 Just have a business name that you've been doing business for a while. You could still own a trademark without registration But obviously you don't get any of those any of these protections It's harder to prove infringement in court because as as opposed to a registration now you have to show that you know you actually have a You need to show when you've started using the mark and how long you've had it and you know What you are if you use it under you know that sort of thing so it's a bigger pain in the butt There's certain things that can't be registered like trade dress and we'll go ahead and talk about that in a little bit Here's an example. I figured we're at a what our paleo conference. So let's just make fun of McDonald's So the the word mark here is McDonald's The logo is the is the golden arch Right here, and then they have their slogan which is I'm loving it Trade dress is kind of you could you could see this trade dress kind of all over their buildings And the way that it is it's it's basically these yellow It's the golden arch and then this red background So you can see that the roof is red and then they have these like yellow highlights on their roofs This is kind of an older style McDonald's you could just see and then did this French fries container, you know, it's got the yellow bars and then the the red So that's just kind of what we call trade dress. Okay, and this is so distinctive I mean this is a McDonald's in China and like a tourist but look at this Because it looks nothing like Something that you would you would normally associate but you see that M and you see the colors and you need immediately know that this is a This is a McDonald's and that you can probably go buy a big Mac or something in China if you feel so inclined We're gonna talk a little bit about distinct distinctiveness and the strength of trademarks because this is gonna be important as you Go ahead and choose your name. How the different strengths of the marks have different legal connotations Generally We start with the most Powerful type of mark, which is a fanciful mark. Okay, so an example of this is Xerox It's a word in the dictionary that the Xerox corporation made up. It's not in the dictionary Hey, so it's so yeah, so it's just it's just a word that has no other meaning other than to give To refer to the Xerox company and its brand of photocopiers or what have you so That's kind of a called a fanciful mark. Okay, so the next step down is what we call an arbitrary mark is where that that That mark has a dictionary definition, but it has nothing to do with what your product is for example Apple computers Okay, Apple is not a computer in the dictionary The next step down is suggestive So a lot of marks are kind of in this category where you basically have a word that sort of evokes a Connotation that associates with your product a good example here is Greyhound. It's a a sleek fast land animal That and now it's being used to trademark a bus service essentially So these marks are what we call entitled to registration That means that if you could prove that your mark is in one of these three categories the USPTO has to give you a registration Okay, so if you file an application you have a mark that's like this you don't have to grant it This next two categories are generally not entitled to registration. They're like weak marks. Okay, so Descriptive and I'm just gonna pick on Ted's Montana girl for a moment because we went there for dinner and the service wasn't very good so a Descriptive mark is where the the the words that Comprise the mark just describes what you're selling. Okay, so for example Ted's Montana girl would be this Descriptive for a restaurant in Bozeman owned by Ted. Okay Or it's there's a subcategory here called deceptively misdescriptive It's the same restaurant, but it's in Columbus, Ohio. Okay, so that's deceptively misdescriptive You're nothing to do with you know Montana and you know that sort of thing This is actually a kind of a big issue. So for example, you know, if you have arrowhead spring water, you know bottled in You know Pittsburgh or something like that in registration that could give you some issues and Then the the weakest form of mark is the generic where the word the mark word mark is literally what you're selling And these are sometimes not that obvious, but you know, you have agua bottled water, which is just water in Spanish you have a Way that fanciful marks like Xerox could sometimes fall into the generic category They did really could fall from grace Because you know Xerox got so ubiquitous in the the 70s and 80s as photocopiers that people just started to say Hey, why don't you take it just down to the Xerox machine and then make me a couple of you know Xeroxes and then they started using that as a as a as a common noun and and a verb That's when you would kind of fall into that genetic care Generic category and then they had to spend a lot of money to try to correct this misuse in Among the the common public. So I hope you're as successful as that and that that's a really good problem to have So if you're not entitled to registration if you file and then you're kind of rejected based on that You can register on what's called the supplemental register this this is not registration it goes on a list it's kind of like a waiting list for five years and It gives you a presumption of what we call acquired distinctiveness Which means