All right. Well, welcome aboard. So for some of you, this is their first time in the protection
portal. So this is, it's kind of similar to the VIP experience, but you'll see that it
goes deeper. We're going to take time to make sure you really understand some of these concepts.
And we're going to kind of find relationships between different issues. So as to make sure
that, you know, when you, when you understand that a car has an engine, it's nice, not chilly,
understand that the engine only works if it has gasoline, it's kind of that kind of situation.
Like I'm going to teach you the things that are related to the issues you're learning.
And so things that are natural progressions from what you're learning. Now, as we're going
along, some of you are going to have questions that, that you already have that you've emailed
to me. That's where I'm basing off the beginning of the sessions is from the emails that you
send me. So make sure during the month you're emailing me so that I can look over those
and be prepared to hit those topics sequentially. And then as I'm going through those, if you
have a follow-up to that matter that I've already addressed, then feel free to raise
your hand and I'll acknowledge you. And then you can ask that follow-up to that matter.
I'm trying to keep it on specific subject matters. And then as we go along, I'm going
to, then as I've nailed some of the major issues, I'll ask you, does anybody have any
other questions? And that's when we'll do like the hot seeds and, you know, and all
the interactions. But when we start off, I kind of have an agenda based on what you've
sent me and the time that I've spent reviewing your emails and determining, you know, what
areas of law really pertain to your questions. Like some people were asking questions with
regard to websites. And if you file for a copyright application on a website, then does
that mean you also own the logo and the trademark? And what about the slogan? And what about
the graphical user interface and stuff like that? So we're going to be going through that
today, just so you understand when you do a specific filing, what exactly it is that
you're filing for, I think is important because we tend to look at things as a big package
and government entities don't. They don't tend to look at like when you file a copyright
application at www.copyright.gov, they don't look at it as every single thing that's associated
with that filing you now own. They don't look at it that way. They only look at specifically
what that office is assigned to for protection and nothing else. OK, so this is a it's this
is a big area that people make mistakes in all the time. And so as an example, you remember
the example of the secretary of state. So somebody files the name of a corporation with
the secretary of state and then they think, well, OK, I own the name. Now, that's now
my name. But then when they find out that somebody else is doing the name, they get
upset. They send a notice letter to the other party saying, hey, I own that name. Here's
my registration of the corporation with the secretary of state just to find out that that
other party has a federal registration who then shuts them down. So as you obtain intellectual
property rights, I guess the way I would put it is don't get gun happy. All right. Don't
feel like, you know, oh, now I can shut everybody down. Let me attack this attack that because
I've seen people do it where they obtain certain legal rights and then all of a sudden they
start getting very aggressive and going after the people. Make sure you do your homework
before you send a single communication or even call them, because how many of you know
that if you call an entity, they actually have identification of any individual who's
actually called them like their records. They can find out who's called them, who's emailed
them everything. So if you're ever in a legal battle, all of those records become admissible
in court. So you don't want to have like this plethora of information that can hurt
you because you just got anxious. You know, the word says be anxious over nothing, but
in everything, bring your prayers and petitions to God with Thanksgiving and he provides you
with a peace that goes beyond all understanding. Right. So don't jump and attack. So if you
see somebody using your name, make sure of what you have for protection. Right. Your
first step should be, have I been using this name before them? That falls into the category
of what somebody, somebody type in the chat. If you don't have a federal registration,
but you've been using the name for a period of time in interstate commerce, what kind
of protection is that called? There you go. Common law.
Come on, Holly, come on.
It's so good.
Yes, that's right.
There's gotta be like a computer way
of sending stars on people's papers, you know?
Like, just be like star, star.
When you get five of them, you get a prize.
There's to be something like that.
We have to create that.
That's gonna be another patent.
We'll do that.
So yeah, so the first thing is to determine,
well, have I been using it prior to them?
If I have been using it prior to them, okay,
I've got certain common law rights, right?
So then if I have certain common law rights,
if I want to expand my territory,
and I'm explaining this to you
because this goes along the lines of one of the questions.
If I know that I've used it prior to them,
let's say since 1980,
and they've got a registration in 2000,
and I know that I'm safe
because I've been using since 1980
on my services and my goods,
so I don't care if they get a federal registration or not.
They can't stop me.
Like I've been using it
in my specific geographic location.
The question is, what does geographic location mean?
And that's where you need to talk to an attorney.
You need to go to them and say,
okay, look, I've been using this name since 1980.
Here's another entity.
It looks like they've been,
they got a federal registration in 2000.
Let's just say 2000, yeah, since 2000.
And I want to continue using,
is that going to be a problem
now that they got a federal registration?
Or I want to go into another territory.
Is that going to be a problem?
And remember, if somebody else gets a federal registration
after you've been using your trademark
in a specific geographical region,
then you can't expand out.
It's kind of like they put this circle around you.
You're stuck where you're stuck.
That's it.
You can continue where you are,
but you can't go out, right?
So that's when you need to get a lawyer involved
because you need to ask them, what does it mean?
Like, what specifically does it mean
that I can continue using my trademark
in the geographical region where I've been using it?
What does that mean?
I don't want theoretical stuff.
I want to know specifically what county I can use it in.
I want to know what town I can use it in.
Like, get your lawyer to do their homework at that point
because then they're going to plot out to you
and say, okay, you can use it in Nashua
and in Belmont and in Concord,
but you can't go into Manchester.
Like, they're going to tell you that
and get that in writing.
So now you have, the reason why,
it's not because you're trying to lock your lawyer in, right?
It's what you're doing is you're trying to prove
if you ever get sued that you're not woefully infringing
because you relied upon what a lawyer said.
Do you see that?
There's a difference.
There's a difference between,
I believe there's an infringement and I continue doing it,
and then I get sued,
which can lead to willful infringement,
or I go and I see a lawyer,
I get a legal opinion saying
I can continue doing what I'm doing,
and then I get sued.
It's very hard for me to be liable for willful infringement
if I've got a legal opinion
from somebody that does this for a living.
You know, look, I'm not a lawyer.
I'm relying upon this legal opinion.
Here's the legal opinion.
I paid for the legal opinion.
So therefore, how can I be willfully infringing
if I don't understand this area of law?
You know, I relied upon another,
and that's very powerful, powerful, powerful evidence
to get rid of willful infringement if you ever get sued, okay?
And with that getting sued thing,
I need to put in the disclaimer,
none of this is legal advice.
I'm just telling you what the law says.
There's like, if I was teaching in a law school,
like I've taught at Dartmouth, MIT,
I've taught at UNH School of Law,
which was Franklin Pierce Law School.
I've taught at the University of Tel Aviv,
and this is how I would teach them.
I would teach them the law,
and then it's up to them to go to the lawyers
and figure out how to implement what they've learned, okay?
So with that, type in the chat, this is not legal advice.
So I have at least a few confirmations here.
People know none of this is legal advice, except you, John.
I don't want you typing, this is not legal advice, okay?
Yeah, there you go.
He's doing it in sign language, not legal advice.
Got it, okay, good.
All right, and with that, let me continue.
Hey, Rowena, how are you?
Hey, hey, y'all.
Hey.
All right, so we were just going through understanding
when you get a lawyer involved,
essentially on some of these issues.
So let me jump into a few of the issues,
and then any questions on the follow-up right there
on when you get a lawyer involved?
Like if you get a cease and desist letter,
or you get, you believe there's a potential.
of infringement or you believe
that you may be infringing another party.
Is there any question as to at what point
you should be getting the lawyer involved?
Okay, everybody looks like they're pretty good then.
All right, good.
All right, so now let me go into some of the topics
that we have here.
Number one, let's say that you,
remember how we talked about protection of a website, right?
So a lot of you are coaches.
A lot of you have funnels.
A lot of you have either websites
that provide kind of a summary of what you do.
And you're concerned that,
and I know you're concerned
because you're emailing me about it.
You're concerned that another person
is going to copy what's on your website
and just copy it and paste it on theirs.
And now they've got their own website
or their own funnel that lists essentially
the same services that you perform,
but you spent three weeks making that thing look flawless.
If you want to stop that, what do you file?
Somebody just type it in the chat what you would file.
Copyright, exactly.
So you'd file a copyright application
and we went over exactly where to file that,
what the form looks like.
So now here's the situation though.
If you file a copyright application,
there's a few things to remember.
If you file a copyright associated with your website
or your funnel, you do not,
in the filing of the copyright application
with the copyright office,
you do not end up getting legal rights to the trademarks.
Okay?
What do I mean by that?
Your logos are on your website, right?
So your logos are up there.
You have your slogans up there.
You have the name of your company up there.
By filing your one application,
it's not a one filing gives you everything.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office
and the Copyright Office are two different offices.
So you're not going to get trademark rights
by filing with the Copyright Office.
It doesn't work that way.
Just like you're not going to get trademark rights
by filing with the Secretary of State.
It doesn't work that way.
They're separate entities, okay?
