Small Business Owners: Don’t Let Your Brilliant Ideas Go to Waste! Learn How to Protect Your Brand!

“When you have ideas, if you’re a little guy…and you get into the marketplace and your idea works, you will be ripped off the moment your idea starts to work and you’ll be out of business.” –Thomas Colson makes a bold statement on the Sidewalk Talk podcast!

If you’re a small business owner or marketing director, you understand the excitement of bringing a new idea to the marketplace. But beware! Without proper protection, your success can be short-lived. Here’s a short summary of the vital steps to avoid this that we discussed with Steve Fortunato, and James Catania on the podcast. The full episode is linked below:

1️⃣ Research: Before diving into your brand development, conduct a thorough Google search. Ensure that your chosen name or slogan isn’t already in use by another company in your industry.

2️⃣ Seek Professional Help: Retaining an intellectual property lawyer can save you from potential legal troubles. They can conduct a trademark clearance search and provide expert analysis to determine if your brand is unique and can be legally protected.

Remember, prevention is key! Investing around $2,500 in trademark research is a small price to pay compared to the cost of rebranding, losing time, and the emotional toll it takes on you and your team.

If you’re considering a brand refresh or creating a new brand, consult with a lawyer early on. They can guide you through the process, ensuring your brand is distinctive and legally secure.

Protect your hard work, passion, and business by safeguarding your intellectual property. Don’t let your brilliant ideas go to waste!

Transcript:

0:00

when you have ideas if you’re a little guy and you get into the marketplace and

0:05

your idea works you will be ripped off the moment your idea starts to work and you’ll be out of business

0:12

we learned a tough lesson it was quite a few years ago now where a potential

0:18

client wanted to hire us to well create a brand he had a he had a

0:24

new business idea so uh and we we asked him hey you sure because he had a pretty good name are you sure that um no one

0:31

else in the world has this name oh no I’ve done all the research talked to

0:36

everybody we’re all set and we move forward Maria did some great artwork we

0:43

created a slogan we we created the brand form and then then we had after we did

0:49

that work we’re like we should really check on this and we checked on it it took one Google search to say hey

0:55

somebody else somebody else has this name all right so uh but it was a tough lesson to learn

1:01

because we put a lot of hours a lot of hours into that and created great work um and obviously I couldn’t use it and

1:08

and then we moved on anyway but as we as small business owners we want to know we

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want you to know we want to help you understand the things you need to know when it comes to intellectual property

1:20

copyright trademarking things like that so we are not lawyers and we’re not experts in that field but if you are a

1:27

marketing director or a small business owner you need to know some of these things or you need to retain somebody that can help you out so we brought in

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our go-to lawyer here he is Tom Colson CEO of Executive IP and co-host of the

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podcast stuff you should know about IP Tom thanks for joining us hey my my

1:46

pleasure by the way that story is a great story but it’s not a unique story you know

1:53

everybody goes through this I had this young girl in my life so I have three daughters that are now 22 22 and 24 and

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they I’ve had one of those houses that like everybody’s at all the time so I’ve gotten to know all their friends and one

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of their girlfriends was had her own clothing brand in high school she was

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like a artsy kind of person and she called it Insanity that was like her thing right insanity and she must have

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worked on it for a year and a half and she came to me one day and she said hey you know Mr Coulson how can we blow this

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up you know how can we make this thing something great so I said well first have you searched your name you know

2:30

Insanity for clothing and she said oh nobody has it so I just did a quick Google search within what 0.78 seconds I

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got a company that was using streetwear insanity and I told her she starts

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bawling now she’s only 18. so of course she doesn’t have the the strength and resilience that you three have but she

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starts crying right in front of me I felt terrible because she just never thought about it before of course she

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didn’t she’s 18 years old right but one Google search for .47 seconds and I

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yielded a brand that was already using it in the exact same field and it would have

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blocked her if she ever became anything right and for her it was a cheap lesson because she’s only 18. it took her

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months to get over this because it was you get you don’t just get financially

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connected to a brand I mean yeah you pay Steve and Jamie and Maria to do all this work but that’s only part of it it’s the

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emotional connection to the brand that you get you know you it’s your baby I’ve started two companies in my life and I

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one of them I sold off years ago I still think of it as my company whenever I hear the name in The Marketplace I get a

