Alright, so welcome to VIP. This is very different. So what we're going to do here is we're going
to be going deeper, but we're also going to do hot seats. So as you're thinking of your
own businesses, or you're thinking your own situations, you'll be able to email me specific
questions. And then every once in a while, I'll do hot seats and kind of dig into what
you need. Right now, I will never give you legal advice. Just to be clear, I don't give
legal advice on these. And the reason for that is because you're not clients, right?
And I'm not trying to make you clients. What I'm trying to do, though, is make sure that
ethically, I don't cross over that line by giving you legal advice. So what I'll be doing
is explaining to you what the law says that's kind of related to your situations. And then
what you should be doing is either speaking to your attorney with some level of knowledge,
as opposed to going to like, let's say, a mechanic and saying, you know, I don't know
what's wrong. Instead, you're going to them and saying, change the spark plugs, right?
Big difference, huge difference in cost, by the way, been there, done that. So you want
to make sure that you know what you're talking about, before you're asking for legal support.
So my intent is to kind of dig into your situations and kind of give you some guidance so that
you do well. Now, there's something that you guys will learn about later during the week,
which is going to help you grow. Like as you're growing in your business, as you're building
your business, as you run into new questions, as you run into new scenarios, it'll help
you grow with this content. And as you try to implement this content, you're going to
have questions. Like when you do a trademark search, you're going to start asking questions.
Like one of the things many of you will actually ask is, how do I actually search for logos?
Like, there's no words in logos. Anybody ever think about that? Like, how exactly do you search
a design? Right? So I'm going to cover that for you. Okay, you guys will get that as we dig into
some more detail. Now, what is that? Oh, I see what Larissa wrote. Yeah, I don't even know how
that started, Larissa. I have no idea. It's probably April. Was it? I was thinking April too.
Yeah. Okay. All right. But it's grown since there. So let's just start out by all of you.
Well, most of you were there for the first session. So are there any specific questions
that you guys have before I start digging into some of the other content I want to share with
you though? Probably. Well, I know it'll transform some of the things in your business. If you have
a specific question, just raise your virtual hand. And I will be happy to answer it.
I don't see any questions yet. Oh, I see one. Catherine, you're up, my friend. Go ahead.
So what I understood from you was that...
Your audio's like broken up. Okay. Hang on just a second.
Sure. No, no problem. Okay. Much better. Oh, can you already tell the difference? Yeah.
Okay. So here's what's going on. You had mentioned to us that first we do the top level search,
the free search, and then go to the attorney with all of the specimens that we need so that they can
prepare the package to be submitted. And that's great. And one of the things that I heard you say
was that the pricing needs to be on our website, for instance, or cost of services
needs to be on our website as a, for instance, of types of things that the attorney will ask for.
And so... Yeah, I don't remember saying that the cost of services had to be on your website,
but the list of services. List of services. Okay.
Right. Not the cost. So basically there's... And we're going into this in a lot more detail
tomorrow. But when you come up with specimens for trademark applications, there's different
requirements for them. And so what I'm going to be dropping tomorrow is the link to the
manual patent examination procedure that actually tells you what exactly is required for
a specimen for goods and what's required for a specimen for services. So it'll lay it out
so you know exactly what's needed. So let's say, are you trying to...
protect the service or good? Like, is it a product? Or is it
a service that you're providing?
I would say my best guess, right? That's how early on I am
in this. Right would be would be a service. So I'm looking to put
together a subscription, as well as well, but there are also
going to be books. So which would be products, right, right.
Yeah, so they're different for books than they would be for
services. So you're
marks for both.
There are two different international classes. So yes.
So what you would do is file one trademark application, but there
would be for two different international classes. One would
be for books and the other one would be for whatever coaching
services that you're providing. So it could be the same
application or you could divide it into two applications. You
can make it one application for the books, one application for
the services. I don't tell people to do that. I think
that's a waste of time, you end up have to type everything all
over for no reason. I say just file one application and then
select two different areas, two different international classes.
Tomorrow, in VIP, we're going to go through the actual filing of
an application online. So you'll be able to actually see what are
all the parts that are needed. And so you'll be able to select
like so we can do the example of books too. We could type in the
word books and see what pops up. I think coaching services falls
under like class 41, I think. Because it's like coaching. It's
also called like teaching and conferences, live conferences,
things like that. I think those are all class 41.
And does that also cover subscriptions, like say for
monthly get togethers Q&As?
Are they live?
Live.
Yeah. So what you can do is do a search for that to see which
international class it is. So tomorrow, when I go through the
actual filing of an application, we can type in different
words. So you can see which one, you know, which class which
international class pertains to your scenario. Yeah. Awesome.
So yeah, so the, the but let's go back to your original
question, which is, what is the specimen supposed to look like?