So what you want to do is file your copyright application
for your website, but then separately,
any of your logos, any of your trademarks and your slogans,
those you file separately
with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Okay?
Now, some of you have asked a really good question,
which is what if your logo has text in it,
which is also your trademark?
How do you deal with that situation?
So in that situation, you have an option.
You can file your logo application, right?
You can file your logo, but then separately,
what I would do is I would file a separate application
on the text inside if you actually are using the text alone.
That's the big question.
Do you use the text alone?
Like if you use the text alone,
then you want to be able to stop others
from using that text.
But if you only have it in the logo,
then what the other party is going to do is argue
that they're not really using all of your trademark.
They're using like a small portion of it,
and then they're going to argue
there's not really a likelihood of confusion
because it's not really the important portion of your logo.
The creative portion is really the important portion
of your logo.
So you get into this nasty legal battle that you don't need.
But here's the issue.
If I'm filing a trademark application for a logo,
or actually, let me go back.
If I'm filing a trademark application for a wordmark,
and that word is within the logo,
I've got to send to the trademark office a specimen
that shows the word being used alone.
Okay, so if you're not,
if you're never using the word alone,
it's going to be kind of hard for you
to file a trademark application for the word alone.
All right, so you need to think about these things.
Like if you're like, let's say the trademark is
like a crown, and in the crown, there's like,
I don't know, let's say the crown is kind of like,
it has clouds in the background.
Let's make it really simple.
And let's say you've come up with,
oh, I love this name.
Something I used a long time ago, Divine Justice.
Let's say that's what you call your company, right?
And so your company is providing legal services
for Christians, and it's called Divine Justice.
So let's say that's it.
And so there's a crown and there's clouds in the background,
and it says inside Divine Justice.
But if I never use Divine Justice alone,
it becomes hard for me to file a specimen.
I can, but they may object to it.
They may.
say, well, it's only a portion of your of your trademark.
Therefore, we're not going to give you the registration.
You get into a battle.
So what I would do on your side is I would use divine justice alone somewhere.
So that you can use that as a specimen, then you can file
a trademark application for the logo alone
and you can file a trademark application for the wordmark alone.
And they're going to go right through the system
because there's no problem with logos being mixed with words.
All right. I'm not saying you're not going to get the registration.
I'm saying you want to minimize the number of rejections, objections,
because the more rejections, objections you get, the more lawyers
you're going to be paying.
I mean, I'm just once you start getting like an issue, John
sounds like thumbs down, thumbs down.
So it's the more that you are, you know, the cleaner you make your applications,
the less time you're going to spend on other things. Right.
The place where you should be getting your lawyers are involved
is get everything together, then send it to your lawyers for filing
to make sure it's right, because once it's filed and it's right,
things should move quickly.
But if you file it improperly, then that's when you get into all these issues
and you've got to do all these correcting things
and some things you can't correct, which can be really messy.
Now, one thing I thought of.
That I just thought of this two days ago.
As I because I'm trying to think of of your situations and implementation,
I'm trying to make this as easy as possible for you as you practice
and as you're talking to others as coaches.
If you get all the documentation together, like you have your recitation
of goods and services, you have your international class,
you have everything together and you give that to your attorney and say,
can you please review this and file this?
Here's the issue.
The issue is that remember how there was that 275 application
that one application for 275 dollars?
Remember in that application, what you were doing is you were selecting.
You were you were typing in the word and then it showed the international class
and it showed you description.
You were checking the box and then it would just populate for you.
If you're giving a full description, hey, Holly,
if you're giving a full description to your attorney,
and you want your attorney to be able to type that in,
that's not a 275 application, that's a 325 application.
Because you're typing it in.
If you do, you know, do you remember the difference?
So when we did the application live together, you remember
there's two different ways to file them.
There's the cheapest way, which is 275 dollars,
which is you you go in and you click the buttons
that are associated with the name.
You type in the word and then all these these international classes pop up.
And in there, you also see a description.
And so you click everyone that pertains to you and boom, you're done. Right.
But if you're hiring an attorney.
You're not going to be able to click buttons
and then select send the buttons to the attorney.
Like you can't really do that.
And so for that reason, you're going to be sending them a description.
So when you send them the description, they can't
they can't just go in there and punch buttons.
It's not going to work.
So what they're going to have to do is file the application
that cost three hundred and seventy five dollars instead and type in
what you wrote to them instead and give you any comments
on whether or not they believe it's too broad or too narrow
and give you feedback on that and then file your one application.
OK, so there is a way around that.
I showed you all how to file a trademark application.
Like I showed I laid it out for you all.
So you can actually go in there and like click the buttons
and know exactly what buttons, you know, pertain to your situation
and then tell your attorney, you know, this is this description here.
Fault international class here.
These are the specific words.
And this is the internet class.
And these are specific words.
You can do that if you want to save like.
What? Seventy five dollars.
If you're trying to save seventy five dollars and working with an attorney.
Alternatively, what I would do is I would just send them the full description
and say, look, this is what I want to go with.
Tell me if this will work.
And then they'll say yes or no.
And if they say yes, they'll populate it all.
They'll make sure everything's clean.
They'll tell you if they think your international class is wrong or not.
And then they'll file for you, OK?
Does that make sense?
That's an implementation thing.
This is what I mean by here.
We go deeper like in VIP.
We're kind of talking about, oh, you can file this.
You can file that.
We're talking about real life implementation.
Now, when you go to hire that lawyer,
that lawyer is going to say to you.
OK, you give me a description, but there's no way in the world
I'm going to go and try to figure out what exactly the button is that pertains.
your exact words.
They're not gonna do that,
because that'll take forever.
So instead, you just give them the description,
it's gonna end up costing, I think, 325 or 350,
and they can just use your description.
Jennifer, go ahead.
A quick question I've already forgotten from the challenge,
is filing this kind of application
something that we can do and that's advisable,
or is this in the zone of like, yikes, don't do it,
better to have an attorney look it all over?
Yeah, the way I would do this,
if you've never done this before,
I would work with an attorney,
but I would get all the work done.
What I would do is I would go on where I showed everybody
how to look up the international classifications.
I would determine your international classification.
I would come up with your own recitation
of goods and services,
and I would type them up in your communication
to the attorney.
I would go and look up the specimen,
how we talked about what a specimen looks like.
Remember for like products, you can use packaging,
or you can use a picture of the product with the,
as an example, here's a doTERRA oil, right?
This is coconut oil.
So you see the name doTERRA right on it.
So I take a picture of the bottle that says doTERRA,
that's a specimen.
Boom, I send that in to the attorney,
and so what happens is I'm limiting the amount of time
that they need to spend in,
okay, Jennifer, you're giving me a call.
You like this name, you know, you like this name.
I don't know, give me a name, come up with something.
Let's say Glory Days, right?
So it's supposed to be like,
if you work with me in ministry,
then just Glory Days is gonna hit you,
and you're gonna see things right,
and blah, blah, blah, right?
I'm just making this up.
So Glory Days, right?
But days is D-A-Z-E instead of D-A-Y-E-S, right?
So you're doing a play on words, so Glory Days, right?
So now you say, hey, Peter,
I wanna file a trademark application for Glory Days,
and I say, okay, Jennifer, well, what do you want it for?
And you're gonna say, well, I'm a coach,
and when I give them guidance in their business fields,
they're really gonna feel the presence of the Lord,
and they're gonna feel the anointing on it,
and literally it's gonna like give them
a physical manifestation of his presence
as they're doing work for him.
I call it Glory Days.
Okay, great.
So now my job as a lawyer is I've gotta figure out
what in the world does that mean?
Like what international class
is associated with that service?
What's the description specifically of what you're doing?
Where can I get a picture of something showing you
advertising that service where it talks about that service?
I mean, I've gotta get all this information.
So now my back and forth with you, the clock's running.
Like as I'm talking to you right now, like that's a 0.1.
Like you literally just charged 60 bucks, right?
And as we continue going here and I start,
so, you know, do you want this in the name?
Do you want this in your name?
Or do you like, let's do this like this is real life.
Do you want this in your name
or do you want it in the name of your company?
What are you thinking?
Tick, tick.
I know, I don't know, name of the company?
So you say the name of the company, right?
So what I do as the attorney is I say,
I'm doing this for fun, guys, so you know how it is.
But I want everybody to understand
that this is what really happens in real life.
Some of you are really cracking up, I love it.
So now, like Jennifer just said,
I want the name of the company.
So my follow-up as an attorney is
I want to be a good attorney
and make sure that she's making the right decision.
So I say to her,
well, you want it in the name of the company.
Is there a specific reason why?
Are you the head of the company
or do you have a board where there's multiple people
that are responsible for the company?
Because if you don't maintain
the majority share of the entity,
another party can actually license your trademark,
they could sell your trademark,
they could do anything they want
and you couldn't control it.
So you sure you want it in the name of the company?
So now you have to go, oh, hold it.