that that particular wordmark that you're using have acquired secondary meaning in five years that people Recognize that word as also representing your goods or services. So then Basically you wait five years That's like a statutory thing and then it's eligible to be elevated to the principal register so even if you have a name right now that you think is a Kind of in the in the week category after five years You can still get it up to the principal register if people don't challenge you It's just that you don't really have any register like rights registered rights in the meantime Okay So getting started with trademarks This is something that you kind of need to start thinking about Like kind of early so when you do it as soon as you're thinking about a name and I know everybody before they Start a business before they even figured out what they're going to sell and how they're going to make money Everybody's thinking about a name. So I know I know this is dear near and dear to your hearts And so you got to start thinking about What you're gonna do to trademark this name What you do is a sanity search on Google make sure that nobody else is doing something too similar to you and Also tests is not the test that we all know and love here at AHS, but it's the Trademark electronic search system, which is a tool available on the patent The patent office website. Okay, you could go ahead and do a word search on there There is a rule in terms of trademarks being what we call confusing similarity or likelihood of confusion That means that in order to infringe your trademark You don't actually have to literally infringe you don't have to use those exact words You could be similar and you could still run into problems. So when you go ahead and do a search You want to let's say that you have caveman foods. I just made that up You know, you should search for everything cave, but also maybe cave II maybe crave, you know Like things that sort of sound the same is probably going to be relevant to you Obviously the more unique the better, you know, just use your common sense and then Do the wordmark first and then a logo later Okay, so a lot of people like invest money in logos and they have a graphics tonight Oh, this is really cool. It's got a thing, you know, that goes very well And then they find out that their wordmark is infringing. So oops, basically you could do all of these things without a lawyer You I mean if you are in doubt You should probably get a consult from somebody regarding the strength of your mark and everything But I think all this stuff you can do on your own And I'm not gonna tell you spend extra money So how do you how do you actually go ahead and do this? How long is it gonna take and how much is it gonna cost you finally an application? Generally is about 750 to a thousand dollars. It includes a pto fee of two hundred and twenty five dollars per mark per class and this is a little a Bit of a finer distinction So a wordmark and a logo mark are two applications So for example to being not McDonald's wordmark and the Golden Arch are that's two separate applications So you got to pay that fee twice and also a wordmark used in two classes when we say classes We mean that they're essentially different types of products So a McDonald hamburger and a McDonald's t-shirt would be two classes So you have to pay those registrations Separately so kind of think about that as you you know How many products you're selling and you know, how much you want to protect? the Length of time is generally no no less than a year It's more if it's refused if the mark has got some problem and you know, it's refused You got to pay a lawyer, you know something like a thousand dollars to go ahead and argue that Miscellaneous fees post registration a lot of times people register trademarks that actually haven't used in commerce They're not selling that product yet you when when you do Get that get that trademark granted and you need to prove that you're using the trademark in commerce You have to file a statement of use and the patent office will charge you a hundred dollars And then there's maintenance fees at five years ten years, and then every ten years they're after Okay, so we're where can you go wrong? Okay, so this is where where I'm telling you guys You know, you're that that even if you don't hire a lawyer so kind of be very aware of how this could you know happen I feel like the number one issue is that descriptive terms for this particular industry is just like over you So like you'd be having anything keto or anything paleo. I mean just pick something else This is right now. This is just it's just too much Not doing a search not updating your search like if you've done a search and then you found that okay Well, nobody's using this name will do it not the search in six months. See if somebody is registered it see somebody started to also think that this name is clever and Do something about it if they're stepping on your territory Knowledge of a confusingly similar mark and failing to take action Okay So if you know some somebody is using a mark and then you just kind of like don't do something for a number of years You're gonna lose the right to challenge them You're gonna have to probably end up dealing with that Mark in existence with along with yours or you're gonna probably end up having to change your name or something like that So, you know really not doing