law, there's these things called trolls, okay?
And what they do is they buy up patents
and they enforce them against people, all right?
They don't make anything.
They don't do anything.
All they do, some of them are lawyers that were,
I think it's really disturbing personally.
And fortunately, I've been up against trolls four times
and I've won four times.
So like, I love that.
Like, I'll actually brag about that.
Go God, like, I'm like, we have destroyed trolls.
But anyways, the point is that they buy up patents
and then they go find people and they sue them, right?
Just to make money.
And then they say, all right,
well, I'll settle the lawsuit for 150,000
because the party doesn't wanna spend 3 million
in litigation, they'll pay 150,000, right?
So a troll went after my client recently,
but here's what they did.
They sued my client, which was a monster, right?
Well, we cleverly put the product in this entity here, right?
And only that entity, which was in another country,
produced it and sold it.
And the profits stayed within that entity.
And they weren't much, Sandy, like they were very low.
So they sued the big monstrous entity.
And I responded to them.
I called up opposing counsel and I said,
you can sue us all day long, you're not getting anything.
And he said, of course we're,
you guys are worth X billion dollars.
I was like, yeah, you might wanna look
and see where the product's produced.
So then he looked into it and he saw that this entity
that was in this foreign country,
number one, he had the wrong entity that he sued.
So I could have the case basically dismissed
because he sued the wrong party.
He would have to file documents to change the party.
But then B, the damages associated with were so low.
So what happened?
He just disappeared.
Case was dismissed.
He filed documents to get rid of the case.
So in your case, you may have like a main company
and then you may have a publishing company in there
and you might have a product development company
in there, right?
And so you have like essentially the mothership
and then two other entities.
This is where a good lawyer is gonna be important.
Somebody who understands corporate law and understands IP
because what you wanna do is determine
for each of those entities,
where it's formed is gonna affect the taxes.
Separate from that, you wanna look and see
where do I want those assets to stay?
Is the manufacturing and production being done by entity A?
If it is, it may be a little hard to put all the rights
in company C and then not make company A liable
because company A is the one that's making the product.
So you gotta bring your scenario to an attorney
and say, I have a writing portion.
I have a movie portion
or I have a production portion, right?
Whatever it is.
Should I make two entities?
Should I make three entities or should I stick with one?
Because look, not everybody decides
to create different entities.
Somebody has just created a different brand.
You don't need another entity all the time.
Like you have to determine in your specific scenario,
does it make sense to create another entity?
All right?
A lot of times what people do is they say,
well, this entity has got products.
This entity is doing like coaching, right?
It's like, well, maybe you could just have a company
that does products and coaching.
I mean, it doesn't always have to be multiple entities.
That's why you wanna sit down with an attorney
and say, this is my exact situation.
Okay.
You know, I'm a sole proprietor
or like I have a board of individuals.
These people are interested in this.
These people are interested in that.
Then it might make more sense to have different entities,
but it may be instead that you just have one.
You have to lay it all out and it's very complex.
So don't, this is where like legal Zoom
and stuff like that is dangerous.
Like I know that we all wanna save money.
Look, I'm with you.
I wanna save money.
Fortunately.
Hey, I'm an IP attorney, so I filed my own trademarks.
Like I filed three of my own trademarks
and I got them all out, right?
Cause I know how to work the system.
Like Chevelle knows how to work the system too.
She could file something and call them up
and work with the examiner, I'm sure, right?
So that's a benefit we have because of our education.
But what you don't want to do is just kind of like,
well, I guess I have three ideas,
therefore I want three companies, don't do that.
Like talk to somebody, you know,
and I'll leave you guys with this.
Oh, wow, we're way over.
I'll leave you guys with this.
When you work with attorneys,
I mean, let me ask you this question.
When you first saw your dream house,
how many of you went to the house and said, I'll take it?
Just raising your hand.
Anybody like took it for the price listed?
Nobody.
So why is it that people, when they work with attorneys,
don't ask for budgets, don't ask for like,
what's the estimate cost?
What's going to happen first stage,
second stage, third stage?
Like they don't ask these questions.
Like lawyers are human.
You can ask them questions, ask them for a budget,
ask them to stay within the budget.
You know, maybe they, and if they can't do it,
they'll tell you they can't do it.
That's how you should work with attorneys as well.
Don't just hire a lawyer and then all of a sudden
you get a bill for $20,000 when you thought it was $2,000.
Like that doesn't make sense.
You wouldn't go to the house and pay sticker price.
Nobody does that.
I mean, maybe billionaires do, but I don't.
All right, Larissa does it, but she sells the house.
Okay, Larissa is telling you to do it
because she's making a commission on the house, right?
I'm just saying, all right.
So the point being, you know, when you work with attorneys,
they're human also, just work with them.
Ask them for budgets, ask them when can I expect what costs?
Like if you file a trademark application,
you don't pay once.
There's an application, then there's prosecution,
then there's allowance, there's renewal.
Like there's different stages.
So don't think you're done for 1200 bucks, you're not.
So, but understand that it's gonna be eight months
until you get an office action.
But if you're in Canada, it's gonna take you three years.
Canada is way behind,
three years to get an office action right now in Canada.
It's taking a long time.
So you gotta be careful.
So Larissa, what were you gonna say?
We got to close, we're really late.
Well, it was just around that line.
Someone had asked a question about how to,
and you can cover this another day,
but it's a good question.
How to pick a local trademark firm,
what to look for and ask.