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feeling like I have a loss because it’s not my business anymore so I’m sure brand owners feel that way as well and

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you know you asked Steve what could they do well there’s two two layers to that

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one thing they could do is do a Google Search right it’s free it takes no time

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at all and just figure out who’s out there that’s already using your brand now the way trademarks work is you can

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have two trademarks that are exactly the same on very different products because

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trademarks all come down to something called likelihood of confusion in the marketplace so if I’m buying a product

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that I think I’m buying from one company but I’m actually buying from another company that’s bad right because I think

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I’m buying the quality of Toyota you know you buy a Toyota and you know low maintenance it’s going to run for 300

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000 miles I mean you’re getting a great car if you buy a Toyota but what if some other car company comes out and it’s

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Toyota and you’re like I’ll buy that Toyota and it’s a terrible car well that’s why we have trademarking

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infringement laws among other reasons because the marketplace needs to know who we’re buying from but if somebody

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has Toyota for cars well Toyota is different because it’s like what you call a Famous Brand right and those are

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so famous and so popular that doesn’t really matter what your other product is you’re not going to be able to do it but

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if you add like uh um another one that’s not such like Bocce’s by the way one of my favorite

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pizza places in the world Bacci’s Pizza greatest pizza ever but if somebody came

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up with uh bachis for baseballs it wouldn’t be trademark infringement because nobody’s going to think that

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Bocce’s Pizza started making baseballs right so if this young girl had Insanity

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for street wear and we found out that there was like an insanity filmmaking Studio or something it wouldn’t have

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been a big deal but the product that was that was using the Mark was for streetwear it was exactly the same so

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that’s what you do first is do a Google search just figure out what’s out there second you know talk to an IP lawyer

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because what they’ll do is an actual trademark clearance search right and a

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trademark clearance search means you have a professional that does this stuff all the time they’ll do a search they’ll

6:04

get the results back then so I have a law firm as well Coulson Law Group and we have trademark and patent lawyers and

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that and I’ll have my trademark expert analyze the results to figure out

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whether or not you’re you know going to be infringement if you go to market so think about this it will cost you about twenty

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five hundred dollars to do a search and an opinion twenty five hundred dollars how much does it cost to hire your firm

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to do all the marketing work to build this brand before you go to market

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how much do we pay you you know and if it’s a brand that’s already taken number one we’ve lost the your firm services

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for fee right number two we’ve lost time to Market and number three we’re

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devastated we’re emotionally crippled over this because we love our brand right and we got all excited we hired a

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marketing firm you know we made swag we’re so into this we told all of our

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kids all of our friends and now we can’t use it so it’s like an ounce of

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prevention is worth a pound of cure sorry I I dominated that too much Steve

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does that happen then okay so I’m a marketing director of the small business

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hey we need to we need to refresh our brand and do

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we are not here sorry about that guys go ahead we have our I we have our concept

7:30

then we check with the lawyer before we go oh yeah okay so right so so yeah

7:36

Steve so you’re asking when do we go to the lawyer right like when do we do this

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because you come up with like so here’s what I would do and and by the way I did this with my company executive IP which

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is my training company first thing I wanted to do is make sure I could get the domain name you know

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which isn’t that big of a deal these days because back in the early days of

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the internet your domain name was everything right but now you’re marketing with social media and people

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don’t even really use they don’t even go to your website without like Googling you first right so it’s not a huge deal

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but the first thing if you can get the domain name great second come up with like five names that you really like

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narrow it down to the number one to you know put it in order and then go to your law your lawyer and basically or then

8:26

Google them start googling because that’s free right that just takes time so Google it to death make sure that you

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know exactly what you’ve got make your list so let’s say I want insanity for streetwear I’m gonna google it and I’m

8:39

gonna find out wow there’s an insanity for uh golf balls there’s an insanity for fingernail clippers there’s an

8:44

insanity for a movie production company nothing for streetwear so now I got Insanity right and I give of my list of

8:50

other ones then I check my other ones that I the other marks that I like and I do the same thing and then I bring those

8:57

to council because they’re trained to analyze this and figure it out and you know you might even be able to have a

9:03

conversation and just they might even be able to give you some informal guidance like I do this with people all the time

9:09

mostly friends and family they’ll just call me and I’ll give them free advice because as long as they’ve done all the

9:15

Googling and I have all the terms in front of me and they’ve told me what they’ve received what I’ll say is okay I

