Okay, all right, so what we're going to cover today, I mean, first of all, this is the last
VIP session, guys.
So I want to welcome all of you, congratulate you for making it through the entire week.
You guys have gotten a double dose, like everybody in a normal challenge receives certain training,
but you guys got double that.
So I hope you see how much you've learned.
And now that you have the videos, the nice part is since you're in VIP, you get them
for 90 days.
So you can continue to go back and look at your own videos for 90 full days.
Let me see if I can find out what is going on here.
And let me share my screen.
All right, uspto.gov and let's do a search.
Share my screen.
Ta-da!
All right.
They changed the front page.
It was different.
When we started the challenge, it was different.
So they changed the front page.
Okay, so one of the things that before I jump into this, how many people here have logos
for their companies by show of hands, like physical hands or virtual hands?
Because if nobody has logos and nobody's interested in logos, then I won't go through this.
But I want to see if people are interested in learning how to actually search for logos.
We got a hand.
Natalie is interested.
Is anybody else interested in learning about how to search logos?
Because I could just send Natalie the video.
I need one.
Yes.
Heather does.
Tony does.
Okay.
All right.
So there are a few people that are interested in logos.
Okay.
Got it.
Yeah, we had a connection issue.
So we just fixed it and we're all live now.
Okay, cool.
All right.
So I'm going to show you guys how to actually search P2.
All right, cool.
I'm going to show you all how to actually search logos on the United States Patent and Trademark
Office.
This is kind of different.
So let's do this.
I go to trademarks.
I go to searching.
Let me wait till you can see it.
So start off the beginning, go to trademarks, searching, come down here to search.
Okay.
You are only going for logos.
You are only going to use this one here, the design mark search.
All right.
So you can use this other one, but you need to know how to type Boolean logic.
I'm not going to try to train you guys in Boolean logic now, especially on the fifth
day.
It'll just fry your brain.
So what I'm going to do is show you right here.
Structured is what you're going to click.
All right.
When you click that, you're going to use as the field, if you just go down slowly, you'll
see description of mark is one there.
Let me show you another one that you can use.
Description of mark is a good one.
Design code, you could use that, but what most of the time I use is design description.
Okay.
That's usually the one that I'm going to use.
So if I do design description, then I type in what exactly is it about the design?
Okay.
Something that's distinguished.
So let me do this.
You guys can unmute right now and let's kind of, let's say you, let's create a logo.
Let's just create a logo together.
So just like we were running a real company, let's create a logo together.
So what might be some of the features of the logo that you'd want to use?
Circle.
A circle.
Okay.
So we got, I'm going to type it in the chat.
So we know that one of the features of the design is going to be a circle.
What else?
What else should we put in there guys?
Different people that, you know, just give me other objects that you want in the design
that you're creating.
This is just like you're creating your own company right now.
It's just, this is exactly what we would do in our own company.
A purple elephant.
Okay.
There's an elephant.
Let's do an elephant.
So we got purple.
We got an elephant.
What was that Heather?
Under a tree.
All right.
I'm going to try to take one thing from each person.
So we've got, Heather has a circle, Tony has an elephant.
What else do we want in this logo that has a circle and an elephant?
Anybody want to offer something?
I'll take one more thing.
Anything?
Tree.
Come on, David, the logo man.
You got anything?
Nobody's got an idea?
And just so you guys understand, coming up with a logo is a tough thing to do for a company.
It really is.
Cigar.
A cigar.
Oh, I like this.
Yes.
A cigar.
We got a circle with an elephant and a cigar.
All right.
Now we're talking.
It just got interesting.
Okay.
Here we go.
So we got in the design description, we're going to put in elephant, and I'm going to
put, I can't think of that there's any trademarks out there that have an elephant and a cigar,
but we're going to look anyway.
So let's start out.
Let's do this cigar.
So if I were doing like a trademark search for this logo, and I know it's going to be
a circle, an elephant and a cigar in it, I would start out with the things that are most
distinguished.