Right. So if it's a, if you have a situation where it's a book,
then you can take a picture of the book with the logo on it. Or
you could take a book of the packaging with the book inside
with the logo on it. Right. But you need to show the trademark
on either the packaging or the product. That's the way it works
for products for goods. All right. So let's say you're doing
a let's say you've got like a bottle of water, right? Here's
essential, right? So you take a picture of the essential bottle
like that, because it shows the trademark right on it. And
you'll see right on the top here. I don't know if you can
see it. You see the circle are right there on the A. Yes. Yeah,
it's right up there. You can barely see it. But that's their
federal registration, right? Now, one of the things I'm going
to be talking about tomorrow that you guys get a preview to
you is you should not be using a circle are and anything you
don't have a federal registration for. You can be
sued for tortious interference with business practice. And
that's, that's not good. Basically, what happens is when
you when you use a circle are you're telling the world that
you have a federal registration, so other people are not using
that name. And so the government says, Well, that's
not fair. If people believe you have a federal registration,
that means you own all of the United States. Right? Because
there's a difference between a state registration and a federal
registration that covers all of the United States. Those are two
different things. Okay, so you have state rights. And then you
have federal rights. Right? If you file a trademark application
with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, that is a
federal trademark application. If you get a registration with
them, you now own get this, you own all of the United States.
Not just like the state you're in, you own all of it. Even if
you haven't sold anything anywhere, like in other countries
in other states, you still own it. So as long as you've used it
at least once in interstate commerce, interstate commerce
means across the state lines. So if you have an online business,
and you're providing this, this coaching service, or you're
doing this training service, right, or I'm doing challenges,
right, I've
got people that are all over the world that join these things.
Okay, and so if I'm doing a challenge, I definitely have
interstate commerce. And so what I can do is file a trademark
application, and then own all of the United States. Even if I
only have one other customer in another state, I now own all the
United States. That's why I tell people all the time, if you have
use in interstate commerce, don't waste money on state
registrations. It's a waste of money. You don't want to file
one application in Maryland one application in like North
Carolina, another application in California file one application.
And now you own every single state. So it's way more
powerful. And it saves you a lot of money. See, that's the other
thing is a lot of times the attorneys aren't going to tell
you that every time you file in a single state, you're being
charged by the attorney. You file one application federally,
you own every state, there's not a lot of money for the attorneys
to make. But you now have more power than you would have had by
owning three states. So you're spending less money, where you
have more power, that's that that's pretty good. So that's
why I would I would look at doing your federal registration
if you can. Now, if you only have use within the state, like
state only, that's called intrastate use. So I n t r a
state, right? That's different from inter. There are two
different things. So inter I n t e r is covering outside of your
state intra is only in your state. If you only have use in
your state only, then you can only file for state
registration, you can't file for federal because you haven't
crossed state lines. But I'm telling you if you sold anything
on the internet, chances are very high that you've actually
covered interstate.
Okay, so so for instance, if I've run beta groups, and there
have been people, different people across the US, and there
have been people like in England or Australia, stuff like that,
as well, then the the federal is going to cover the US. That's
what I and and do I need to do something for international too?
Yeah, we're covering that tomorrow as well. Okay. So there
is an option to do foreign filing as well. The timeline
that you want to handle is filing within six months of
filing in the United States. Okay, because if you file within
six months, then you get the filing date of your US case. So
what does that mean? Like what in the world is this guy talking
about? Let me explain this to you. Okay. All right. If you
file a trademark application on January 1, 2022. Okay. Now,
let's say somebody in Germany sees that name on a product, and
they go, man, that is an awesome name. I want that name, and they
start using it themselves, right? As long as you file
within six months of your US filing date, you will then for
foreign filing, you will then have the filing date of your US
case. So if they copied it, after you filed in the US, you
have preemptive rights, because you predate them because your
foreign filing is based on the US filing, but it must be done
within six months. If six months pass by, can't do it.
Does the filing have to be completed within the six months
or no, no, it has to be applied for it has to be filed. Okay,
so completed. When I hear the word completed, I think
registered. Right? No, you don't control registration. Like
you file your application, then you wait for the United States
Patent and Trademark Office, or you wait for, you know, if
you're doing a, an application under the Madrid Protocol, which
is a foreign case, your attorney will know all the stuff I'm
talking about. Right. So if you all you tell your attorney is, I
need the foreign file, then the next thing you should be able to
say is, I need to do it within six months of my US filing,
they're gonna go, how in the world did you know that? That's
the very first thing they're gonna think like, that's, that's
attorney lingo. But if you miss that six month date, then you're
not going to have the filing date of the United States. So if
if Kerry starts using a name, let's say in the United States,
and I'm in again, Germany, and I see it, I'm like, man, Kerry,
That is a great name.
I'm gonna use that name myself.
I'm gonna start using it in Germany.
And so I start three months later
using that exact same name.
And Carrie's going, well, that's not fair.
Now all of a sudden in Germany,
the name that I'm using is starting to be used over there.
And people think it's my product when it's not my product.
It's this other company by this knucklehead Peter
who's using it, that's not fair.
And so Carrie is like, I'm so mad, this is not working.
And so what does she do?
She foreign files within six months of filing in the U.S.