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didn’t do a search I don’t know what’s out there but based upon what you’re telling me you’re probably okay

9:26

and then they could go forward if they want especially if they’re a really small business that doesn’t have any

9:31

money yet because it’s going to be twenty five hundred three thousand dollars before you get your search and

9:38

your opinion completed for each name right so if you have two or three names you want to make sure you do as much

9:45

self-help as you can before you go to the lawyer then when you do narrow it down to the one that you like the most

9:50

go to the lawyer and um you know find out whether number

9:56

one you can get a trademark number two whether you’re infringing someone else’s

10:01

trademark right because they’re two different questions but before you even go to the lawyer you

10:06

could if you if you’re in the marketplace you can start putting TM like right in the upper corner after

10:12

your mark so that at least you’re starting to get time with your own trademark in the event that you can get

10:18

it because remember trademark usage flow I’m sorry trademark

10:23

rights flow from usage not necessarily registration

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so in fact you can’t even get a registration unless you’ve been using it in the marketplace so first thing to do

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after you find your name and you’ve Googled it you think okay this is a pretty good one is if you’re going to

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use it before you go to council mark it with TM you can’t Market with circle R

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because you’re not registered but Mark it with TM that at least you’re starting to build equity like you’re first so if

10:54

somebody comes later and you’ve already been putting TM you’ve got kind of like first in line status right then you go

11:00

to your lawyer and by the way this is if you’re putting it on products you might not even be in the marketplace yet

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but or not even just products but also your advertising material and that sort of thing then go to the lawyer let them do your

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search let them do your analysis spend your 2500 bucks or so and figure out

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what you’ve got if you’re taking this seriously if you’re just goofing around you and

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your friends wanted to like try something it’s a different scenario but if this is your business and you plan on

11:29

building it and making this your income at some point it’s worth spending the money up front

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before you even go to your firm and start spending money with brand development to make sure you have a

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brand that you can actually develop without getting sued for trademark infringement okay what if what if what

11:47

if I own company XYZ the name is established I’ve

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been in business for 15 years I need a refresh a marketing director or yeah we

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bring in a team we bring in a shovel the sidewalk or we do it ourselves and we we refresh our brand same name

12:06

different uh look that’s more encompassing and a slogan a slogan that

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becomes our rallying cry do I slogan Mark that what does that mean how do I protect that how do I find

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out if I can keep that you know you know I couldn’t just have shovel the sidewalk just do it you know at that you know

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right so how do I know right what I can have and then how do I protect that

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yeah I mean so that’s another thing is when you do your refresh you have to go back to council right because you’re

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going to have new colors new logos like a tagline you know you’re gonna have your tagline and all of those things put

12:44

you in a position where you could get sued for trademark infringement it’s kind of like the only way to avoid

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getting sued for trademark infringement or patent infringement or copyright infringement is don’t do business right

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because if you’re not in the marketplace no one can mess with you but we got to do business right I mean we got to make

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a living we want to build our passions build our dreams everyone who wants to have their own company right so when you

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guys do the refresh every time you should at least have a

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count a conversation with Council you might not do the trademark search you might not spend the twelve hundred

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dollars on the trademark search but counsel can guide you on that right

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you might not do the formal opinion because there’s a certain level of risk that we’re all willing to take nothing

13:31

is a certainty let’s say you do your trademark search you get your legal opinion the legal opinion is based upon

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the results of the trademark search okay and there’s a difference the trademark search they’re only paying them a

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thousand bucks they’re not going to scour the planet right they’re not going to go into stores and look look at

13:50

unregistered marks and everything that could get you they’re going to do a quick and dirty search to see if there’s

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anything obvious out there that’s going to cause you a problem then the lawyer is going to do an opinion based upon

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that quick and dirty search so you’re taking a risk even going to Market with just doing quick and dirty

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shirt but it doesn’t make sense to spend 30 grand on a scouring the planet

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trademark search right just doesn’t make sense so you do your Googling some

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people are like screw it I’m gonna stop there because there’s a level of risk that I’m willing to tolerate right some

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people say hey I’ve been doing this 15 years I never even thought to do a search but I want to get a formal

14:30

trademark registration okay now I have to go to a lawyer but again for 15 years you’ve been managing a certain degree of