Like if I did a trademark search for a circle, there are going to be so many results.
It'll be very hard to like weed through them all.
So I would start out with the most unique part, like a cigar.
Definitely.
Elephant, definitely.
So when I did a search, I would start by including both, and then I would search for each one
individually.
So I'm pretty sure, I haven't pushed this button yet, but I'm like pretty sure there's
no logos out there with an elephant and a cigar.
It's going to make me laugh if there is, but no way.
What?
Okay.
I've got to see this.
All right.
So this is what you're going to do.
You're going to click image list next.
Get out.
No way.
There are trademark logos with elephants and cigars.
That is crazy.
I never knew this was the case.
Wow.
Okay.
Well, apparently the rhino is the same category as elephant.
So they give you rhinos with cigars.
They've got giraffes with cigars.
This is great.
Okay.
So I just showed you.
Oh my gosh.
Look at this one here.
White elephant with a gigantic cigar and a circle and a circle too.
Wow.
That's kind of hilarious.
I did not expect this at all.
All right.
So let's go through white elephant.
I'll show you what I would do if I did this search and I came up with this.
First of all, I would be shocked.
I was like, what?
The only thing I was thinking of was like camel Joe with the cigarette, but
an elephant.
I was like, what?
Okay.
So I'm going to start out by getting out of the logos.
Because I just looked immediately to see if everything was a logo.
Everything appears to be a logo.
So what I'm going to do now is go back to the list itself without the
logos.
And I'm going to look to see which ones are alive.
Right?
I'm going to start from the oldest first.
Let's see how many there are.
49 records.
Okay.
So I start from the oldest first.
Now, when you look at the trademark search results, you'll see this word
dead.
You see that word dead?
Is it too small?
I can make it bigger.
There we go.
Can you see the word dead now?
There?
Okay.
Wonderful.
All right.
So dead means that either the trademark was alive and then it went
abandoned or they filed an application.
No, it's typically the trademark was alive and it went abandoned.
And you can tell by these registration numbers.
These are registration numbers.
But then these over here never got a registration number.
So that means to me that somebody filed it and then they abandoned the
application.
So I would start by looking at the ones that are alive.
That's where I would start.
So I start over here and I see live and I click on that one.
And there's an elephant.
And this must be a cigar brand of some sort.
Yep.
It's for cigars.
Cigars with an elephant.
Right?
So then I go back and I look at my next one.
Dead, dead.
Here's a live one.
Now, since there's no words on it, that means it's dead.
is that it's purely a logo with no words.
When you get a result that has words,
that means that the logo has words with it.
But here it doesn't, it just has the logo alone.
So I click on the logo and it is a scary looking elephant.
Some scary looking blue elephant.
I'm not sure why this one came up
because this clearly has nothing to do with,
oh my gosh, this is a long recitation of goods.
Look at that, that is really long.
But it does have in there cigar bands.
So, okay.
All right, so now I keep going up
to the next one that's live.
Click on the next one, that's an elephant.
And it must be for cigars if I keep going down.
There it is, cigar lighters.
So what I'm looking for is a trademark
that is similar to what I wanna use.
And that's not even close.
White elephant I think was the one that I was curious about.
All right, so white elephant apparently
must be some kind of cigar brand.
Oh no, it says excluding cigars, okay.
All right, so this actually is a good example.
So here we have a white elephant.
It's for tobacco products, but it says excluding cigars.
One of the few reasons why somebody would add the language,
all of the foregoing excluding cigars,
is because they in fact,
there must be another trademark registration
that is for cigars.
So they were forced to say
all of the foregoing excluding cigars.
That's usually why, if you ever see this language,
all the foregoing excluding whatever,
it's usually because there's somebody
who owns that other word, okay.
So now I go back and I go to the next one.
Here's a live one, trifecta.
I don't know why this comes up.
I don't see an elephant there.
Heads of elephants.
I don't see a head of an elephant there.