And then she relies upon the U.S. filing date.
And then she comes after me and she says,
hey, knucklehead, that name, it's mine.
And my filing date, it predates your first use.
So you got two options.
You can either stop or I can sue you.
And what happens?
Chances are the people stop.
Okay.
Does that help?
Yes, I think I was supposed to have started
a couple of years ago.
So I'm thinking.
That's okay.
Remember how I told you when we started out,
people were going to be within the first two days,
they're gonna go, oh man, I should have this,
I should have that.
You're just starting to feel the growth pains, that's all.
So be patient with yourself and say,
well, now I have knowledge that I didn't know before.
So now I can fix it.
That's all.
That's all it is.
It's just new knowledge.
That's all.
Sounds good.
Thank you, Peter.
You're so welcome.
All right, let me talk a little bit about domain names
because this is where people get in a lot of trouble.
You come up with this new name for a company
and then you think, man, I want to own the domain name.
And then you find out somebody else has domain name
and you think to yourself, what do I do?
Like, hold it, I file,
I just file for my trademark application.
And then when I went to file for,
when I tried to get domain name, somebody has it already.
Like, what do I do?
So there's a few things you gotta be careful of
in that kind of scenario, okay?
Number one, I would check to see whether or not
they're using that name as a business already.
Let's say that your trademark that you want to use is
night, it's like night flight for volleyballs, right?
Let's say it's called night flight, right?
And it's a volleyball so you can play volleyball at night.
I've always wanted to play volleyball at night.
Personally, it's cooler.
You're not like boiling out there.
I think the net should be fluorescent too
and the lines of the court should be fluorescent.
I think that would be awesome.
That's an aside, but let's say it's called night flight.
That's the name of the volleyball, right?
So what do you do?
In that scenario, what you want to do
is after you file your trademark application,
you see somebody has a URL for that,
a domain name for that.
I would look to see if they're actually using that
in business, because if they are,
you may run into a problem here where they predate you
for the very trademark that you just filed for.
One thing that we're gonna talk about tomorrow,
and I'm gonna keep this very top level
because this can be very, very complicated.
So I'm just gonna keep it very top level.
If you've been using a name
and somebody files a trademark application
for the exact same name after you started using it,
they cannot stop you from using it
in your specific geographical region, okay?
That's called common law usage.
Common law usage.
That's what it's called, okay?
It is an obscure area of the law.
A lot of people mess this up.
There's a good friend of mine.
He has a company.
He had been using the name for that company
for multiple years.
All of a sudden,
somebody else gets a federal registration for it.
They send him a cease and desist letter.
They said, you need to stop using that name now
or we're gonna sue you.
He didn't know.
He didn't take the protect your idea challenge.
Like he didn't know about this
because it didn't exist back then.
So you know what he did?
He cut them a check.
He changed the name of his company.
He changed his packaging.
He pulled product off the shelves.
He changed his website, changed his stencil.
came up with new trademarks, the new filings, new everything, new packaging. Do you have any idea
how expensive that whole process was? Extremely, extremely high. Extremely high. Now here's the
bad news. He didn't have to do any of that because of common law rights. Under common law, the fact
that he had been using that trademark and selling that product throughout all of the United States,
pretty much every single state he had been selling the product in,
that means that he had preemptive rights. He had legal rights that actually predated
this other big corporation. You know what he actually could have done? He actually could
have sued them. Literally, he could have actually said, no, no, no, I don't think you understand.
And he could have turned the gun around and faced it towards them and said,
I have preemptive rights on the common law. You guys should cut me a check for $100,000.
That's called common law trademark rights. So if you get into a situation where you've
been using a trademark and you never filed for a trademark application,
and somebody else gets a federal registration, make sure you talk to a lawyer immediately.
Don't go changing anything. Go talk to a lawyer and find out whether or not you have common law
rights. If you do, you can actually discuss that with the other party. Okay. What type of lawyer
do you talk to? IP lawyer? Because there are lots of different flavors of lawyers.
There are. Any of the stuff that I'm talking about, always IP lawyers. I would only talk
to IP lawyers. The reason why is because the others just, they won't understand this.
They're not going to know what common law trademarks are. They're not going to know what
an intent to use trademark application is, which you're going to learn about tomorrow.
They're not going to know any of this stuff. So you got to make sure that the people that you talk to
are experts in your scenarios. So, you know, like if I handle tax law, you guys should sue me
because I don't, I don't know Jack or Joe about tax law, like not my area. So do not hire me to do
any tax law. Anything that has to do with IP, I cover it all. Like I've been doing it for over
25 years. Like it's, that's my expertise. That's my area. That's my sweet spot. So yeah. So just
be careful if you get a cease and desist or something, involve a lawyer. There are things
called common law rights. Okay. That's, that's probably one of the biggest issues I've seen.
People don't understand what legal rights they have. Now let's talk about the TM for a second.