I'm in partnership with Miguel
and we all know Miguel, man.
Miguel is a crappy guy.
Oh, sketchy man.
I'm telling you, he's gonna sell that IP
in a second and then he's gonna give you all the money
because he loves you.
So, but that's kind of how it works.
So now in that conversation, that just turned into a 0.2.
So it went from 60 bucks to 120 bucks.
You see how quick it adds up?
So this is why I'm saying to you,
what I would love for you to do
or what would be beneficial for you
is know the answers to all these things.
I want it in the corporation's name.
Yes, I'm a sole proprietor
or I'm the member, I'm the owner.
I don't have an issue here.
Write it out.
It's in international class 35 or 41 for services.
the services specifically are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Here's a picture of my website advertising the service
with a purchase here button that shows you can purchase
a service right here.
And there's a description of it right there.
Here's a copy of it.
You send it all in one email to the lawyer.
The lawyer is like, what in the world just happened?
Like literally you did practically 75% of their job is done.
Now, if they charge you $1,200 for following a trademark
for that, your response needs to be,
what exactly did you charge me for?
I did all the work for you.
All you had to do is look at the recitation of services.
And when you start using language
like recitation of services and my specimen,
I know it's proper because it's a picture of my website
advertising my service with a purchase here button there,
which is what's needed for a specimen.
I mean, you start talking this kind of lingo
and lawyers are either gonna love you or hate you.
The lawyers that are gonna love you
are gonna be lawyers like me
who could just say to my paralegal,
can you just overlook this thing for Jennifer?
Make sure it's right.
Give me the final version before you file
so I can look at it quickly and then click the button.
And that for me is exponentially less expensive.
So that's how, if you've never done it before,
definitely get a lawyer involved.
You have to get a lawyer involved.
Don't try this on your own because if you try it,
can you?
Yeah, you can.
But if you do it wrong, you can't fix it.
So you essentially just wasted that money.
So what I would do is get all the work done
that I'm talking about, give it to them and say,
this is my budget.
I've got 300 bucks to put towards this
for you to review it and to file it or 400 bucks,
like let them know.
And then they tell you if they can do it.
And then they review it and they're like,
oh yeah, this is pretty darn good.
I don't know how you got all this stuff together,
but kudos.
All right, cool.
Paralegal, go ahead and file it.
And you're done.
Go ahead, John.
I guess I was asking because I thought
somewhere in the challenge you had said
like that this is something we could do for ourselves
or even for our clients.
But then this is what you were saying now today.
I'm like, I'm still not sure that really makes a lot
of sense for me to be doing that on behalf
of my, like a consulting client or something.
Yeah, Miguel's face kind of says it all.
I would say you are, no.
I would say you can advise them.
I don't recall him saying that.
Yeah, I've never said you do it for your clients.
I said, you can explain the process to your clients.
You should never be filing legal documents for anybody.
There's no way in the world you should be doing that.
You know, you can understand the process.
So you can say to them when they're thinking,
man, I don't know anything about trademarks.
You can actually speak the lingo.
Like I know Rowena does and I know other people do here.
And so they bring incredible value to those conversations.
They'll say to people, somebody will say,
well, I want to file a trademark application now.
And they'll say, okay, well, have you been using it?
And the person will say, no, I haven't used it.
And so that's why I can't file a trademark application.
Now, what does Rowena say?
She says, well, actually there's an intent
to use application access.
And the person goes, what?
Ka-ching, you just brought so much value
because so many people don't know,
have a clue what you're talking about.
But there's no way in the world
you should ever be filing a legal document
on behalf of people that you work with.
I wouldn't do that.
Okay, I just want to double check.
Cause I was like, so obviously I misunderstood
something that was said in the challenge
about what we can and should be doing.
Issue spotting is one thing that I totally get.
Some more I thought people were like,
no, you could do this on your own.
And that's where I'm like, even for myself-
Yeah, you can file your own.
You can by all means file your own application
if you're comfortable with it.
Like if you've worked with a lawyer once or twice,
this is not difficult.
This is not a tough thing to do.
You know, I mean, I've filed many application
on my own behalf, but you should not.
I mean, I don't think anybody here who has never done this
should ever file their own application on their own.
You know, what I would do is I would get everything together
get it to your lawyer, which decreases your cost
by probably 75%.
So now you're giving it to your lawyer
and when your lawyer says,
well, we charge a flat fee
for filing trademark applications.
You say, well, yeah, but I've done all the work for you.
And they say, yeah, sure.
I've heard that before.
And say, no, take a look at what I'm giving you.
I know what I'm doing here.
And when you give it to them,
they should look at it and go, well, okay.
Yeah, there's the international class.
There's the specimen.
There's the recitation of goods and services.
You know, yeah, that's pretty darn good.
Yeah, we can do that for 500 bucks instead of 1200.
So that's the difference, but you should not,
I wouldn't, if I were you,
the first time I do something like this
I wouldn't do it on my own.
Cause like I said, from day one, if you do it wrong.
these things you can't fix. Yeah. So quick observation about what you said a minute ago
when you're talking about the crown logo and the word divine justice in the middle of it and
to show you were talking about right you can file them together but the proof of words
so you'd have to show like you were saying how you would use the word separately but if I just
even on my website if I say here at divine justice we serve our clients by doing the blah blah blah
then I've used the words just divine justice it would not have the little logo in it because it's
just in text in my in a paragraph is that not a specimen of how you would be not really
separately you need to use it like a trademark right so what you did was you kind of talked
about your corporation you said here at divine justice blah blah blah blah blah so you're just
saying here at my company blah blah blah blah blah the way you should be using a trademark is
divine justice circle r or tm like it should be somewhere utilized now have I had situations where
I've done what you're talking about in the taxes there somewhere yeah and sometimes it works but
trademarks the way they're supposed to be used is as an identification as to a source of goods when
so when somebody sees the name crystal geyser geyser crystal geyser they're like oh I know
that quality of water is not very good it's not the same as Fiji water you know it's it's not it's
not that kind of quality it probably costs like 90 bucks I mean 90 bucks yeah 90 cents versus like
four bucks for a bottle of water like those are the things that come to mind that's the goodwill
associated with it so if it's said all the way down here in the little tiny tiny text
here at crystal geyser we care about your quality of water that's not really identification a source
of goods boom right in your face that's an identification as a source of goods so you should
the words is is separate that's why I was trying to understand I totally understand what you're
saying about the logo and the words and the use of the trademark that I get I was just trying to
think of example where you were saying like using the word separately and that's why I was asking if
putting it in that is how it works yeah I would keep it for your specimens what I would do is I
would try to find an example where the words are separate like that they stand alone right Nike or
the swoosh or Microsoft or Office or Excel it stands alone but if you have it in a long paragraph
it's very hard to argue that that's an identification as to a source of goods because
you're just talking about something okay got it trademarks should stand alone okay got it Miguel
go ahead I'm gonna jump to you go ahead yeah real quick on this same subject um so I just
went through this myself right on this trademark thing as you know I asked the question last time
and I found my first trademark so come on amazing so that is awesome bro man it was uh it was not
easy thank you I watched that that video you know the the VIP trademark video of course and uh even
the signature at the end with the slashes I missed it thanks god I watched that video you got to put
the slashes again so I had hired an attorney before for another trademark disclaimer right
and I had gone through that process and the description which was much more vague than what
I used on my description for this trademark it was a 1b I ended up doing the 1b and the way as
a business owner that I did this honestly you know for those here it was a risk analysis for me it
was a risk analysis right for me you know filing a 1b you know before actually using it
and then doing the paper later on was was worth it for me rather than waiting to use the 1a
because I don't I don't want to fight legally someone who steals it and then has no integrity
especially in this influencer business that we're in with people from all over the world makes sense
so I did the 1b application then and then uh just filed it my question for you Pete though on that
in my risk analysis I said hey if the USPTO gets back at me first of all this is a school for me
because the good lawyer speed I don't know your experience but they they charge 1100 bucks you
know to oh yeah file it you cannot come with this type of work pre-done and then like it's not worth
their time makes sense good lawyers I don't know if you do it but like you don't just take like oh
let me just file it for you and it'll be 300 bucks like they don't even talk to you the good
ones at least right that I've talked to it's like 1100 fee and then they talk to you on the phone
right kind of a thing it depends I mean I do I do because the reason why I would do that is
because I have a heart for startups for people that are like learning like I'm I'm a professor
like I do this like I care about seeing people grow like there was a gentleman um guys this was
a long time ago but he started up a company signal quest didn't have enough money for it for filing a
patent application uh so I told him you know what I'll work with you
I cut his bill by half. He became one of my biggest clients ever. We sued a Taiwanese
manufacturer, took them down with three patents that I worked on that were my patents.
So I was defending my own patents in Massachusetts federal district court and we won.
And the court was like, these patents are great. And I'm like, yeah, I wish I knew who wrote them.