And you kind of halfway-
That's a great question.
Yeah, let me cover that real quick.
So when it comes to attorneys, hiring attorneys,
number one, get somebody who knows what they're doing,
obviously.
Check their credentials, you know, like look into them.
Like don't go on Google and search trademark attorney
in my state.
Like don't, that's probably a bad idea.
All right, because they'll all pop up.
I mean, if you needed heart surgery,
would you like go on Google and type in heart surgeons
and then just go?
Like, probably not, right?
You're gonna like call people you know
who are in the medical field
and you're gonna ask questions
and you're gonna find some background on them.
You're gonna make sure that their credentials are good.
Do the same thing with your lawyers.
If you know a lawyer who doesn't handle that area of law,
you can still call that lawyer if you trust them
and say, hey, do you know a lawyer in this area?
Why do you do that?
Because now you're holding that lawyer accountable.
They're not accountable legally,
but what you've done is that there's no way for you to know
whether or not it's a good trademark attorney or not.
But I have lawyers, as an example, in my network,
I have lawyers literally in every single country
of the world.
You name a country, I have lawyers there.
There's no country I don't have lawyers in.
Malaysia, Indonesia, like India, China, Pakistan, everywhere.
I have lawyers in every place.
They don't work for me.
These are people that I work with, right?
So if somebody is my client and they're saying,
look, I need to do, as an example,
Sandy and I think the other person left already.
Yeah, the other person left already.
Well, Tracy's still here.
So they're both dealing with some corporate law issues.
So they might say, hey, Peter,
I have a corporate law issue here.
Do you have a good corporate lawyer?
I'll be like, yeah, Alex Pal, my office is insane.
The guy worked in New York.
He works for big corporations,
but he's in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
So his rate's really low.
So I'd make a referral.
Or they might call somebody else
that they know who's a lawyer.
So take advantage of the network.
works of the lawyers that you do trust because chances are
they're not going to send you to somebody who doesn't know what
they're doing. All right. Now, second thing, you do not need to
work with a lawyer in your state, if you're dealing with
federal work. All right. Trademarks, you don't need a
lawyer in your state. Patents, you don't need a lawyer in your
state. Copyrights don't need a lawyer in state. Now, that's not
to say that there's not, there may be some kind of regulation
specifically in your state, if you're trying to enforce rights
where local rules are important to know, right, in which case,
the lawyer that you work with, who might be in another state
might refer to a local council to help out on something if they
needed it. But if you've got a lawyer that you trust, that's
good at what they do, and handles the area of law, like
trademarks, patents, copyrights, they don't need to be in your
state. I mean, I have clients in Germany, I have clients in
China. And I mean, gosh, so many different countries. I have
clients in California, in New York and all over the place. You
know, I live in New Hampshire. You know why I live in New
Hampshire. My backyard's a lake. That's why I live in New
Hampshire. We have two boats, we have sea dues. We have like my
kids love their life. Now I work out of Massachusetts and New
Hampshire, but I choose to live in New Hampshire because I have a
life. Right? Like one of the days I'll do it from the lake
house. And I'll just turn the camera and you'll see that's my
backyard. So I choose to live there. But my clients, I think
probably maybe 10% of my clients are in New Hampshire. So you
don't need to have a lawyer that's in your state. That is
not true when it comes to federal stuff. Right. But there
are certain things where you do need a lawyer in your state. And
then the lawyer that you're actually speaking to should tell
you that they should know. There's some local rules that
are important. You need a lawyer in your state for that. You know,
so hopefully that answers your question. Don't go on Google and
start searching. And there are certain things that legal zoom
can help for like a very basic, basic contract, you know,
something that you can start with. But even if you're even if
you're getting those documents from those sites, I would still
have a lawyer look at it before you use it. Because your
scenario may not line up with the document that you
downloaded. Or there may be something in particular that you
need. As an example, nondisclosure agreements, right?
I've got to close. You guys are drawing this out of me because I
would be done by now. So you guys are like pulling this stuff
out of me. So I'm just continuing just to help you
because I can see you guys are soaking it up. So as an example,
nondisclosure agreement, you go on to legal zoom, you type of
nondisclosure agreement, right? You're going to get a document
that's called a nondisclosure agreement, very basic. But
you're not going to see in many cases called a non compete.
Non competes and nondisclosure agreements go together very
well. So if you get somebody who you're disclosing something to,
and they're not become privy to your information, it's great if
you get them under a non compete as well. So if they're working
with you on a project, not only can they not disclose it, but
they can't then compete with you on the exact same thing. That's
not going to come on some basic forms. Like this is why lawyers
are very helpful. Because they'll be able to tell you what
are the extra things that are important to your scenario. Or
they might just tell you, gosh, that's so basic on legalism. You
don't need me. You know, now I am going to close. Alright, so
bless all of you guys. That was day one. So go live in Facebook.
You guys had enough for five days, but go on to Facebook. Go
live, let people know what was the main thing that you know,
that really appealed to you that was helpful. That's going
to help a lot of other people love spending time with you guys
here in VIP. You know, come up with your questions, you can
email them to me at nevis at elite hyphen challenges.com. I'm
not going to get to every single question that's not going to
happen. But I will pick every once in a while people to go
live to answer a few questions. Okay. With that, I'm going to
leave Larissa, I've got to take care of some work stuff. And
then tomorrow you guys can ask the district questions. I talked
Thank you, Peter.
Thank you so much. God bless you.