Everybody know the TM kind of know that, you know, that T yeah. So there's like to the top
right of the word, your trademark, you use a TM. Unmute yourself and tell me when you think you
can start using the TM. Don't worry if you get it wrong, nobody cares. Anybody want to guess
when you can start using TM? It got quiet. You guys aren't even moving. I was like,
are people breathing? Don't choose me. Don't choose me. I would think it would be after,
after you get the approval, after you get a registration.
Well, after they, after they say that it's yours, whatever that means. Okay. Okay. Any other thoughts?
Everybody's like, don't thank me. Don't thank me. All right. So here's, here's the truth.
Oh, Catherine, go ahead. From the beginning, from the beginning. What is the beginning?
So when we're starting up the company, when we've, we've, so we can use it then
we can't use, we can't use the R. Okay. All right. Diana, what were you going to say?
You have to unmute my friend.
Sorry about that. I was going to say you can start, you can use it at the inception of usage of.
Right. That's right. Yeah. So here's the situation. You can actually start using the TM
before you even file a trademark application. In fact, if you're using a name for your business
or your service or your company, you can use a TM today. You don't, you don't need to spend a
single penny to use a TM. Now what the TM is actually doing is it's placing the public on
notice that you believe you have certain rights to that name or to that logo. Okay.
We're gonna cover this in a little more detail
with everybody else tomorrow,
but I wanna give you kind of a preview on this
because people get the circle R and the TMs
and the circle C, they get that wrong all the time.
And then what happens is they end up in a liability issue.
So the second you start using the trademark
in intrastate or interstate commerce, slap a TM on it.
Like immediately, don't even think about it, just do it.
And it goes on the top right of the word.
So if it's a word mark, so if it's Nike, top right.
Don't put it on top left, it looks weird.
Like people think you're an amateur, don't do that.
So top right, that's where you put it.
Now, if it's a logo, right, like the swoosh,
I can tell you where most people put it.
I don't know that there's actually a rule
that says you must do this,
but most people for logos put it on the bottom right.
That's typically where you see it.
Although I've also seen it on the top right.
So, but typically it's on the bottom right, okay?
Now, if you're trying to figure out how to get a little TM,
does anybody know how you get the little TM?
Let me know if you need that answer, Peter.
What?
Let me know if you need that answer,
I'll tell them how to do it.
We'll go to you if nobody knows, that's fine.
All right, Ray, go ahead.
How do you get the little TM?
If you're doing it on your keyboard,
you hit the Alt key if you're on a Windows for PC,
and it's Alt 0153.
In what program?
That's PC for Windows.
Apple, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know Apple either.
But you can Google it,
and they're called Alt codes, A-L-T, it'll tell you.
Alt, what was it after the Alt?
0153.
Oh, thanks, we're supposed to put it in the chat.
So you hold down the Alt key,
and then you type, as you're holding down the Alt key,
you type 0153.
And you've got to do it on the numeric keypad,
not on the numbers above the letters.
I learned that the hard way.
Yeah.
Because somebody told me that,
and I was like, that doesn't work, that's a lie.
It was probably me. This is not working.
And then I realized, hold it, maybe I'm doing this wrong.
So it was a bit difficult.
Thought that I had to not use this
across everything we make, Peter.
Oh my gosh, I know.
Yeah, we got our little TMs everywhere.
Yeah, we do, literally every single place,
we try to put them down every single time.
But what you're doing with the TMs,
again, you're placing the public on notice.
And the reason why it's important is for multiple reasons.
Number one, damages.
If you ever sue another party,
you're going to need to prove damages, right?
And if you have the TM there,
at least you can tell the judge,
look, I placed them on notice.
I wasn't just using the name randomly,
I put a TM on it,
so they should know that I believe it's my trademark
and I put a TM on it.
Now, if you just have the name there
with no TM and no circle R,
then how somebody is supposed to know
that you believe it's your trademark?
Like they don't know.
And so then if you sue them for trademark infringement,
they're going to argue,
well, I never knew it was their trademark.
They never had a TM on it or a circle R.
So that means your damages will be exponentially lower,
right?
Damages, that's the dollar amount
that you get for infringement
if you ever have to sue another party.
Now, nobody here wants to sue anybody.
That's not why you're learning this,
but what you'll find is by doing things the right way,
you will obtain leverage to make other people settle faster.
Okay?
You want to get the other people
to do what you want faster.
So Carrie asks,
what's the difference between the TM
and the circle R?
So the TM, you use a TM for your trademark
or for your wordmark or your slogan or your logo,
you use that TM the moment
that you start using your trademark, right?
You don't have to file anything with the trademark office.
After you get a federal registration
with let's say the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
So that would include filing the trademark,
getting examined,
answer any office actions,
getting a registration.
Once you get the registration from that day forward,
you can use a circle R.
So that's telling the world.
you have a federal registration, which is exponentially more
powerful than just the TM.
Because for a TM, you're basically saying,
yeah, I have certain rights.
But the only rights you can really have
is where you've actually used the trademark in the United
States.
For a Circle R, a federal registration,
you own all of the United States.