You know, it's kind of like, you know, so it was just, it was an incredible experience,
but I have that passion to kind of help people out. And there's solo practitioners who are
going to do it because they want to gain the work anyway. So if you're, if you're saying,
look, I want to work with Fish and Richardson or I want to work with Wilmer Hale, they're not
going to even talk to you. Right. I mean, then I chose like a boutique, you know, good firm in
Georgia, for example. Right. Yeah. Well, there's, there are good firms. Like, I mean, I used to
work in Georgia, right. I was with Thomas Cade and Horstmeyer and Risley way back in the day.
Now I think it's called Thomas Horstmeyer, which is an IP boutique out there in the gallery more
area. Really good lawyers. I'm in Florida now. So I'll reach out to you. So to connect with someone,
you know, who could do that. Right. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, sure. Because that'll be,
that'll be useful. Like I can prepackage and then having still file for me. It was like,
you know what, it's worth the risk. Why my question here for you is if I do hear back from
the USPTO, Hey, your description is too broad, for example, right. On your trademark, the 41,
by the way, it was a great exercise. Just entering that data, finding the class, like
it's a skill it's worth for me even throwing away the money. It makes sense because it was a good,
it was a good exercise for me personally doing the whole thing. But if I do hear back from them,
okay. If we do hear back, those of us that are bold, you know, and are doing many of these,
if we do hear back from them and we do want to involve the lawyer to help us respond, right.
To rectify that was my rationale. Like I'll just bring him in and then help me respond. If that
were a risk, I'm most willing to take that risk. Right. So is that something that lawyers come in
and help you respond? Oh, sure. Yeah. And if you do it really, if you, if your original filing was
quite poor, they'll make fun of you in the process too. Yeah. It won't be because I benchmark and I,
and I learned from you and I have done one before my lawyer got approved such a big,
you know what I mean? Description like broad, like two sentences, class 41,
like the USP to approve that. Like I'll do, I'll add a little bit more and I'll get it.
It's really like, you know, it's like, you can go to a mechanic who understands a textbook or you
can go to a mechanic who's been doing it a long time and they just hear the issue and they know,
they know exactly what's wrong. Right. The other guy's looking at a textbook and going, hold it.
This is connected to that, which might be the other person is like, oh, I know that sound that's
this. So it's, that's the kind of thing that you're dealing with. So what I would say, Miguel is
yeah. You know, you, you, you took a chance and did it on your own. Didn't involve a lawyer,
you know, the lawyer to do the, I forgot to say that I had already had him do the knockout
clearance search for me. I think that's worth maybe doing because you, they know better than
you were to look and write. Absolutely. So I disclaimer, I had done that already for that
trademark. I just completed the steps as we did it with the class and the description makes sense.
That's the part that I did. Yeah, sure. You're back from them though. Then what is that process?
You can just, for those that are here, it's called an office action. It's called an office action.
So at that point where you would do is just call up an attorney and say, I'm just making sure nobody
else has jumped in in the meantime. Okay. So then I would just call up an attorney and say, Hey,
I got an office action on a trademark application. If all I could use some help, that's it. Okay.
That's it. And they'll review it right now in Florida. I'll talk to you and then, Hey,
yeah. And your lawyers, honestly, the location of your lawyer does not matter when it comes
to federal things. Cause it's federal. He did. Oh, wow. It does not matter. Um, so if you have
a great lawyer in Texas or in like California or wherever it is, it doesn't matter. So do not
don't limit yourself in when you're dealing with federal matters, patents, trademarks, you know,
don't limit yourself based on where the lawyer's located. I can just use you as what you're saying.
If you want to, you know, I did not know that I was, yeah, you can do whatever myself too. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. And that's, that's a, that's an, that's a, um, common misconception when it
comes to legal services. Now, when you're dealing with state law, totally different.
State law is totally different. You need a state attorney. You need an attorney who
understands local ordinances and enforcement, but when you're in the federal jurisdiction stuff,
nobody cares. I have, I have clients that are in, you know, Germany, China, Indonesia,
not Indonesia, Malaysia, like, you know, all over the world and even in the United States. And
some of them I've never even seen. I have clients in Israel that I've never even seen their face,
except in a Google zoom video. And so they don't care. They just say, I want the quality.
I want to work with the guy. That's it.
So, but the second you step into the state area. So if you're going to sue somebody for trademark infringement. Now you've got to look at common law enforcement which involves some tort issues which involves state issues so you should speak to a lawyer in your state.
Makes sense. So I just want to do a quick summary before I get to the next question, and go start going through stuff. So a few things I love I absolutely love that we're touching based on this on day one, this is really important.
What things should a lawyer be doing and what things should you be doing that really is an awesome question. And this is something that.
Remember, if you're doing a trademark search, you learn how to do a trademark search, just to do that very top top top level review so if you have like 10 trademarks, and you do a quick search on your own and you're knocking out seven of them guess what
you didn't pay a lawyer for 10 searches. You're paying a lawyer for three.
Big difference, big, big difference. So if you're doing that top level search and you're saying oh man, there's the word that I have, and oh my gosh that's the same international class.
And oh my gosh, the recitation of services very similar. Now you can look at your other trademarks and say, maybe I should go for one of these instead of that one because that one seemed pretty obvious that it's a problem.
And if you can present that problem to the attorney as well. That's up to you, but if you're going after 10 things I would rather bring to an attorney the things that have the highest chance of allowance, as opposed to everything.
You know, it's kind of like that example that I always give you going to the, you know, the, the auto mechanic and saying something's wrong my car, versus saying something's wrong in my muffler.
And I know because it's this chinking noise. And I know when I hit the accelerator this happens. And so can you please look at my muffler. That's a very different because what happens now you know oh my mufflers on the warranty.
Oh, that's covered by this. Oh, it's like, you know, the more knowledge you have the better.
But by all means you don't want to be fully relying upon your own trademark search, when you file a trademark application because you're not an expert in the field.
So use this user search to bring it down. So instead of searching 10 things you're searching three. Now you take those three you go to your lawyer, and you say hey and let's say for example, one of those 10 you were really in love with.
Right. But it really, you found a mark that was right on point. So you're saying, gosh, that's right on point but I really love this one then bring that one to your lawyer, I mean, if that's the case, you know if you really really love that name, but you
knocked it out, then go to your lawyer and say hey, I really like this name I did a quick search, it looks like it's dead. Can you look real quick and confirm that it's dead.
Right. But what we're doing is we're decreasing the issues, so that's in the search area. Now what about trademark applications.
You know the material that's needed for a trademark application. So you can put that stuff together and get it to an attorney which is going to decrease the amount of time that the attorney is going to spend on your application.
So if you become savvy over some time, who's doing like 90% of my trademark applications my paralegals. They're not lawyers, like they just do this they do it so much they're so good at it they just keep doing they learn the lingo they've been doing it
for a while. So, you know, on your first or second one involve the lawyer involve the lawyer, you know, but if you start getting really savvy and I'll do what you feel like you need to do I'm not giving you a legal advice in that area.
Everybody's here, here is mature and can make their own decision on these things. But what I am saying is as you start out, I would involve a lawyer. So you become familiar with the situation.
And here's the thing.
If when you're working with your lawyer you come up with the recitation of goods and services that works.
And all of your other trademarks are going to have the exact same recitation of services.
I mean hello like you've you've, it's kind of like, it's kind of like if you want to prepare a letter to go to another party to introduce your product, you hired a lawyer to do it the first time, and then you're tweaking the thing right so now you're not you're
hiring a new lawyer to do it all over your you're saying all right here's my finalized letter, you remember you drafted the first one right so you don't need to charge me for reviewing this whole thing, beginning to end right like so here.
Can you take a look at what I did for tweaking it. The bill should be exponentially lower.
If you're getting charged the same $2,500 that it costs for a first draft.
If you're just tweaking the name of the party.
Something's wrong you need to get a new lawyer. I'm sorry.
What's wrong with that?
John's been like itching to say something.
John, go ahead, brother.
Yeah, I think you answered most,
my questions were about the application.
So since the, I have gone through and you know,
this is my logo, it's my name, I've got slogans.
So I've been in doing my own kind of knockout search
and looking for certain things.
And so here's an example.
I came up with the word cookies.
Let's see, where did I put that?
Cookies in the description of the mark
and O30 is goods and services.
Cause that's really where the food is, okay?
I had 1,009 items come up.
Wow.
And so what I was doing is I was looking at those
and I've gone through 200 of them so far.
Just click on it, look at it.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Go through this with the hope of saying,
does the lawyer have a better way of doing that,
a faster way or is there just gonna do the same sorting
and clicking that I'm doing?
Cause here's where I wanna get to is,
this is the name of our company.
And I wanna identify any of those marks that use,
you know, yummylicious or cookie company
or the yin and yang style logo.
And I just wanna say, here's my top five.
Look at those.
Is that really what, I mean,
that's what I hear you saying we should be doing,
doing as much homework as we can
and then giving this package to them and saying,
file this for me.