I don't know what that is.
White elephant over here.
Oh, this is the one that bothers me.
This is the one that bothers me the most.
White elephant for cigars, boom.
So I just showed you how to do a trademark search for logos
by looking at the description of the actual design
using words that describe the design.
And boom, here's one, white elephant, elephant, cigar.
So to me, I'm concerned.
At this point, I look at this and I go,
I don't think we have a very good chance
of getting our own trademark for an elephant with a cigar.
And here you've even got a circle.
Oh, and look, there's even a palm tree.
Actually, I think that's more of a tobacco plant
than a palm tree, but anyways, close enough.
So to me, this is, when I look at this, I say, nope,
we can't file, it's dead, don't even bother.
Because it's the same international class for cigars,
which is 34, and it's got an elephant
and it's got the cigar.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, does anybody have any questions about that?
I wanted to, searching for logos
is one of the more complicated things
because you got to use the exact words, right?
But one of the things that I'm trying to do
is give you tools that are free.
Like this is a free tool.
You can go on and do whatever you want with this thing
and be absolutely fine.
So that's the beauty of it,
is that this search tool, free.
So, but what I would be doing is,
if you don't see something that is,
let me go back and show you something real fast,
just to help you guys out on searching.
In this case, I searched for two words, elephant and cigar.
If I found nothing, the next thing I would do
is take the next thing that's most obscure,
which is an elephant.
Because I would think there's a lot of cigar things
out there, but then I would just search
for the elephant alone.
When I search that, I get a lot of records,
7,445 records, that's a lot.
Then I click on the image list
and I start going through them one by one
until I find one that's close, right?
But the other way that you can search this
is if you know that you're going to cover cigars,
you know there's an elephant in your logo,
you can type over here, cigar.
and then look at the goods and services
and say, and.
Now you've got logos that are,
the products are cigars
and there's an elephant in the logo.
Now when I submit it, I only get 34 records.
Do you see how I just reduced the number?
So now I can click on the image list
and these are all trademark logos
for companies associated with cigars
where there's an elephant that's included.
That's a hippo, that's not an elephant, but in any case.
That's how you do it, okay?
I'm sure.
Any questions on that?
Oh, Heather, yes, go ahead.
My question is in some of those ads,
we saw the elephant and it was like,
wait, but there's no cigar.
And then, so the cigar was not actually in the logo,
but it was in the description.
So can you talk about that a little bit?
Yeah, so if you look at the search that I just did,
this is the search that I just did.
I looked for elephants in the logo and cigar is the goods.
So in that case, it won't have a cigar in the logo.
If I come over here and I say,
instead of goods and services,
I say it's a description of design,
design description and I search, now there's less.
So now the results that I get are elephants with cigars.
Now here's a camel with a cigar,
but I think the reason for that is probably
because the goods, I'll actually just show you.
Here it is.
The design search code associated with elephants
also includes all these other animals.
You see that?
So what happens is after you file a trademark application,
it gets categorized into a specific search code.
And so one of the search codes is this one,
which includes elephants,
but that same search code includes other things.
So when you search for elephants as a description,
you're gonna get other stuff where elephants is included
in the search code, even though it's not for an elephant.
It's a little complicated,
but basically you can see it right here.
Why is it that I got logos for things for cigarettes
when I'm searching for cigars?
This is why.
Because in that search code that includes cigars,
it also includes cigarettes.
So this is why I got camels with cigarettes,
which is Smoking Joe essentially.
That's why that result came up
because elephants are in the same search code as camels
and cigarettes are in the same search code as cigars.
So that's why you're always gonna get a little more
than exactly what you're searching for.
Good question though.
That's a really good question.
All right, let me stop sharing there.
Okay, any other questions on how to search logos?
Ray, yeah, go ahead.
I just have a question that came up as you're doing that.
What if somebody has like a letter or a number
in their logo mark?
Like it's not a word mark, but it's an actual icon.