Every single state is yours.
I mean, think about this.
You can file a trademark application.
The USPTO fee you'll find out tomorrow
is, I think, $275 to file a TEAS application.
That's the USPTO fee, or $350 if you don't do that kind.
Plus, you pay the attorney's fees.
If you do all that I'm going to teach you
how to do for an application, you
should get away being done with it around $1,000,
including the USPTO fee.
That's for filing.
That's your filing cost.
Now, after you file, there's going
to be an examination at the patent and trademark office.
So they're going to do a search.
When they do a search, they may find a trademark
that sounds very similar to yours or looks similar.
And if they do, they'll give you a rejection.
Now, you need an attorney to actually argue
why, legally, your trademark should be registered.
After you do that, the examiner may agree with you
and give you a registration.
Or they may say, you're full of baloney.
Nice try.
And they may reject it again.
If they reject it again, then you've
got to do legal arguments again.
But the whole point is, your application
is usually around $1,000 if you do all the stuff
that I'm teaching you here.
That's including the USPTO fee.
If you don't do this stuff, I've seen
lawyers charge as much as $1,800, $2,000
for just a trademark application.
And then you have to pay for the office actions and other stuff.
And that's why it's a lot better if you
follow what we're saying here.
Ray.
Oh, OK.
Carrie.
Carrie, so you asked, how long does the approval process
take?
That's a great question, start to finish.
OK.
Who else would like to know that?
How long does the trademark application take?
Yeah?
OK, great.
All right.
So if you file a trademark application today,
typically it takes about seven to nine months
to get an office action from the United States Patent and
Trademark Office.
All right.
So what happens is you file your application.
Now it gets assigned to an examiner.
The examiner does their search.
They send you a yes, it's registered, or no,
here's a rejection.
And you've got to respond to that.
All right.
That process, typically seven to nine months.
If that communication is, hey, application looks great,
we're going to allow it to registration,
you could get a trademark registered within 10 months.
Right?
But what happens after it's been allowed, after they say,
yes, we'll give you a notice of allowance,
it then gets published for the whole world to see.
And for 30 days, anybody could oppose your trademark.
It's called publication.
Now, all of you, since you're in VIP,
you're all going to get a form that I'm
going to be handing to you guys that
lists every single stage of a trademark application.
It tells you phase one, selecting the mark,
phase two, doing a trademark search,
the three different types of trademark searches,
the application itself being filed,
the assignment to an examiner, an office action, allowance,
publication, after 30 days, registration.
After registration, there are things
called maintenance fees that you have
to pay to keep the thing alive.
Right?
I list all that stuff on one sheet for you.
Because you guys are in VIP, so you just grab that thing,
you're like, there's a stage I'm on right there, boom, done.
A lot easier than trying to figure this whole mess out,
because it can get really messy.
OK?
So you guys will have all that.
And maybe, yeah, maybe what I'll do
is I'll put some timeline stuff on it too.
I don't have that on there now, but I'll throw it on there.
Yes, ma'am.
Go for it, Catherine.
So the six months that you talked about for foreign
filing, that would be the six months as of the time
that the trademark was filed.
Okay, but if it hasn't been approved yet, can we still go ahead and file for foreign
filing?
Yes.
Okay.
Now, now you're starting to, you're starting to see some of the problems in the system.
What if your case gets rejected and now you spent the money on foreign filing, but you've
got a rejected case, right?
That's this is why doing a good trademark search is so important.
This is why, you know, you'll get a lot of people that say, I don't want to do a search.
I'd say you're crazy.
Like if you don't want to do a search, as you're going to, you are running the risk
of filing an application for something that's going to get rejected.
Or if you're going to do, like you said, Catherine foreign filing, it's not cheap.
So now you're doing foreign filing based on a case that you never did a trademark search
for.
That's not wise.
I would always do a trademark search first.
Can a ministry use just do it as a slogan for ministry?
That's good, Diana.
Okay.
Oh boy.
All right.
Is Diana still here?
Did she leave?
Is she still here?
Yeah, she's still here.
Where is she?
I'm here.
Can they?
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
All right, Diana.
Um, this, this is not legal advice.
Okay.
Just to be clear.
Got it.
So legal advice.
Right.
Gotcha.
So, um, the way it works is, is that if, if your use is not in a similar, not for similar
goods, similar services, um, you know, it's not, not like the same kind of audience not
sold in the same place.
You know, uh, there's a number of factors that we're going to talk about tomorrow to
determine likelihood of confusion.
Um, that's the measuring test.
Likelihood of confusion is the measuring test to determine whether or not you infringe.
Okay.
It's called likelihood of confusion.
All right.
In that analysis, think of it this way.
If you have just do it for sneakers, but then you're saying, I want to use, just do it for
ministry.
Here's the problem.
Here's the problem that I see.
Okay.
Again, not legal advice, but here's, here's the problem that I see.
Just do it as a famous trademark.
It's not a normal trademark, right?
The higher, the level of fame of the trademark, the more likely it is that there is infringement.