Yeah, that's what I would be doing.
As much homework as you can and then doing that.
What I would say, give me one second
because of the oil issue.
Hold on one second, guys.
I gotta mute this.
This might be the oil delivery.
John, make sure that you get a lawyer
who actually honors that work, remember?
Cause many out there don't.
It's like a flat, you know,
copywriting is this, make sense?
Right.
Yeah, so for those of you that don't know,
we woke up to a house that was like 50 degrees,
55 degrees, cause there's no propane.
So, that was the delivery thing.
So yeah, so John,
to answer your question,
first of all, there's different types of searches.
Okay.
So you just moved down there.
So now you gotta look down there.
So let's see.
Oh, sorry.
I'll put my hand up.
Now you moved up to, all right.
All right.
You can't keep doing that.
You're gonna get dizzy in the videos, bro.
I'll stop.
No more touching.
So there's gonna have to be a disclaimer,
like any, what is it like they have on the rides?
You know, no raising and lowering hand during presentations.
So lawyers, when they do searches, this is how they do it.
They'll have, there's different types of searches.
There's a Thompson Thompson search,
which is a third party, which is outstanding.
I've given everybody the link to that.
You can hire them.
They are the best of the best of the best.
They are like, if you have your final trademark
and you wanna be sure that it is something you can own,
not only by federal, but by state and by common law
and by corporate names and by website, domain names,
they do it all.
They are incredible.
All right.
I use them.
I use them for every,
when I get to that final point of a trademark
that I think is ready to go,
I'll hire them to make sure that there's nothing left.
You know, it's kind of like that last inspection
before you buy the house.
That's essentially what they do.
I mean, I cannot give them enough credit.
Outstanding, outstanding outfit.
So, but they're gonna cost you.
Like they cost a lot of money.
I don't know, it's like 700, 800 bucks.
I mean, it's pretty expensive to use them, right?
But that's essentially the name
you're gonna be going forward with for all time.
So I would use them when you're ready.
All right.
Now, lawyers will sometimes use a service called Sages.
It's S-A-E-G-I-S.
I think that's how you spell it.
So Sages is a,
it's kind of like a search service
similar to what you're talking about,
where you type in a word and then you look at the results
and you go one by one by one.
But lawyers have been doing this for a while.
And quite frankly, it's usually their paralegals,
you know, that are doing this
because billing somebody at 1200 bucks an hour
to do a trademark search is prohibitive.
You can't do that.
You know, I mean, you could do it for Coca-Cola,
but you can't do it for most people.
And so what they do is they do a search
and then they look for a phonetic equivalence,
but they use other criteria.
Like they'll add, you know,
I actually went through for you
using two fields in a search, right?
So the first field and the second field
instead of or use the and.
So they'll narrow it down.
They won't search for words like cookies
because cookies is kind of descriptive of the goods.
Right?
So it doesn't make a lot of sense.
This is not legal advice, right?
Just to be clear.
I'm just saying,
I'm just saying like.
if your trademark is associated with cars
and it's in the international class for cars,
searching for the word cars doesn't make a lot of sense
because it's descriptive and everybody's gonna be using it.
And so what you wanna do instead
is look for some of the other words, like yummylicious,
you know, and-
Much smaller list.
That's a much tinier, tinier list.
Yeah, because typically, typically,
and as you're starting out,
you're probably not gonna be really good at gauging this.
As you get good at it, you'll be able to gauge it better,
specifically knowing in this international class,
what exactly is something that's descriptive of goods?
What does that mean?
You know, so if I'm in the class associated with shoes,
if I use the word sandal, is that descriptive or is it not?
Or if I use the word cushion,
is that descriptive or is it not?
It's like, so it's understanding that comes with time.
You get to know, okay, yeah,
this is really descriptive or it's not.
What I'm trying to do is give you some ways
to decrease the number of your results
for the knockout search, okay?
Yeah.
So now if I say, okay, well, I am not so concerned
with regard to the broadest term,
I'm just making sure this is not the delivery.
Nope, okay, good.
Since I'm not so concerned with regard to the broadest term,
like the word cookies or the word car or the word door,
you know, like I'm not so concerned about those.
I'm looking for the other things.
That decreases the number.
And now I'm looking for like the word yummylicious.
I can't imagine there's a ton of yummylicious.
There were three.
Okay, well, there you go.
So-
And they weren't ever close to anything
I was using it for, so.
Okay, so that's beneficial, right?
But then you also wanna look, you know,
in your trademark, when you looked up the word cookies
and you got like thousands of results
and you start clicking through,
this is what I do as a lawyer
is I start looking at things and I say,
oh, there's the word cookies.
There it is again, there it is again,
there it is again, there it is again,
again, again, thousands of times.
Clearly nobody owns the word cookies.
Yeah.
Because if one person owned them,
a thousand people couldn't use it.
You see, that's how-
And this was in the mark.
Yeah, and that was in the mark description.
So really what I was trying to get to is-
Oh, okay, that's even different, yeah.
Yeah, so I'm going in there because
that's where I don't think
that's an automated search as much, right?
We can go search for the terms
and like when we were the smart cookie company
the first time,
I paid for one of those big binder searches,
900 bucks, thought I was okay,
and it still didn't get me through there.
But I was more concerned about marks
and something that would use something very similar,
specifically like my two Ys, the way they are like that,
they kind of look like-
It's the logo.
Use Thompson for that.
Yeah.
Thompson, okay.
Use Thompson for that because I'll tell you why.
Thompson has a separate database for searching logos.
I showed everybody here a quick knockout way
to do searches for logos
by looking up the description word for the logo.
And so that's in one of the videos.
So again, if you have like 10 marks
and you want to bring it down
and you search like I showed you,
you might find one that's exactly the same and say,
okay, that's dead.
Move on to another one, right?
Yeah.
But here's the thing to keep in mind.
You're balancing time versus money.
Yes.
Okay?
Right.
So if you spend three hours on this,
you need to say to yourself,
okay, is my investment of three hours
worth the X amount of money that I would have spent
with a lawyer or with a searching company?
That's kind of what you need to balance.
But if you mind-
It's not.
Yeah.
So that's essentially what you need to break down.
You have to figure out,
it's always becomes a corporate decision.
What do I want to do?
Do I want to hire a third entity
who's going to charge me 800 bucks and get it done right?
Well, before I hire that company for 800 bucks,
I darn well better decrease it from 10 searches
because otherwise I'm going to be spending $8,000.
I don't want to spend $8,000 in searches.
So I use the tool that I learned
in the Protect Your Idea Challenge
to decrease it from 10 to two or 10 to three.
Now I hire Thompson and say,
hey, look, I've got two or three here.
Let's go after the first one first, search this one.
And they come back and they go, that's dead.
Okay, search the second one.
Now I'm up to 1600 bucks.
You know, oh, that one's good.
Well, do I want to spend the money on the next one?
Nah, I already spent enough money.
Let me get my stuff as close to ready as possible
and give it to my lawyer to file.
They charge you like 400 bucks
plus the USPTO 325 or whatever,
because they got to type in what you've done
and they're confirming things.
You're done.
You know, that's how I would work the system.
I think that's way more beneficial than,
you know, hey, Thompson Reuters?
Yeah, I've got 10 trademarks I want you to search.
They're like, great.
That's awesome.
Awesome. You're, you're in our premium club. Nice to meet you, John.
Yeah. It's like $8,000, please. You know, it's like, so yeah,
that's what I'm trying to do is to decrease that. All right.
That's helpful.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. This, this is, again,
this is part of what the portal's about is the practical implementation of the
things you're learning, right? How do you actually do it now?
You've learned some things at the top level. How do you do it?
So that's what we're starting to go into here. Oh, there you go.
There's the link for Thompson Reuters. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you.
All right. So with that, let me go into the next topic I was going to cover.
Okay. Software. Um, maybe I should describe,
let me go through one more thing before I go into software,
because there aren't going to be a lot of people here that are dealing with
software by a show of hands. How many people here are dealing with software?
Oh, it's more than more than usual. That's good. Okay.
Like, what do you mean?
Like we use software or we're developing software,
like we're developing our own app. Both, both. Yeah. Um, yeah.
Either, either developing your own app or customizing things that already exist.
One of those two. So there were more than half of the people here.
So I'm glad I felt moved to touch base on software for some reason.
Now I understand why. So that's awesome. All right.
So let me touch one more topic and then we will go into software.
We're going to talk about code protection functionality.
What if the stuff's on the backend? What about the graphical user interface?
I'm going to break them all down for you. Okay. Um,
so let's start out with one other topic though. Descriptiveness and
sorry, it's Desiree. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm able to finally chime in.
Do you see me? I don't know how many people. Yes. Hi, I'm sorry.
Before you get into that really interesting topic that I know nothing about and
I need to jet out of here. Can I just ask a question about,
I'm pretty sure now I'm like, you know how Jesus says, do not worry,
do not worry all the time. I think I've spent tons of money, um, uh,
on thinking, wow, can I really file my own?