Would you have to write the word letter or number
when you're doing search terms?
So if the logo has a number, you said, or a word?
A number or a letter.
Like some people have like their initials
for their like real estate.
You'll see like, you know, or construction SCS or whatever.
Would you have to type out the word letter
or type out the word number so that it reads it differently?
In your case, just to,
I wanna make sure I do this correctly.
So in your case, you're specifically saying
that the logo is the letter or it includes a letter?
It includes one.
Okay, all right.
So if it includes one, it's different than if it is one.
So there, as an example, like if you look at the,
what is it?
The Los Angeles Angels, the baseball team, right?
Yeah, or like LA Dodgers or something.
Or yeah, they have that A that's cursive
with like the angel halo over it.
Like if I were searching for that,
I would be searching for design.
with the letter A alone.
And then what I would do is I would also see,
so let's see if we can find it.
This is a good example.
See if we can find it.
I've never actually looked for it before.
So it would be the letter A as a design description and halo
as a design description.
That's a lot of records.
Let's see.
Let's see what we get.
There's no A in there.
All right, let me try one other thing.
If I do this, quotes, that's the same thing.
Okay. All right.
Well, they're giving us more than we need, but let's just scroll down
and see if we can find the Los Angeles Angels.
The other way to do it is you can use lost.
The reason why I don't like this search all the time is
because you only get two options to list there.
You can't add more, which is unfortunate.
Because if you could add more, then I would add, oh, here we go.
I don't think this is it, but let's see.
A plus collectibles.
Then I would just add another deciding factor, which would be at Los Angeles.
You know, whatever the group.
No, it's LA Dodgers.
What's the, who are the Angels?
The baseball team.
I don't know.
I don't follow baseball.
So, but in any case, yeah.
So that's how I would do is I would look up the halo and I would look up the letter.
So to answer your question is like, here is, here's a logo right here.
This is a logo and in the logo, it includes the word seal of approval.
So if I were trying to find this logo, I would look up the word seal of approval
because it would be included in the description.
So if I came down here and I look at description of Mark right there, it says in here.
The words seal of approval, see that.
So anytime that you follow a trademark application for a logo that includes words,
you actually have to include the words in the description of the mark.
So it gets more tricky if it's a single letter like a, because a is there's a lot of A's.
So for that reason, it's a little more tricky to, to look up a single letter,
but I wasn't able to find it quickly, but we've only gone through like a hundred of the hits
or 200 of the, of 2000 hits.
So I'm pretty sure if you just.
If you include the term letter, will that change it?
Will it reduce it or is it unnecessary?
No, because if you put the word letter, then it's going to be searching for the word letter.
The word letter.
You know, and so you're, you're not, you're not searching for the word letter.
Um, when it gets tricky for, for trademark searching is like, what if there's a hyphen?
What if there's like multiple words that are put together?
How do you search multiple words that are put together?
That's when it gets trickier.
Uh, and I'll show you guys how to do that real fast, but it would have been nice if it just popped up.
There's a lot of trademarks with the A on it.
So, um, anyway, maybe it's older.
If there's any way to go to like the oldest, it's been around for a long time.
I mean, or could you sort it with the, um, the international class?
Uh, you could, but the problem is, uh, which I alluded to two fields are taken.
Two fields are already taken.
Let's say I wanted to get rid of that.
And I wanted like baseball, like what's, what's the international field for baseball.
I mean, I could also say, see if I, if I knew the name, it'd be a lot easier if I just look real fast.
Well, there are the LA angels.
It is a Los Angeles angels.
Okay.
And they're playing the Seattle Mariners today.
Yeah.
Los Angeles angels, people.
Okay.
So if I just look up, um, let's see if it works.
Los Angeles angels.
That would instead be the owner, right?
It would no longer be the description,
it'd be the owner name.
And submit the query.
Nothing comes up, which is interesting.
So let's get rid of, let's see,
maybe it may be that they don't go by,
the company doesn't go by Los Angeles Angels,
but let's see.