Okay.
Like McDonald's, you use the name McDonald's.
I I'll tell you if, if taco bell decided tomorrow, look, we make tacos, man, we make tacos.
So like, we're not making cheeseburgers.
We make tacos.
So like, okay, well, here's the problem to both fast food.
So even though it's not using McDonald's for burgers or fries or milkshakes, it's still
fast food.
So there's still, in my belief, a likelihood of confusion.
Now let's step away from that.
Let's say you wanted to use the name McDonald's for training on how to play a saxophone, right?
That's not related in any way, shape, or form to fast food.
I mean, it's not even vaguely related.
Now does that mean McDonald's is not going to sue you?
Nope.
Because McDonald's will sue anybody who uses McDonald's.
They're just pretty remarkably aggressive.
So I've been up against McDonald's.
I've won, but they're, they're very litigious, like extremely litigious.
So whenever it comes to a famous trademark, I would stay as far away from it as possible,
personally.
Because what you want to be thinking is, why exactly is it that I'm using the name?
I mean, think about it that way, like, bring it back to like an ethical consideration.
Why would I want to use Just Do It?
Is it because the name Just Do It is pretty well known, or the slogan is pretty well known?
And I'm thinking, I like the way that sounds in ministry, Just Do It.
If you're trying to capitalize on the fame of a trademark of another, you can get in
trouble for that.
But ministry.
and just do it, I don't think they're related,
but again, it is a very powerful trademark.
So personally, I'd stay clear.
Don't use it.
Yeah, I mean, see, here's the thing.
You guys get this experience in VIP.
See, here's the thing.
I'm not just teaching you the law.
I'm teaching you what's practical, right?
Because I may win the case for you.
But you're going to spend a quarter of a million dollars
winning the case.
So whether you win the case or lose the case,
you lost the case, because you just
lost a quarter of a million dollars
for Peter to take care of you.
So there is winning and losing, but in situations
when you end up in litigation, I think
you lose right off the bat.
Because the only one who wins in litigation in most cases
are the attorneys.
I mean, I had a client who spent $3.5 million
on a patent litigation matter for me recently.
Actually, no, I think he spent more than that.
I think it was $3.8 million, right?
Now, we won, and they ended up saving like $80 million
plus because we won, but they still lost $3.8 million.
So it'd be a lot better if they didn't end up in court,
period, right?
So some of the things I'm going to teach you are the law
and directly related to your situation.
And other things are just don't do this.
Like, it's just not going to help.
Sherry, go ahead.
Hi.
So I have a couple of questions.
One is, if I have a URL that is Confident Kids Academy,
someone else from another country
came to me and said, you can't use that because we
have a Confident Kids.
And it's like a dance school, and mine
is about reading instruction.
And it's not the whole, like, ours is Confident Kids Academy.
Theirs is just Confident Kids.
Is that, like, what are your thoughts on that?
And I don't even know that theirs is patented
or anything like that.
I think it's in like.
It'd be trademarked.
But what I would say, not related
to your specific scenario at all.
Let me give you another example, OK?
One person owns Microsoft Windows.
Another person owns.
Somebody else comes along.
And well, actually, let's change it.
Somebody owns Microsoft.
Another person says, well, I own Microsoft Windows.
Is Microsoft going to be upset?
Yeah.
So what we do in an analysis for trademark infringement
is we look at the trademark that's registered.
So let's say Microsoft is registered.
If you add a word, if anybody adds a word
to that registration, it's still trademark infringement
because it's including the trademark, right?
OK.
Now, imagine instead that parts are taken away.
So let's say that Microsoft owns Microsoft Windows.
And somebody else comes along and says,
well, I own Transparent Windows, right?
It's not Microsoft Windows.
It's Transparent Windows.
Well, now you start doing that analysis
of likelihood of confusion to determine
are all the factors there, one by one by one.
So we cannot add a word to a trademark
to try to argue that there is no trademark infringement.
That does not work.
There is a potential of removing a word,
but you've got to do that whole legal analysis step
by step by step to see whether or not
there's trademark infringement.
OK.
Can I ask one more question that's along the same lines?
Let me go to Mandy first because I'm
trying to answer one question from each person.
Like I said, I'd definitely do that.
OK.
Hey, how are you?
I'm doing well.
I just hopped on the later.
So I have a question.
It's a little vague at the moment,
but it has to do with character design.
I'm still in the process of developing
like a solid design for my character,
but I have a color scheme picked out pretty clearly.
And I haven't like drawn her myself,
but I've made her on like DollMakers and stuff.