I just heard you say backed up a few minutes ago on, um,
copying my name mark right on my specimen.
You showed me how to fill out everything, everything, everything.
But I do think I should get the lawyer I used before to double check it.
That's what I heard you say. Absolutely. Right. Yeah.
I didn't hear that in the VIP, but I heard it just now. So, okay.
Yeah. You should always, I would always remember what you're doing is you're
getting all the materials together.
Yes. Decrease the amount of costs that you're going to be spending.
Yeah. See the VIP when I didn't doubt you at all. I was just doubting me.
Like, can I really do this? I don't know if I make one mistake, one mistake.
I mean, just to be clear,
there's some people here who could do it all day and night. Sure. Honestly,
there's some people here that are, who have done this before,
who know what this stuff looks like. They could follow day and night.
It's not that difficult. I mean, Miguel, he's a perfect example.
He could file trademarks in his sleep. It's not hard.
But, but, but at the same time, again, like anything, like I said,
you cannot fix it after you file. Right. That's my point.
So it's always best to get everything together. Like what you're doing is you're
decreasing the amount of costs that you're going to be spending with a lawyer.
Yeah. And then you give that to the lawyer.
I got a lawyer who filed it initially. So, but I'm glad I,
I was able to come in today. Cause I heard you say all the things I need to tell
them. No, I know more than you think. I know. Don't charge me. I'm done.
God bless you all. I got a jet. I'm sorry.
So is there any confusion with regard to this issue?
I want to make sure that that's, this is now what you're doing is you're
decreasing the number of issues you're bringing for your lawyer.
Does that make sense? And by decreasing the number of issues,
you're decreasing your costs. Now, I'm pretty sure a lot of you,
if not all of you at some point are going to say,
why in the world am I involving a lawyer? That's between you and yourself.
I mean, at some point you honestly,
some of you are going to say I've been using the same recitation of goods and
services like over and over and over and over.
Why am I, you know, what exactly am I doing here?
And so that's when you're going to decide to just do it yourself.
And that's up to you. That's again, this is not legal advice.
I'm just telling you, it's, it's not that difficult. Like it's,
you know, we did it online.
You saw online what most people don't know how to do.
Now, you know, it's necessary. So now get everything together,
give it to your lawyer, let them just review it and file it,
bring your costs down by over 50%, but just by doing that,
any follow-up questions on that? No. Okay, good. So let's move on to,
I want to talk about descriptiveness.
So on a trademark application, there's a,
there's a rejection that is called merely descriptive.
Okay, let me kind of touch base on what that means.
Just so that you know, the reason why I'm going
through this is I just want you to understand
that if you come up with a new trademark
that you're really interested, you may not want
to spend money on trying to get legal rights for it
if it's descriptive, because it's going to get rejected.
Okay, now you're likely not going to know
if something's merely descriptive or not.
I'm just going to give you some examples.
So it kind of gives you a gut check, all right,
to minimize how much money you spend.
All right, so let's say that the goods are,
let's say sneakers, right?
They're sneakers, right?
And so I think I want to display,
like I want to have something that represents kingdom
and you're going forward in your mission.
So I want to have something that says clean sneakers, right?
Kind of like saying clean slate.
When God is involved in your life, you get a clean slate.
So now your path is clean and therefore
I want to use clean sneakers, okay?
Somebody tell me what the problem is with that.
Just unmute yourself and tell me what's wrong
with filing a trademark application for clean sneakers.
That it describes what it's doing.
Describes, right, describes the goods.
See, and so why is that a problem?
Somebody tell me why that's a problem.
It's yet not unique.
I can have clean sneakers, you can have clean sneakers.
It's everywhere.
Right, that's true.
There's another issue.
Anyone who uses it in a sentence, they can't use it now.
That's it.
That's what the USPTO is most concerned about.
What Todd just said.
The problem is that if you get the trademark,
nobody else can use those words
in describing clean sneakers ever.
So the United States Patent and Trademark Office
will not allow a registration
for something that's descriptive.
Does that make sense?
I don't see a lot of heads nodding up and down.
So I just want to make sure that's clear.
And it's not that they can't use that word.
I mean, like if you have a word,
it's not that you can't use that word in a sentence ever.
Again, if you have a trademark,
that's a word that people use.
What about like, if it's like Google?
You know, what about like Google?
It's branded, it's trademarked,
but then now people go, hey, Google it.
Yeah, let's do that next.
I'll go into that next, Rowena.
Let's talk about, Holly,
let me address what you're saying, okay?
So if Todd gets a registration for clean sneakers, right?
And you make an advertisement,
you're selling sneakers that are clean, right?
And so you put an advertise out there and say,
buy these clean sneakers,
or you put an advertisement that says clean sneakers.
When people want to buy clean sneakers, they go to you,
right?
You infringe his trademark.
And all you did was describe the goods.
They're clean sneakers.
So since he got a registration for the words,
clean sneakers,
you now can't describe the very goods that you're selling.
You can't say clean sneakers for sale here.
You can't just say clean sneakers on your advertisement
because now there's a confusion as to the source of goods.
And so for that reason,
the trademark office will not allow you
to get a federal registration
for something that's descriptive,
which makes sense, right guys?
I mean, why would we want people to be locking up
your access to describing things?
Like, it doesn't make sense, okay?
So for that reason,
you would not,
you wouldn't try to file a trademark application
for something that's descriptive.
I guess I didn't catch before that it's descriptive
anywhere for anybody, not just for your thing.
Well, the way it breaks down when you file it
with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
is they'll look at your international class, right?
So let's say you tried to get a registration
for clean sneakers for computers.
Somebody tell me whether or not you could get that.
Yes.
Yes, you could, right.
Why?
Because it's not descriptive of computers, right?
It might be descriptive of the guy
ripping off the best by taking the computer,
but it's not descriptive of computers.
So for that reason, you could actually file a trademark application for clean sneakers on computers.
It's similar to like Red Door for perfume or Apple for computers.
You can't own the name Apple when it comes to fruit or sales of fruit or things like that,
because that's just descriptive of the goods.
But by all means, you can take what...
And this is kind of like a sneaky...
It's actually pretty brilliant, but it's a sneaky slash brilliant technique
to use something that's descriptive and use it in another field where it's not descriptive.
It'll catch people's eye pretty fast.
So if you use something that...
White teddy bear associated with chocolates or something like that,
it's like everybody's going to get that image.
But now you own that image in that specific field.
It's actually a pretty good marketing technique.
It's used by a lot of companies.
What if the logo...
What if it has a picture of something in the logo that is associated with the use of it,
but it's actually what it does isn't that?
What if the logo has a picture of what it's used for, but it's not used for that?
I'm thinking of my own thing, like what my acronym is
and what it applies to in international class.
I don't know, but it's like this category over here.
But if I put in the logo an image of something that if you use that word,
it might be descriptive of that.
Is that a problem?
Why don't you give me a specific example?
I don't want to use my own thing, but...
Okay. Yeah, no, that's fine. That's fine.
What you're saying is if the image is descriptive of what the goods and services are
in that trademark application, you're asking what if in that logo,
the image is descriptive of the goods and services.
Yeah, even if the word isn't descriptive of...
Yeah, that's a brilliant question. That's a brilliant question.
I love it when you call me brilliant. I just asked it for that.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm going to ask the most difficult questions possible just so I can continue to call you brilliant.
That's brilliant in and of itself.
Brilliant. Wow.
Well, I think because I think I've been teaching for a long time.
So when I hear a question that's like multifaceted, those are like my favorite questions,
because it addresses this, this, this, this.
Those are like the final exam questions. I like those.
And so I'm going to address this.
And I want to get to Rowena because she asked a really important question.
So I want to get into that.
So, so the question is, I want to make sure everybody understands the question because it's kind of a complicated question.
What if your logo has an image that really is descriptive of the services that you're filing for?
Right. So let's say that John's.
Oh, that's not the question.
No, I'll give an example.
So if the logo. Okay, say though, say the word is sunflower.
And it's describing cookies.
Okay, it's describing it's your cookie thing.
But
the picture
is.
I can't I can't. There's a cookie. I have to tell you. Yeah, no.
The word is associated with the picture.
So the picture is a sunflower the sunflower you see this.
You see right so the word, the word is descriptive of the picture in the logo you're saying, picture, the picture could run into the problems you're talking about it being descriptive but but the actual word doesn't describe the service that it is for.
Okay, let's break this down piece by piece right. The logo is the image.
So you're saying the image. Does it look like a sunflower yes or no.
I don't.
I'm just gonna have to email you and see if you want to.
I'm happy to answer it. I have no problem like breaking it down for you but what I'm trying to figure out is, I just tell you my real thing.
I'd rather not. I'd rather you not do that here because other people can hear it. So, what I would say is, break it down to the word, and then break it down to the picture.
Okay, so the word.