something is really not an option You have to think about that and then using the r-circle without having obtained principal registration the TM symbol the small TM symbol is Used for just to let people know that you're using that as a trademark the R is for marks that you've actually registered You actually received the registration certificate. So don't don't use the R without actually having done that and then Bunch of other things, you know picking a bad mark, you know, well, I'll show you an example in a little bit We're play on somebody else's mark. So, you know, let's say Nike has just do it and then you go just do as in D. O. O You're trying to be clever, right? Like we all try to be clever, but what you're essentially doing is you're appropriating somebody else's Intellectual property and if it's Nike, they're huge and they're make all their money off of licensing. They're gonna sue you I guarantee you they're gonna they're gonna sue you Picking up if I you can't win, you know, I See this more often Then then you think you have some you have some name and you know how I said names are similar in this industry So we have like ABC and then you go up to another person Also using ABC at a trade show and then go. Oh, hey, you know, you're ABC. I'm also ABC. Maybe we could work together You just bought yourself a season. This is go ahead. Just don't do that Um example of bad mark, I do a lot of running in downtown LA and this is on my one of my regular routes It's a restaurant a very trendy the naming thing is trendy kind of like Lyft and uber and you know these short little Misspelled type of word so KTC HN right kitchen downtown DT LA for downtown LA. So this is a restaurant and What happens is when you start running past, you know, you see things over and over again you know, the lawyer's head starts to do free legal work for them and I'm thinking well, you know, I think this is like a descriptive problem, right? Isn't isn't this sort of descriptive like KTC HN just means kitchen and so kitchen is descriptive of a restaurant and DT LA is just geographically, you know Descriptive and so I went to go look up their prosecution record. You can find that it's all public on the USB to a website and Sure enough, you know, it was rejected. It was descriptive like like I said, and then this particular Entrepreneur did not hire a lawyer It was it was refused one time the owner went pro bono and basically submitted arguments as this is named my restaurant It's my baby. I love this place. I created it. I've worked so hard on it Please give me a trademark and then of course the patent officer. Oh, you know what? That's so persuasive We totally appreciate the fact that you have a you have this restaurant and we're gonna give you a trademark Of course not right. It was rejected again and you know, this this trademark is dead. So She didn't come to this talk Dispute resolution in this field with there's a lot of cease and desist letters going on If there is a product that you're selling on Amazon and somebody else is infringing on it You could file what's there essentially like reporting mechanisms on Amazon.com or eBay They're often ineffective, but it's just not kind of like something that you do What happens is sometimes services will come over and say we'll file a complaint for you and charge you like $500 You this is this is something you could do by yourself. You don't don't pay those guys, you know You can get somebody's Mark Cancelled before the t-tab that's essentially an administrative court system within the patent office If their mark is on on yours is too similar or you had it before they did You know, you could go ahead and get there get that Start a cancellation proceeding to get their mark cancelled You could litigate before the International Trade Commission. This is where I said about have getting us customs to deny their goods entry If they're coming from overseas You can do a district court action, which is just essentially suing for federal court suing in federal court that is very very expensive and I just usually try to tell my clients to Exhaust all these other options before you you go ahead and pursue things in district court unfair competition is a related Related area here. It's Basically you see this most often than a form of passing off It's basically when somebody tries to sell you a counterfeit product Okay, so so up to counterfeit product to to yours and the remedies here all through the courts and litigation There's no nothing you can do here on your own if you feel like you're being taken advantage of you need to find a lawyer Much time. Do I have all right? Okay, we're we're good So we're gonna move on to copyrights and this is good I've actually showed up here and a bunch of people were asking me like copyright questions And I was like, oh wow you guys are this is a really important field. So I read that this slide What it is, it's basically a right to a creative work. Okay, so videos photos writings artwork graphics Computer code They're all subject to copyright protection There is a finite duration It's very complicated as to how long that is but we kind of jokingly like to call infinity minus one year It's basically you create something and then it it would supposed to fall into the public domain after a certain number of years But you know companies like Disney who don't want Mickey Mouse falling into the public domain keeps lobbying