So it's technically someone else's art,
but the character itself.
is mine. Not a huge issue at this point. It's not going to turn into a legal thing at the moment,
but I did have a couple people basically take her design and claim it as their own and like
do things of that nature. So I guess my question would be along the lines of how would I go about
protecting it if it's kind of like do it doesn't need to be solid at this moment or can I just do
something with like the color scheme or like what what what options I guess. Let's deal with
Carrie and I are really familiar with NFTs, right? Let's talk about NFTs, right? That's
probably going to be easy way to implement this. So if you look at NFTs start out as a drawing,
right? Like an artistic work and then it's a computer generated rendering of that drawing
is created, right? So let's say somebody out there sees a computer generator rendering and
then they modify it. So let's think of like Snoopy, right? I like Snoopy. Very simple
character. When you look at it, very, very simple. So let's say instead of the ears being
down and floppy, they're wrapped around his head like a headband, right? And instead, you know,
he doesn't have his ears drooping, right? So if that's the case, then yeah. Thank you,
Ray, for typing that in fungible tokens. Yeah. I didn't even think some people might be like,
NFTs? What's an NFT? Sounds like a disease. No disease here. Yeah. It's a commodity that you can
sell. It's in a different world. We can talk about that another time. All right. So let's say
somebody sees the Snoopy and says, I'm going to put the ears around his head, right? The question
is what legal rights are there associated with that, right? You're talking about what's called
copyright law. That whole area, that realm is predominantly copyright law. Now, you could create
a logo that has Snoopy in it, in which case trademark law could be involved too. And if
somebody modifies that logo that has Snoopy in it, then that could potentially be trademark
infringement, right? But we always have to look at, like my daughters are artists. You know,
my oldest is going to school to RPI for interior design and architecture. And my youngest,
she draws, oh my gosh, her gifting just, it's kind of amazing, right? And so she has her whole line
of characters, like a whole line of them, you know, like the lion, the lamb, and 4 billion others.
She has them all laid out. And so we're going to turn them into NFTs and she's going to build her
own corporation, right? At 16. And so I'm like, let's do this. Come on, you know, let's go do this
because I understand the structure for it. But here's the thing is that those things are protectable
by copyright and they're also protectable by trademark potentially if they're logos. So
predominantly copyright law will be involved when you're dealing with characters. And if somebody
modifies them, then that could essentially be copyright law infringement. Because the only
right, and we're going to cover this on Wednesday, the only right, the only person who can modify
a character is the one who owns the copyright. That's it. Anybody else is modifying a copyrighted
work, that's copyright infringement. And so I tell people, you'll see on day three, I'll tell you,
if you're an artist, if you do drawings, if you do paintings, I know prophetic painters,
I know people that do drawings that are like, remarkable. Find the ones that are most important,
file those with the copyright office, cost 65 bucks. Like for $65, you can get rid of an awful
lot of pain. You know, so I would find your most important works and do that. Or you can file
multiple works together as one filing. We'll talk about that all on day on Wednesday. Okay.
All right, let me cover a little more here. And then we're going to close. We have seven more
minutes. So I'm going to cover a question on this question is she took asked if you took elements
from someone else's creation to make her character. I think she was saying. So Mandy, did you take
other people's stuff and put it into yours? I didn't know. It was in the back. Oh, I'm sorry.
I must have misunderstood. No, it was actually the flip of that where I had designed a character.
And then somebody had like, it wasn't quite as like detailed as mine. But the basic color scheme
and layout was very similar. So it was like they had taken the character design the base of the
character design and called it their own. Basically, there is a thing called trade dress,
which is an area that I wasn't going to talk about here because it's really complicated.
And so we might be able to touch base offline Mandy.
But in trade dress, it protects the general look
and feel of something.
So think of when you walk into a McDonald's.
They all kind of look the same.
They all kind of have that same look and feel,
the same kind of colors.
Or if you walk into a Waffle House, if you're down South,
they all look the same from the outside.
Friendlies, same thing.
A lot of franchises have a look and feel to them.
And so you can obtain what's called trade dress.
It's a form of trademark that includes
colors, look, and feel.
So that might be something you kind of think about,
is trade dress.
It's very unique.
There's not a lot of people that know how to use it properly.
But when you use it properly, anybody here create funnels?
Anybody know what funnels are?
I see a bunch of people.
All right.
You know how certain people have the same color schemes
that they use?
It's always that same general look and feel.
I have a certain color scheme that Rae
makes me use every time.
That's not in our palette.
I try to do an ad, and she's like, that's not using our
colors.
I'm like, what?
I just like the ad.
It's not using our colors.
Fix it.
It's not our brand.
It's our brand, right.
So there's a general look and feel to that funnel, right?
You can actually use trade dress for that
to stop other people from using that exact same look.
There's all sorts of really cool things
you can do with trademark law.
It's very powerful.
Most people just think, well, TM, Circle R.
That's all it is.
There's way more that you can do with trademark law.
So getting a good trademark law attorney
really is very helpful if you want
to stop others from stealing your stuff.
All right, let me cover one more thing.
This is kind of unique.
What if you have a logo that has a word in it, all right?
There's a lot of logos out there, and some of you
may have logos that have words in them, OK?
If there's a word inside the logo,
you might want to think about whether or not
you want to file for the word separate, OK?
Can anybody think of a logo that has a word in it?
Let's see if I can pull one up for you.
Does FedEx have?