That's not right.
The Los Angeles Angels can't own 6,000 records,
there's no way.
This can't be right.
Did I spell Los Angeles wrong?
I must've spelled it wrong.
No, you got it right.
No, that's right.
Los Angeles.
I don't know why.
Well, apparently Los Angeles Angels
is listed on 6,800 trademarks.
That makes no sense to me at all.
There's no way that Los Angeles.
Oh, I know why.
You did or.
Yeah, see even me, I've been doing this for ages.
You have to remember that operator.
Then you commit to query and it doesn't come up.
So then what you do is just delete this
and just look for the top one alone.
Nothing.
So that means nothing is in the name
of Los Angeles Angels.
So that company must be owned.
Los Angeles Angels must be owned by another entity.
So if I were trying to figure out what's going on,
I look up Los Angeles Angels owner
and see who's the owner.
Arturo Moreno.
Okay, so let's see who owns.
Let's see if it pops up.
Okay, here we go.
See if this helps.
Yeah, I'll share my screen
so you can see what I'm just looked at.
Plus, plus, plus.
Quick links to the Los Angeles Angels trademarks.
So if I look, see all the A's,
so if I look, see all the A's, they owned A's.
So these are their trademarks.
Who owns it though?
Angels Baseball LP.
See, so it's not called Los Angeles Angels.
It's called Angels Baseball LP.
So if I wanted, I need to figure out who's the owner
and then there it is, Angels Baseball LP.
But you'll see it's an A,
but in the description of the mark,
it says the mark consists of the letter A, right?
So you have to put it in the description.
So whatever the words are,
you need to put it in the description
when you file your application as well.
Let me see.
All right, any questions on that?
That was a pretty thorough example of a logo search.
So all of you should be able to search for logos.
The tricky part though with logos
is if you don't use the exact right words,
you can get a lot of trouble.
And just as an aside, since you guys are VIP,
I just want to make sure it's clear.
The tools that I'm showing you guys
are like maybe 60 to 70% effective
because the United States Patent and Trademark Office
website, like, I've found many times it's missing things,
but then separate from that,
so the question is why am I showing you this?
Because if you have like 10 different things
you potentially want to go after, you can decrease them
and then just bring the ones
that you weren't able to knock out easily,
bring those to your lawyers.
That will decrease your costs.
All right, so let me see if we have like
one or two questions.
And if we do, I'll see if I can answer those.
And then we will close for our entire week
of challenges for this entire week.
This has been a pretty awesome week.
So let me just see if anybody has a question.
Anybody have a question on anything that we've covered?
Trademarks, copyrights, patents, any of that stuff?
Yes, Natalie.
How are you, Natalie?
I'm excited about doing the audit with you.
This is good, I'm excited.
I'm all pumped up about doing the audit with you.
This is gonna be awesome.
Oh, well, the one thing I'm realizing with all of this,
I'm like trying to read my patent.
I'm like saying, I never read it.
I'm in so much trouble with you because I'm saying,
I'm looking for the eye to see how to read it.
And I'm like, so lost in a sense.