Congress to extend it So pretty much if you create anything these days, it's going to last well beyond your lifetime The duration is probably not something that you really need to worry about The what copyrights are not okay, so they're not a person's mere image or likeness You'll always have a right to take a picture or a video in public if you're kind of like a Podcaster or a videographer or something you you know people say that. Oh, yeah, my likeness is copyrighted or something They just blow them off. That's that's not relevant or that's just wrong Databases of public information like phone books phone numbers. Those are not copyright able Getting started in this field not a whole lot to do You just need to document your creation you need to know like the dates that you created something and So that you can prove infringement. It used to be that people Used to register their copyrighted works with the copyright office But these days, you know, you don't need to do that if you could just prove that you you made it and you made it This day, there's no reason to send it up to the copyright office. Then and I know that sometimes Services will do that and charge you a couple hundred dollars, you know, as I said, that's kind of gimmicky Don't pay them Okay, so where can you go wrong, right? This this is A lot as he anybody who does websites and uses random pictures on the internet knows the common infringement scenarios are just basically accidentally incorporating somebody else's IP into into You know something that you're making This happens a lot in podcasting where you're interviewing somebody and then You know that the ringtone goes off and then the person says oh, I'm sorry, you know I'll turn off the phone. You think nothing of it, right? But that ringtone is copyrighted and now it's in your whatever medium You know that you're propagating and you're distributing and then if you're a movie maker or something You're like two weeks before your premiere you get a cease and desist. I mean you're like screwed, right? You know, you definitely don't want that to happen You have to be careful like where these things are coming from sometimes people film in public And then they have like these, you know, they get TV in the background or like like radio from a mall or something like that You know, that's all copyrighted stuff device things warning tones things in your car. You open the door go ding ding ding, you know Be careful This is something that came up last night. I had a client, you know, I was kind of leaving the The party, you know a little sloshed and then my client says hey, you know I've got this Playing music thing, you know, like in a gym. Can I do that? And this is actually a bit of a problem if you're if you're playing music in members only areas of a gym Where people have to pay an admission to attend a class So if you're playing music in in like say a salsa class or a part of a bar where people are dancing or you're doing like You know hot yoga and you're playing music or something that's gonna require a special license Just kind of plugging it into your Pandora Is not gonna fly doing using Pandora business is not gonna fly You have to read special licensing agreements with like the the big music licensors like BMI and people like that I think they only really go after egregious offenders Like if you're having this big barn and you're just playing music on the dance floor and you pay nothing But this is just yet another area where we could get into trouble Okay, so relying on copyrights and not patents if people If you have things like source code reverse engineering is actually fair use, okay? So you wrote a code you compiled it somebody said, oh, yeah, you know what? I'm just gonna code this back and and Do my own thing and then you try to go after them on copyrights That theory is going to fail because you know they essentially what they did was they reversed engineered a functionality and wrote their own code And you don't have any rights to it So some you you probably should consider patents if you have a lot of code that that you're an app developer and you're trying to protect that There's some fair use defenses here if you're using things that you're not trying to make money. So non-commercial use Free speech concerns like parody satire criticism analysis being a content distributor versus Like like if you're just aggregating stuff and then putting it on your website and then people could kind of click through it Making a YouTube list of videos That's going to be fine or de minimis, you know if the infringement is very very little Then sometimes it's there's not not not much damages to collect But the problem is that you might you might still get sued anyway That suit is going to cost you way more to defend than that actual infringement That the damages you'll have to pay and that's just going to be a pain in the butt So one take-home point here is don't ever base a business model on fair use Okay, that means that if you're trying to make money on other people's IP That's probably going to get you in trouble So like you know how I say I was if you're aggregating YouTube videos But then if you sell ads on your website and you create like no other value than just like clicks somebody's why we're gonna find you and You know Get you in trouble. So the fair use defenses basically go up to the limit of when you start to make money Okay, so I'm just