The word is a word that's used in association with the picture.
Okay, but is it is a word is used in association with the service yes or no. No.
Okay.
Now what about the picture is the picture, use an association with the service, yes or
no.
Like if.
No.
Okay.
So what you're saying is the word is descriptive of the picture.
The word is descriptive of something that somebody who had this kind of
picture service or product would be using to describe what they do with that thing.
So though is the word descriptive of the service, yes or no, no.
And the picture is not descriptive of the word of the service.
Yes or no.
No.
Okay.
But the word is, is the word descriptive of the picture.
Yes or no.
Yes.
Okay.
Let's stop there.
And then if you have a follow-up, we can, you and I can hash it out in more detail.
It's a word that describes what that thing, what the image does.
It.
Okay.
That's fine.
But the word there is not descriptive of the service.
Right.
So, so sunflower is not descriptive of the service.
The picture of a sunflower is not descriptive of, let's talk about cookies, like John's
situation.
Right.
John, we tend to use you a lot just so you know, sorry.
So it's the easiest.
You're the most successful in this area, you know, there you go.
So sunflower is not descriptive of his cookies I'm thinking.
And on top of that, a picture of a sunflower is not descriptive of his cookies, but the
word sunflower by all means is descriptive of the logo, which is a picture of a sunflower.
Right.
That's not a problem.
The question is whether or not the word is descriptive of the service or goods, or the
picture is descriptive of the service of goods.
That's what you're looking at.
Okay.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
And if you have a follow up, just just think about it, and then email it to me, like you're,
you know, you can break it down more in an email.
Okay.
All right, well, why don't let me go to you because your question is, it's a really good
one.
Well, it's kind of like the you're saying, if it's descriptive, but if we make up a word
or a phrase that is not current, that does not currently exist in the English lexicon,
even though there are two known words, but like, put it together, let's say we made up
Google, right?
But then now we use it as like a descriptive term.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
It's like, yeah.
So I would break this down in a few different ways.
I'm just going to talk about the law.
Okay.
So the law with regard to anything that's descriptive is you can't get a federal registration
period.
Right.
That's just the law.
Like, there's no way around it.
So if I use a, if I have a trademark that I go for, and it's descriptive, the answer
is no.
Now, the question is, what if the trademark that I've been using becomes so familiar that
people start using it in a descriptive manner, like Xerox, like Kleenex, like, you know,
Google.
These are examples of trademarks that have become used so much that, you know, that essentially
it's diluting the mark.
It's like, it's, it's taken away the strength of the mark.
This is why companies like Kleenex and others and Xerox started filing lawsuits saying,
Hey, you can't use my name in a descriptive manner because you're destroying my intellectual
property and I can't allow you to do that.
Okay.
So for all, everybody here, whether, if you're looking at a trademark and you're thinking,
I don't know, let's say somebody has a federal registration and you're thinking to yourself,
yeah, but everybody uses that in a descriptive manner.
Stay away from it.
Just do yourself a favor, stay away from it.
You don't want to have to hire me to defend you because you decided to make a judgment
cause to whether or not something's descriptive because everybody else in the world is using
it.
Just stay away.
Like it's, can you get away with it?
Maybe, but probably after spending 250,000 with me.
So don't spend the money with me and just use something else after we give, you know,
John mouth to mouth or, you know, clear.
So you're saying is if it's, even if it's something that does not currently exist in
the English lexicon, if, if it could potentially even be used in a descriptive manner in the
future, that is not trade, not that is not something to pursue for trademark.
Just copy.
I wouldn't say that.
I mean, how would you know, how do you know that it's going to potentially become descriptive
in the future?
Like how, I mean, was that a prophetic word or.
Like, how did you know that?
I know that I know because it's a term that I'm using
within a membership group of people.
And there is no term that currently exists to describe,
right, the methodology that we're using.
That can become a powerful trademark if you use it right.
Yeah.
You can make it so nobody can actually talk
about your service in any way, shape or form
because you own that trademark.
I mean, that's a prime example of a powerhouse trademark.
Yeah.
That's when you want to secure your rights.
Right.
But it's kind of like, let's just say it's two,
it's two, it's three words,
but it's two words that are in the English section
but never ever would you put it together.
Yeah.
And it's not descriptive right now.
Not right.
It doesn't exist.
Yeah.
Those are the kinds of things you would look at
for potentially filing a trademark on.
I mean, think about it.
All trademarks that have more than one word
where they're using, you know, a word that already exists
is really the conglomeration of multiple words
that already exist.
And they all are.
That's, you know, like they're just, you just,
if you came up with a unique arrangement of those words,
which gives you a certain commercial impression.
Yes, that's correct.
Which is suggestive, not descriptive.
That's a perfect example.
So the most powerful trademarks out there
are ones that are what are called suggestive,
not descriptive.
All right.
They, they give you a thought.
They make you, they give you a commercial impression.
They make you believe, oh, when I hear those words,
I see something like something comes to me,
but it's not descriptive.
Those are the ones that are powerhouse trademarks
because you just hear the trademark and boom,
you want the service, you know,
but it's not describing the service.
Like those are the most, you know,
those are really powerful, powerful,
like friendlies, right?
Friendlies for a restaurant.
It's not descriptive of a restaurant,
but man, I want to eat there.
It's friendlies.
Like, it gives me a commercial impression.
It's friendlies.
Like, you know, it's not, it's not called,
you know, anger house,
or it's not called like anxiety, anxiety rest.
You know, it's not called that, it's called friendlies.
Like that gives you, you know, it's,
it's a suggestive mark.
It's, it's, it's suggesting to you
that if you come to my restaurant,
you're going to be in a friendly environment.
You're going to be happy.
There's going to be joy.
You're going to like the food.
You're going to like the,
you're going to like the waitress or the waiter.
That's a suggestive mark.
Those are the most powerful trademarks out there.
So what I would be very careful of doing Rowena
is anytime you use that word,
you make sure you put a TM on it.
You use those multiple words that,
what you aren't,
what you essentially are on the cusp of
is a powerhouse trademark.
Because if people are starting to use the term already,
you need to correct them early.
You need to say, hey guys, just so you know,
that's my service.
That's what my service is called.
It's not describing my service.
That's what my service is called.
So you'll see, I use a TM on that.
That's because, you know,
I'm following a federal trademark application on this.
Whenever you hear that name,
you know, it's associated with me.
You're going to get that kind of quality service.
And you, you know, so if that word spreads,
that's what you want.
Like you want that.
Like that's, that's an incredible blessing,
but you don't want to,
this is, this kind of falls the line
along the lines of why I'm doing this
for the 100X community.
Well, I'm trying to do this to most of the 100X community
is these great ideas come to you,
be they God ideas or otherwise.
And you're like, oh my gosh.
And they start taking off.
Their fruit's already falling.
You're like, well, what do I do?
Well, let me make sure that I'm a good steward
of what I have.
Because what if you don't?
What if you don't obtain the rights to it?
What if you don't let other people use it?
Then other people can use that as well.
And then the consumer is not going to know
that that quality of service
is associated with Rowena Rodriguez and her service.
So you need to hire her if you want that caliber of work.
Because she even has, it even has its own name.
Do you see what I mean?
That's how a trademark can be very powerful.
Now, could you just use it with a TM all the time?
Sure.
You could just slap a TM on it all the time
and never file a trademark application
if you don't want to spend the money.
You can do that all day and night.
But just make sure everybody knows it's your trademark.
And if they start using it to describe your service,
correct them.
Say, hey guys, this isn't like,
if it's like, if people start saying,
hey, I want to go to the friendly restaurant.
It's like, no, it's called Friendly's.
Like our restaurant called Friendly's.
It's not the friendly restaurant.
That would be described.
being the restaurant, it's the restaurants called friendlies,
like, I would correct them, get them to start using the lingo in
a lovingly manner.
So, so, so like, right now, they're calling it what either
name that my members in our private group, they're calling
it that, but I can say, don't call it that. That's the
methodology. Right? So then when you say they're calling it that
what do you mean by it?
They're using friendlies in your sample, your sample, they're
saying, yeah, it's the friendlies way. You know what I
mean?
Yeah, so what you could say it's the it's the blah, blah, blah
method. You know, and that's, that's, that's what it's called.
It's the blah, blah, blah method. And so blah, blah, blah
is your trademark.
Yes. Okay. So so then that's currently what they're calling
it. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's, that's how I would do it is I would make sure
it's clear. And again, this is not legal advice. Like it
sounds to me like you're on the cusp of something very powerful.