But the question, one of the questions I had was,
do you, after the four, the-
nine years or the for the trademark on the 14 years for the design pattern expires what happens
after that is it like that's a great question yeah that's a great question so for trademarks
they can be renewed forever they never expire as long as you renew them you have to continue
to renew them over and over and over um for patents they expire 20 years from filing
so they but patents also have what's called maintenance fees you have to pay a maintenance
fee at three and a half seven and a half and eleven and a half years okay so um the cost
increases based on the number of the maintenance fees so i'm going to pull up the uspto website
i'm going to show you specifically let me share my screen i'll show you what the costs are i'll
show you guys how to find the cost so this is the uspto website uh right here you can actually just
type up here fees like that and then go to the uspto fee schedule current uspto fee schedule
and then you look over here so this would be maintenance you click on maintenance
and these are your fees three and a half seven and a half eleven and a half years
now as an individual you guys can you guys may qualify for micro-entity status i would check
and see if you can qualify for micro-entity status because then you're paying like a fraction
of anything otherwise you're definitely a small entity but you might be a micro-entity
so these are the costs that you pay for maintenance fees
uh so to maintain to bring your patent alive or to keep your patent alive at three and a half years
it's let's say 800 bucks then it goes to 1500 then it goes to 3000 okay that's just to keep it alive
all right and if you're large corporation this is why all of my clients who are large corporations
i always drill them really hard when it comes to the third maintenance fee i said are you absolutely
sure you want to pay this thing like is this technology absolutely not obsolete because we're
about to spend almost the cost of a brand new patent application to keep your patent alive
are you okay with that and i asked them to put it in writing before i do it if they put it in writing
awesome then we'll go ahead and we'll renew it but 7 700 just to keep a patent alive
now trademarks are different so if i go over to schedule and then i go to
oh no no no no where is it these fees here we go
it did not pop up oh there it is it's down here okay trademark fees so now application related
fees post registration is what you'd be looking at to keep them alive
and so now you've got like your section 9s your section 8s your section 15s your 8 and 15s to keep
them alive these are things that are due like at 5 years at 10 years so you're paying in increments
like after a certain number of years you're paying to renew to keep it alive it's not every single
year though it's at every at least every five years it's not every single year so you've got
to pay that fee just to keep it alive so but if you want to figure out the fees just go to
the uspto website and right at the top just type in the word fees and then boom you got it current
uspto schedule
click on that in fact what i'll do is just copy this and put it in the chat
paste enter there we go and that's it now you get your fee schedule
let me just look and see in the chat i know there was some something going on a question
okay
you can see
okay somebody just asked a really good question what qualifies as micro entity status so let me
pull that up for you guys micro entity status is all about kind of figuring out items that might
exist in a particular conversation is really important okay somebody just asked a really
so let me pull that up for you guys micro entity status uspto
here we go micro entity status all right here we go here's the page that gives you all the data on
and just so you know all you guys that are going either taking the auto or going in the
protection portal this is the kind of stuff you'll get out
access to stuff all the time.
Like I always drop things for you guys
because I want to help you guys the most I can.
And we'll be having our first meeting
for all those who join next week on the night.
So you get to jump right in and meet our other members.
Yeah, and so what we do on the first day
is we introduce you guys.
You guys say who you are, what you do,
what you're looking for.
And then if there's other people in that group
that can support you, they will,
or they'll meet up with you or they'll partner up with you
or whatever the case is.
It's a really tight-knit group, which is wonderful.
So it says an applicant or patent,
application or patent may qualify
a micro-energy status if each applicant,
its inventor or every other party
with an ownership interest in the patent application
is a small entity.
Small entity means less than 500 employees
or is it 500?
It's 500 or less employees.
That should be listed here in the description.
Basically, if you're alone, you're micro-entity.
So that's one.
The next part is the additional requirements
of micro-entity is gross income basis
or institution of higher education.
So your gross income has to be under a certain amount.
Here it is.
Small entity is 500 employees or less
or fewer than 500 employees.
Let me make this bigger.
Now you guys can see it.
All right, so your income though,
this is the part that's important
is your income level has to be under a certain amount.
So you just have to look in here and see if you qualify.
And let's see.
Gross income limit.
Neither the applicant nor the inventor
nor a joint inventor had a gross income
in the previous year from when the fees paid
of more than the maximum qualifying gross income,
which is three times the median household income
in the United States.
So maximum qualifying gross income is 212,000.
So if you make under 212,000 and you're a single individual,
I don't mean married or not married.
I mean, like you're an individual filing,
you may qualify for micro-entity status,
which means that you pay a fraction
of what other people pay.
Okay?
All right, so, and here's the page here.
This is where it talks about your gross income.
This is where I got the number right there, $212,352.
So if you make less than that per year,
you can qualify for micro-entity
and you can pay a fraction of what other people pay.