gonna go through patents really quickly because this is just super complicated A patent is a government granted monopoly Okay on an invention. So like a technology for a fixed term That term is 20 years from the data filing The protection is limited to essentially technology and here's how it works You get a fixed term you get a monopoly on whatever it is. You're trying to do this technology this thing that you've invented However, you have to disclose it to the public in return for this monopoly And you have to disclose it enough in enough detail such that a person can use it and And and basically create it on their own So it's just basically this is this exchange in exchange for your monopoly for 20 years from filing You have to disclose it for all of posterity to see to create this technology The most valuable type of patents is Is a utility patent and they have the terms useful novel and non-obvious those are legal terms like the the general requirements that you have to prove for Design patents which protects ornamental designs Features that are not functional. They don't have any utility, but they're nonetheless, you know They're there to for decorative ornamental designs. That's protected by a design patent and also for plants and microbes that's You know like genetic modification in these days you could go ahead and patent some of those microbial Organisms if you'd like okay, so again utility patents are most valuable most expensive to obtain There's several types mechanical for mechanical devices Things you could play with electrical and software for code apps, you know things with circuits in them biochem for biochemical type of processes Business methods is probably relevant to nobody here It's for very large organizations with very specific workflows that they kind of want to patent how to do something in a very specific way and and and and try to get some protection there and also user interfaces again if you're in the app space You would have a you could you could protect your your user interface and how you organize the buttons and things like that Okay, so trade secrets. So this is something that's related to patents Sometimes your patentable subject matter is too easily stolen or too easily were produced with very little consequence, right? So an example of this would be the coke recipe It's it's super easy to steal the coke recipe and and and to and to make your own coke So they keep it like in a vault and net let nobody see it. That's essentially trade secrets How you how do you protect a trade secret? You must actually keep it a secret, okay? You can't email people and go oh, yeah, okay So this is a thing and then when you find out that somebody else is using it and go oh, no That's my trade secret. You actually have to have a process That protects this particular trade secret. It's like non disclosure agreements, you know with people who handle it or receive it You know your your your partners and then you have record keeping and you have to make sure they destroy your trade secret when you're done With it. So just that paperwork process again, you know keeping records is going to help you I'm gonna kind of get through this very quickly. This is the patent prosecution process, you know, there's a bunch of different things You can file generally the take-home point here is No user service ballparks inside don't open you're gonna get killed high voltage, you know that sort of thing Yeah, so I really have like way too many stories of clients who decided that oh, yeah Like I think I'm gonna get a patent So, you know, I don't need you anymore and then they totally like blow themselves up because I can go look at the file You know how it's all public I go look at it like a year or late or later And then they just like miss some deadline or something. It's really embarrassing So again dispute resolution you could you know similarly you could just shut shut them down and at the import level You can go to the district court to sue. It's really really expensive. You know we're talking $500,000 legal fees to start a patent lawsuit. So it's it's pretty much crazy. You you can defensively also Kind of do an administrative court process to try to get somebody's patents invalidated that you can challenge patents that way So Let me see here. I'm I'm just gonna skip through this So here's the bottom line and this this is a favorite slide of mine that it comes from a website called the spare comm Where they make like, you know how people have the motivational posters They make demotivational posters and this is my favorite slide because it just this just encapsulates Patent prosecution perfectly for me and this is how you you know you go wrong and this is what it says It's mediocrity. It takes a lot less time and most people won't notice the difference until it's too late And you got the leaning tower of pizza and and this is what happens is that you take a patent disclosure And then you're you're kind of half-assing it or you do it by yourself, you know That's how you go wrong and then you're trying to build these foundational You know when you're trying to you're build on trying to build on top of it and trying to build you what Eventually you hope would be allowable patent and then you realize the whole things like like that and it's just not gonna stand up So the risk of failure is high and it's underappreciated This game is often for the benefit of larger