Walmart does.
Yeah.
Pulling up Walmart's right now.
All right, here we go.
That was actually a good example.
Let's make it bigger so everybody can see it.
Oh, Kim, don't make me hungry at the In-N-Out Burger.
Somebody pulling up burgers?
OK.
I think Burger King is one of them, too.
Yep, McDonald's has them, too.
All right, so here's Walmart, right?
It is simple.
Let me make it bigger.
Or less, less, less.
All right, here's an example.
There's Walmart.
So you see how it has underneath save money, live better.
And then there's this thing to the right.
Sunshine.
Sunshine, sunshine.
That'll work, OK.
So you have Walmart, and then you have the sunshine, OK?
So it would be beneficial to actually file for Walmart alone.
And then you could file for Walmart with the sunshine,
right?
Because if you use the name Walmart alone in business,
but you only have, if you only register the word
mark with the logo, then you run the risk of somebody
using the name alone and saying that they don't believe that they
commit trademark infringement because they're not
using your entire trademark.
And they may not win, or they may win.
The whole point is it's a lot easier for you
to register Walmart alone and to register,
you can register to Walmart with the sun alone.
I mean, if you ever use the sun alone, the sunshine alone,
then I would register to sunshine alone, too.
Because then think of Nike.
There's Nike.
Let me type in Nike trademark.
Nike, just do it.
So here's Nike images.
is Nike's Just Do It.
There it is right there, right?
So you have the Swoosh and then you have Just Do It.
So they actually use the Swoosh alone.
So they have one registration for that.
Then they have another registration that has Just Do It.
Those are actually two trademarks,
but they use them together.
Because if somebody uses Just Do It
and they own the Swoosh with Just Do It,
the other party might argue,
yeah, we're not copying all of your trademark.
Now, at the end of the day,
I can tell you from experience as a litigator
that that person's gonna lose, right?
Because Just Do It is the major component of the trademark.
And so when you do an analysis of it,
is there a likelihood of confusion?
And one party is using Just Do It for a sneaker box,
like I've got over here.
These were given to me.
This happens sometimes, guys.
Here, this here, these were given to me, right?
I didn't buy these.
These were given to me, okay?
These are Pumas, right?
So there's some sneakers here, the Pumas, okay?
I'm not really into Pumas personally.
It's not my type of sneaker, but they were a gift.
And so I'm grateful for them.
And they look nice.
Like, you know, they're kind of pretty.
They have the gold.
And I don't know if you can see on this side,
there's like gold lettering and Puma,
and this is Clyde Drexel.
So, you know, they're good sneakers,
but they're just not my style.
So anyways, if somebody decides to use Puma alone,
there's the cat in the logo,
then there's Puma underneath it.
If somebody uses Puma alone for sneakers,
then I guarantee you, Puma's gonna sue them anyway,
because the word's in it.
But you have the highest chance of winning
if you register the name alone and the logo separate.
As long as you do use them separate at least once,
that's gonna give you the most powerful coverage
in trademark law, to own each one separate, okay?
All right, and with that, I'm gonna stop here.
I know Larissa has her,
she kind of does a summary
and kind of ask you guys some questions before we close.
Let me see.
Diana, I think we answered your question.
I think we went through a lot of your questions today.
I wanted to cover at least one question from everyone.
Anders, I know we'll kind of touch base another time.
And so tomorrow VIP is the same time.
We're gonna go deeper into trademarks.
Tomorrow, you do not wanna miss VIP,
because we're gonna go through a live filing
of a trademark application, okay?
And that one piece by itself,
like is worth all the costs you're paying
for a challenge in VIP.
Anybody who is in challenge,
who wants to learn how to do trademark applications,
you should go live in the Facebook group
and tell them, join VIP, because you can't miss tomorrow.
Because you guys can't share the videos with them,
because that would be copyright infringement.
You'll learn that on Wednesday.
So for that reason, it's really valuable to do the VIP.
So your homework for VIP is go live
and let other people know about what you learned in VIP.
If there's anything jumped out at you
that you think would be helpful to them, let them know.
Like share that with them,
because I just find a lot of people after the challenge,
if they're not in VIP, they end up sending me messages
saying, can you please explain
how to file a trademark application?
And then we have to go all the way back to the beginning
and start all over.
And it's just a lot easier if they're already here.
So just let them know, all right?
I am going to jump off.
I hope you guys enjoyed day one.
This was day one, okay?
Tomorrow is probably the most comprehensive day.
And then it gets a lot easier.
Copyrights are easier.
Patents, we're not going to go extremely deep.
And then we're going to kind of bring it all together
so everybody understands all aspects.
Nathan, make sure you got that email
because I want to make sure you got it.
You got it?
Okay, good, good.
So you're all set, awesome.
All right, my friends, I'm going to jump off.
I'll leave you Larissa.
You have a blessed evening
and think about what you've learned.
And I'll have the replays for you
probably by tomorrow morning, all right?
I'm going to be working on it tonight.
All right, take care everyone.