Now, just keep in mind,
that doesn't include your lawyer's fees.
And that's where you spend most of your money
is on your lawyers, right?
So like, you're gonna spend like a good $10,000
on a patent application for a lawyer,
but the USPTO fee is like 500 bucks.
So it's great that you save money with the filing fee,
but you still spend $10,000 on a lawyer.
So, yeah, so it's something to keep in mind.
All right, I think we have covered enough.
I know I've answered over a hundred questions at this point
and I truly appreciate all of you guys.
I think we were gonna close it here.
If you guys have any, I'm gonna stay around
if you guys have any other questions
on either the portal or the audit,
I'll be here for you guys to answer any questions.
Natalie, I'm looking forward to taking care of you
and there are a few others as well and we'll close there.
So congratulations, Idea Protectors,
go enjoy your weekend.
And you guys have completed the training
like beginning to end.
So I applaud you guys, well done.
It's like I gave birth to a bunch of patent trademark
and copyright children, jeez.
Why do you keep referencing that?
Well, we've got a lot of watchdogs
and we know some of these people are in communities
and whatnot and do not be afraid to help your friends
by saying, you might not wanna post that
or did you do that?
Cause if Peter does it, then he's put them on notice.
So he doesn't say that's why he does this,
but he sure is proud of us
when we can accurately help others protect their ideas
as well and get them in this challenge
next time you see it.
David, I got your email.
I'm looking at it now.
Just stay on for a sec, stay on for a sec and let's-
Oh, I wish Anita was here.
You know, I hope Anita joins us because I think-
She took the-
She did.
Oh, good, because you know who I think she'd be great to collaborate with is Angelica.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's a good point.
Yes.
Yeah.
Very good.
I can't wait to introduce those two.
Yeah, those two actually they will work really well together.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they do something together, honestly.
Two powerhouse women for sure that'll be awesome.
Let me see.
Hey, Peter's got a question.
Pete.
Pete, what's up buddy.
Hey, how's it going.
I was just stopped by the pool hope everyone's doing well.
My question is kind of pertaining to obviously there's entity structuring in for tax purposes. I didn't know if there was if that impacted protecting IP trademarks copyrights.
And if there was an intersection or overlap or synergy there.
So you're asking about entity types and protecting of IP.
Yeah, like specifically the location like whether it's the headquarters or a subsidiary.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I do tax optimization for like exactly what the business does.
But like I've never really thought until the challenge.
What about the, you know, from a protecting of IP from a strategic standpoint.
Yeah.
So it's actually a really big, big, big, big issue.
I have a number of clients that will take all their IP put it in the name of a certain entity in a certain country that has a lower tax bracket, you know, and so that it's a it's a very strong strategy.
If you have a good IP portfolio is to know exactly like if you can have legal rights as an example.
One of my clients put all their rights in the United Kingdom because the tax bracket taxes were lower than in the US.
So they created a UK entity.
They transfer all the rights into the UK.
And then they license the technology over to the entity in the US for use.
But for tax purposes there, they pay a lot less money.
The only issue that you got to be careful of, though, well, one issue you got to be careful of is that you're exporting technology.
So you can get into like taxing of exporting technology or you can run into issues with customs where they're saying, hold it.
Like as an example, if your technology is from lasers, you know, if your technology is on some kind of tech, something that can be considered to be a threat to a government.
Then, you know, or or would be typically used by defense like national defense like lasers is a really good one.
And there's a bunch of other ones. If that's the case, then you may not be allowed to assign all rights.
I don't want to sue an entity in another country because the US doesn't want you exporting that kind of stuff or that other country doesn't want you importing that kind of stuff.
So there are some rules on that. But for purposes of taxes, you know, tax purposes and incorporation, absolutely.
Like I would definitely look and see if you're going to build a strong IP portfolio or if you are supporting corporations that have IP portfolios or evaluating those companies.