players with really really good attorneys and just people with money however It may be essential for if you're trying to get your business bought out if you're trying to get funding people ask you Have you protected your patent if you have like technology? It's just it's something that you should think about you should have some patents pending Yeah, you know, even if you don't have something, you know, you can probably You know really elevate the value of your business if you're in that field So okay finding a working with attorneys Such pains in the butts, uh, let's see so for trademarks and copyrights I think a general business lawyer or somebody who just called themselves a an IP attorney Would be adequate to do the jobs for patents you you do need a Patent attorney or a patent agent for all respects patent attorneys are attorneys that have passed a state bar in addition to passing a Licensing exam before the patent office, okay So only those people can tell call themselves patent attorneys patent agents are not attorneys So they can't dispense legal advice they could file cases for you, but they can't really help you So they're really of limited applicability One thing that may help you is that patent attorneys and agents because it's all federal law they can work across state lines and you know If your home state is a little short on this type of talent you can kind of expand I mean, yeah, we all work online these days anyhow If you are sued or if your case appears headed to court then you need what's called a litigator Or any of the above attorneys who can also take the case for you in court Attorney referrals I'm just gonna say that this is like a pet peeve of mine in a conversation goes like this so oh, hey Ben I'm my air my marriage is failing and I need a divorce attorney So are you like friends with any divorce attorneys? Can you like refer me to some people and the first thing that goes through my head is how dare you associate me with divorce attorneys? You can't believe you think that I'm friends with divorce attorneys and you know, you just insulted me But the idea is that I'm thinking to myself. Okay, so this is free legal work. I do nothing I do nothing close to divorces. I can't ever do any of this work So I'm basically doing free legal work to go find an attorney for you So I'm gonna Google for 20 minutes and come up with a couple of names and say, okay You know you go do your own thing The bottom line is this if I can't vouch for a fellow attorney's work product if I don't know clients that he he serves Your guess is as good as mine basically So the next question is often well, can't you get a referral fee from some of these attorneys Can't you make some money off of my business and the answer actually is no This field is fraught with ethical issues. The bar really doesn't like, you know referral fee arrangements They're It's just ethically dubious because first of all it requires client consent I have to disclose to you if I'm taking a referral fee other the the attorneys That's taking the case has to disclose to you that he's giving a referral fee And then so basically I got a half a piece of paper on your signature and you're coming to me asking me about divorce I'm not gonna make you sign something. So basically I'm never gonna get paid basically Yeah, so this is a little hairy and Sometimes, you know attorneys asked for a lot of ridiculous fees, you know, they're they're There's a was this one guy who called me up and said I have this client, you know that I can refer to you But I want 20% of all the billings and I'm like wow I hope nobody hauls you before to state bar for that, you know, because 20% for making a phone call is like probably per se unethical So beware of overly enthusiastic referrals if somebody says, you know what? Oh, yeah divorces I have just a guy for you, you know, he does all these divorces does all my friends divorces Everybody loves getting a divorce from him. Yeah, you know This type of talk and then you kind of guy thinking warning light, you know going off in your head thinking that maybe there's a fee involved And you know, he's just not telling you So make your own decision based on what you find out How to find a good attorney This is a little tough But one thing that you can do on your own is like a sanity check is is this person good on paper, right? Take a look at his disciplinary record on the state bar You could all find that online you could just type in his name on the on the state in the state that he's he's barred under and Look to see if there's any like particular issues like if the clients have like pressed Charges, you know in a state court or what have you if it's a if it's a patent attorney You can also check the OED. It's the office of enrollment and discipline at the PTO and They they kind of maintain the the patent bar registration. So you should just check both Google is your friend, you know, like see if this person has been involved in fraud or, you know, whatever cases kind of almost everybody has a Bit of a paper trail. So just kind of Google a little Does the attorney represent people in your industry? Okay, so I'll say this as a patent attorney I mean, I do a lot of computer software stuff and I do a lot of like general mechanical stuff But in terms of biochem That's like got molecules and stuff. I don't really do that So, you know, I think that's really important to ask like the