And so, you know, you, you live with lawyers, right? Like, you
breathe lawyers, like you have 4 billion lawyers all over the
place. So it'd be really good, you know, just to kind of
consult with one for like, a minute or two and say, here's
the exact words. Yeah, there's how it's being used. This seems
really important, because this name is going to be
include the word method when you are filing that. Or just the
Okay. I wouldn't
the root just the root just the root. Okay, got it. Yeah. And
then what I would do is I would, when you're advertising the
service, I would use the words alone. Yes. So like, like a to
Q, you know, whatever, let's say it's called a to Q, right? And
everybody's like, that's the a to Q method, just a to Q on the
top of your website, top of your funnel, a to Q. And then
underneath it, you describe what a to Q, you know, the a to Q
method does blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
you know, but you put a to Q all alone. So that can be used as a
specimen. Yes, absolutely. Yep. Thank you.
Okay, we've got five minutes left. So with that, we can start
software, or I can answer more questions. I'll leave it up to
you. I can start jumping into software, I can answer more
questions.
Are there any other questions before I go there?
I might have a question. Yeah, go ahead, Krista.
Hey, um, okay, I have a really quick question. Hopefully, it's
just quick. We'll make it really quick. trademarking specifically
like using sources and pictures and images from other sources
and putting into your books, and then starting to sell, you know,
like, how do you in general don't? Don't mean in general,
in general, don't use other people's trademarks. Don't use
their copyright material. You know, if you're trying to refer
to things, there's way to refer to things, but I do not grab
other people's material. I mean, I had someone who is really good
at running challenges, and they were running a challenge. And
they had, like, a really famous logo from another entity right
at the top. And they sent it around and say, Hey, does
anybody have any problems with this? And I was like, Whoa,
whoa, stop, stop immediately. And so I jumped in. And, you
know, instead, right, you need to remove this logo here, get
rid of that, move that trademark away, go that using a
descriptive manner instead do that. But that's where you need
a lawyer involved. So they can see your specific implementation
and they can say, Okay, you're using this descriptively here,
you're kind of, you know, here, you're not here, it's kind of
fair use, you know, so there's different things. Now, when
you're writing a book, it becomes difficult to argue fair
use, because fair use is usually, I actually covered fair
use before. And I think there's a link. And if not, I'll see if
I can drop it for you. Okay, there's a link that kind of
talks about fair use, and what qualifies. But typically,
there's, you're not making any money on it. Typically, it's a
short timeline. You know, there's an attribution, there's
a whole bunch of criteria to fall into this one exception to
the rules of fair use. And so if you're writing a book, you've
got more than enough time to seek, you know, to seek
permission, you're going to make money on it. So that's, that's
two things that are negative right there. Right? You
shouldn't be using the trademarks of other parties
there. Unless you're, you know, if it's, what I would do is, I
would touch base with an attorney just to look at your
specific use situation. So as you're, as you're, if you're
drafting your book, and you have multiple scenarios, I would get
them all together. And then have one sit down with the
lawyer and say, Hey, here's I have my own book. Here's a few
examples of what I'm doing. Can you confirm that this is a
problem or not? Right? And now what you're doing is, bam,
they're looking at they're analyzing, it's right in front
of you're limiting the time. Okay.
you know, as opposed to, Hey, I've got a book.
Can you look at my book?
It's like, yeah, I got you.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Good.
Hey, on that same subject, since you're going to do question, um, I see so
many people out there, you know, posting images, a quote, or something from
someone, and it might have a copyright or the name of the person, but they just
like, you know, just post it on their profiles, right?
They use it on the materials.
Maybe they do a presentation, right?
Is it okay for me to say that again, Miguel?
Good.
Sorry.
You broke up a second.
Go ahead and say it again.
Yeah.
What I'm saying is I see so many people on their slides on presentations, you
know, using someone else's artwork, someone else's material, and just because
it says by this person, right, uh, they feel like they're giving credit to the
author is what I just heard you say.
I know it's not legal advice.
It's like, stay away from reposting people's images from sharing other
people's work, even, even if you give credit to them, it doesn't mean that
they authorize you to post that in their name.
Oh yeah, I've seen people get sued for that.
I've seen, I mean, look, it's like, you know, I, let's say you just decided to
take a chapter out of Stephen King's book and you're like, you know, and I'm
coming up with a story and I'm going to copy and paste this chapter here.
Here it is.
You know, I mean, you're going to get sued.
You're going to get sued.
Even if you give them credit, you cannot take something out of context just in
a great chapter from Stephen King, from his book, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, no, no.
So what I'm going to do is I'll put the link for public use.
Right.
But then what you should do is in your specific scenarios, if you're trying to,
like, if you're trying to make reference to somebody's material, whatever, I would
present those specific scenarios with exactly what you're doing to your attorney.
Right.
In general, if you can describe something without using their material,
that's the best way to do it.
You know, you can you can mention the book, you know, say, hey, there's a book here.
Yeah. I got to jump off to actually we're going to jump.
Actually, let me check something real quick, because I have a hearing with court.
And I think it's two o'clock, not one thirty.
Let me just triple check.
Calendar.
Yeah, it's at two o'clock, so I'm good.
I've got like another two minutes.
Yeah, like when Pedro says like not to use your words, once anybody mentions
anybody else's work, it's better to describe it, right, to show something.
So you're like, oh, Miles Monroe said this or says this.
Right. Instead of like, you know, taking.
Yeah, it's more it's more of the top.
Right. So what you don't do is you don't copy and paste all their stuff.
And what even when you're doing this attribution stuff, you got to be careful
because some people are asking, well, does that fall in the public use?
Does not fall in the public use?
It depends on what you're doing.
I mean, it's it's a lawyer answer, but, you know, litigation is very specific.
And so whatever your scenario is presented before an attorney and say, hey,
this is what I'm going to do.
There's no general rule that says attribution
by using five words or less is permissible.
That does not exist.
Or there's no general saying if you if you copy somebody else's image
or flow chart, but you give them attribution, that's OK.
That does not exist.
You need to like look at your specific scenario, how you're doing it
and determine if you're doing it in a fair use way or if attribution will be OK.
That's why that's when you speak to a lawyer.
You really need to talk to an attorney,
especially if you're going to make money on this thing.
Now, what I'm not saying is, well, if you're not making money, who cares?
I did not say that.
It doesn't matter because you can essentially take something
that's very important to me and start distributing my content
without my permission, I'll be ticked off about that.
Like everybody here has received the security sheet.
If people start distributing that security sheet to others,
that's going to bother me why it took time to make that.
It helps to drive drive a specific point very fast.
Like you look at that sheet, you can identify your situation in a second.
And I use specific colors that didn't shock your system.
So it wasn't intimidating.
And that's a legal document.
So you're actually able to look at that thing, feel comfort.
Oh, there's different comforting colors there.
They're kind of coordinated.
It's not so intimidating as a legal document.
Like that took time and effort to make.
Now, if other people here say, oh, here, I'm going to look at Peter
has a program and here's a copy of his of his security sheet.
That's going to be a problem for me, because now whether you meant
to give me credit or not, you just took my material and gave it to the public.
So now I have no control over it, like I can't stop it.
So I don't know who your audience is.
So now your audience grabs it and say,
oh, Miguel had this thing
and this is really cool document here, check this out.
Oh, and by the way, Peter Nieves created it.
Well, now that's another party that's using the material
and it just goes out.
And now what happens is the service
that the individual is trying to provide
to protect the people that they're training
and the hard work that they've done has been diluted,
has been given to others
and they can't control it.
So that's why the federal registration becomes important.
That's why you wanna give,
make sure what you're doing is okay
and that's why you wanna involve a lawyer.
And with that, I think we'll stop there.
We covered a lot of really good material here.
How do you guys feel about this?
Is that good?
Yeah, awesome, yeah.
So in summary,
if I had to keep it really simple for you,
trademark searches,
when you got the final term that you wanna go with,
hire a professional, right?
I wanna keep this very black and white, okay?
When you get the final term you wanna use,
hire a professional to do the search on that final term.
When you're doing trademark application,
do all the background work yourself.
When you're gonna file,
hire a professional to actually file it.
If at some point you feel comfortable,
that's between you, the Lord,
and what you so choose, right?
But nobody's saying to go out there
and do it all yourself.
Can you?
Absolutely.
But that's between you.
You know your own comfort levels.
You know what you can do.
You know what you can't do.
Right now, you're just starting.
You're just learning this stuff.
Some of you already know it.
So I know who you are.
You've already emailed me and texted me,
and I know you're well on your way and you're doing great.
And that's awesome.
Praise God, that's what I want.
But when you're starting out, you need training wheels.
You don't go down on a BMX bike,
a hill that has a huge incline with a jump.
You know, especially when you're up in the air after the jump
and you can't go backwards and change what you did.
Now you're in the air.
I see everything in images.
So there you go.
So let's keep, make sure that you're,
you know how to ride without training wheels first,
and then you can figure out what you can do after.
That's between yourself and the Lord.
So bless you all.
Have an awesome week.
And I will see you next time.
Make sure to email me questions beforehand.
We're going to start out the next time with software.
So all of you software people and other people that you know
that are in the portal that deal with software,
make sure they're in because we're going to go deep
in the software with some stuff that you likely don't know.
Okay?
All right, bless you all.
Take care.