I would definitely look into their specific countries that will give you lower tax brackets.
And even in the United States, there's certain things you can do to keep your, you know, to gain certain benefits by having it in an entity that's in a certain state.
And are there, I mean, similar similar question, I guess, is it are there states where there's been more legal precedent, you know, more protections of patents or trademarks or copyrights or is that kind of universal?
Not for states because it's all federal. But there are countries like there are certain countries where you obtain more rights.
Like back in the day, like I've I've been very, very fortunate to deal with protection of IP all over the world.
And David Zhao is one of my contacts out in China.
And he'll tell you that, you know, if you went back 15 years, legal rights in China was horrible, like just horrible.
You know, you could get a patent out there and never be able to enforce it.
And then it changed about 10 years ago. They started changing. They got a lot better.
But the decisions that were made, like if there was patent infringement, they would they would threaten to to have the company stop selling the product.
But they wouldn't grant court decisions for money like nobody was winning money.
They were winning like injunctions. That's all they were winning was like, oh, I got a I got a permanent injunction.
Well, then what happened was Mr. Zhao over here, his uncle.
opens up another place with the exact same technology,
and you're like, or even less discreet,
his wife is listed as the founder
of ABC Corporation in China,
while he stops selling, now his wife is selling it.
And so it was so frustrating.
And then the Chinese government started realizing
that a lot of companies were leaving there,
they wouldn't do manufacturing there,
they wouldn't do anything there.
And so they started changing the laws so that,
they literally did a 180,
so that all the foreign companies
were getting more rights than the Chinese companies.
And then the Chinese companies started complaining,
saying, you're letting the foreign companies
win for everything.
And the Chinese government was like,
yeah, we are, because we need money.
And we need like employees to have, people to have a job.
And those jobs were coming from foreign countries.
So we got to give legal rights to these foreigners now
and let them win a little bit so that they'll come back.
And it worked somewhat, but all the issues with COVID
and all the other stuff had kind of a wrinkle
in that whole dilemma, and then so,
but in any case, the fact is that in the United States,
it doesn't really matter your legal rights are gonna be,
they're gonna be respected in every state.
Now, that's not to say that
there aren't certain states that are better for litigation.
Like Eastern District of Texas
used to be the best place to do litigation
because all the judges were very patent friendly.
So they were very, they were enforcing patents
like crazy in the Eastern District of Texas.
And anybody who had a patent,
if they were gonna sue somebody,
they always sued them in the Eastern District of Texas,
like always.
And so you had literally hundreds of law firms
that were opening in Texas
because they wanted to get some of the money for litigation
because like a single litigation matter
can give you 3 million to $15 million worth of legal fees.
So why not like open up a shop in Texas
and then make money, right?
But then what happened was the TC Hartland case
was decided, which basically said,
it's actually a court case,
which actually said,
hey, look, whenever you sue somebody,
you need to sue them in the state of incorporation.
You can't sue them anywhere you want and say,
oh, there was one sale in Texas.
So I'm gonna sue them in federal district court
in the Eastern District of Texas.
Like the courts came out and said, no, you can't do that.
And that was a TC Hartland case
that came out a number of years ago.
So now if you get sued in Texas,
you can say, I'm not incorporated in Texas.
What are you talking about?
You need to sue me in New Hampshire.
So all of a sudden the number of lawsuits in Texas
decreased and tanked
and all these law firms started tanking and crashing
because they couldn't just hang out in Texas.
So then people started leaving Texas.
So that's a long way of saying
legal rights are respected throughout all the United States,
but there are certain court systems
that like patent litigation more than others.
And so you might have a higher chance of winning
if you own a patent, if you can be in those specific states.
And so that's something that we've run into in litigation
when we're evaluating where to file a case.
Yeah.
That's great, thank you.
You're welcome, you're welcome.
All right, my friends, that will be it.
My friends, bless you all.
Oh, thank you guys.
I really appreciate the personal comments
that I'm getting here.
I really appreciate that.