attorney. What kind of cases do you do? You know, a lot of times they'll say yes to your case and then try to figure it out So it's important to ask that question experience with the patent office This is a little hard to find the patent office hires a lot of introverts and they don't really come out and start their own businesses and You know come out and give talks and things like that. So this is a bit of a unicorn feature, but We're if you can find somebody like this, they will help in cases where they've been stuck at the patent office forever They've been pending forever and we don't know what's going on Maybe the previous attorney had an argument with the examiner and pissed the examiner off and so now that case is just like The examiner's pissed off basically so sometimes you can get somebody to To restart that process and somebody who understands the patent office black box will be able to help you a little better And ultimately I think in most of my experience is that clients are really not looking for the smartest guy in the room or You know, somebody who's the most aggressive or somebody who's who could just is willing to play the most hard ball I think it's ultimately to want somebody that you can trust and that who'll call them back Who answer your emails who's kind of like a reassuring presence instead of a hot mess And so in this sense, you know, your gut feeling about somebody is really important, right? I mean, I know we're at a paleo conference. Your gut feeling is always important, but Here, you know, if you don't like somebody don't hire them Okay, so pitfalls with some attorneys not doing your own homework, you know, kind of like going in there You know, if you're walking in there, you know, you can't tell a trademark in a copyright From a patent, you know, I'll be really happy to teach you at my hourly rate Waiting until the last minute kind of like time issues not setting deadlines or not following up and then the attorneys I will if you're not in a hurry I'm not in a hurry. Everybody's busy Not reserving company resources or employee time for the attorney. Okay, so a lot of times, you know, especially if I'm doing patents I need to take very detailed invention disclosures And if you if you don't impress upon your people It is that it is your job to come talk to me and you have to to spend a lot of time talking to them Make sure I get what I want and I get blown off I mean, I'm gonna try really hard to try to take this disclosure But after a while, I'm just gonna give up right because this is like your thing And if I can't get your people to talk to me, then, you know, we're just not gonna get anywhere So so so you really have to dedicate some time and some processes are very very very involved Demanding assurances about results. This is really annoying. Is my invention patentable and like, I don't know That's what the prosecution process is for right like until the examiner actually gives you a piece of paper that says You know, it's allowed. I mean, I don't know I can give you I can give you my opinion based on the My best judgment, but this kind of answer no matter how I answer almost always gets me into trouble So I don't like to give that answer and then just a little bit about reasonableness of fees If the attorney says that his hourly rate is like this much And then, you know, he says oh, but I can do this work for you and he kind of just do the math and go Oh, well, maybe he could only spend 50 minutes on a letter or what have you? I mean, is that like really reasonable? Kind of think about that in the context of how much, you know, you're paying for the work And if the rate is too low, you know, then maybe there's gonna be some quality issues one final point Patent and trademark prosecution the process of actually getting a patent or getting a trademark these days You should almost always be able to negotiate a flat rate or a fee cap The hourly rate for that kind of work is pretty rare these days And I would say for smaller players You definitely want to go ahead and tell them I want a flat fee because if you do hourly rate, it's gonna be Yeah, very unpredictable. However, it's still very customary and litigation in lawsuits and filings and things like that which is Why it's so expensive So I want to end with this and I am going to end right on time Who is your best advocate, right? Is it like you're you know, somebody like me your lawyer your employees Families and friends, you know customers social media, you know, who's the you just raving about your product all day This person is actually yourself, right? You've created this thing and You want to bring it to the world and it's really valuable to you and and this is something that you created And obviously you're in it for yourself because you want to make money but you were also you you have this really cool thing that you want to share with other people and You know the people that you are involved in and bringing this dream to fruition is obviously people Like me who's going to help but ultimately you are still responsible for that and the more thought you put into this process the Better your results will be Okay, so Q&A. This is my information and We're all among friends here. So if you mentioned AHS When you reach out to me, you'll get a free consult. So Okay, and if we if anybody wants to stay after to talk about patents we could spend some time doing that as well Cool. Thank you