14:36

risk there is a company in Clarence New York do any of you live in Clarence I do

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you do okay so uh it’s now it’s Bocce’s on on Goodrich but it used to be

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um the Pizza Inn okay remember that place sure the Pizza Inn got sued for

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trademark infringement by a Pizza Inn in Florida that had a federal trademark

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registration and they were forced to change their name to the Clarence Pizza Company I don’t know if you remember

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that so what they said to themselves is we’re gonna by the way they probably didn’t say this to themselves but

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assuming that they knew something about trademarks they probably they could have said to themselves I’m not going to

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spend the three grand it’s worth the risk I’m willing to absorb a certain amount of risk it’s a pizza company I’m

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in Buffalo New York I’ve looked all around I ate pizza everyone I haven’t seen one so I’m gonna I’m gonna just

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tolerate this amount of risk some people are like I’m not tolerating any risk I’m insured to the hilt you know I have life

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insurance disability insurance I’ve got Eno Insurance I’ve got all this stuff because I don’t want any risk So It

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ultimately comes down to how much risk are you willing to absorb before going

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to Market and hiring your company to do this brand development and you know what 30 of the time you might be fine you

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don’t do any work with a lawyer you go right to you you start building your brand you put TM at the top go to the marketplace probably be fine thirty

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percent of the time but if you’re not fine if you get stunned it’s uncomfortable it’s expensive it’s

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stressful it’s all that stuff one of the reasons I hate swimming in the ocean and believe me I hate swimming in the ocean

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it’s because there’s sharks right the likelihood of me getting attacked by a

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shark is so low but the consequences of being attacked are so high that I don’t want to be in there right so I’ll hang

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out on the beach I’ll look at all the water skiers but I’m not going in because of my risk tolerance and it’s

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the same thing with business and trademarks or copyrights or patents or whatever so when we refresh a client’s brand we

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always tell them you know we’re not lawyers this is where the after interviewing you your

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customers your employees this is who we think you are because a lot a lot of

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companies have trouble identifying themselves because it’s harder when you’re on the inside it’s a lot easier

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for an outsider to come in do the analyzing and say guys because all businesses have the answers they just

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need someone to help them get there wait wait you mean you mean it’s hard for a company to understand what they are to the

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marketplace uh not not as much as that is more um

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no what they mean to the marketplace not what they are to the marketplace who

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they are who are they identified as what is the perception of the marketplaces whose they are and how can they

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emotionally connect with the marketplace most businesses don’t know their own identity they know the product they have

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right they completely understand that you know what they don’t what a lot of times they don’t understand is how

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important the why is people want to connect with people so what is their why so if we can if we but that’s part of

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our rebranding process and it’s that so we we brand a company we always tell

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them hey let’s make sure that this is good to go so go to your

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lawyers that’s good advice isn’t it before we hit marketplace with it let’s let’s make sure yeah right right but but

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then what hasn’t happened yet in 11 years is no one’s come back and said hey lawyers

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said we’re out of luck so fortunately we’ve been we’ve been good because oh wait wait yeah

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no lawyer has has said your trademarks already being used right it hasn’t

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happened to us yet but it’s funny because I had the young girl come to me and you had the person in the story from

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last week where that exact thing happened right so I so you know it is it’s again risk what risk am I willing

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to absorb right I get I I get that but it would still would be a because when we bring

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them the idea and the concept uh that means they bought into it they’re like I love it because we want them if you

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don’t love it we don’t want you to have it you know so once they love it it would suck to go to the lawyer and

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lawyer says yeah this is great but I got bad but it’s better it’s better to learn

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it then than before you you know send it you give it get the employees involved

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and go external outside the company and start spending all this extra money on advertising or whatever else you’re doing yeah and you’re the lawyer and

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it’s good news bad news right good news your brand is pretty good because other people are using it yeah right right bad

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news is other people are using it right but fortunately I mean because ever it should never happen when you think about

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it because the what makes you unique from any other law firm besides what you

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do it’s you so if we’re telling your story no other

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law firm has your story because they’re not you so that’s the beauty of small businesses versus Big Business big

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businesses answer to what that’s a great small businesses answer to Main Street and so people people your story no one

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has it nobody in the world has a story that’s a great Point that’s a great that’s a great niche market for you guys

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yeah you know telling the story you’re right because it does you know it’s and by the way with the emergence of um AI

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which by the way to me is way more terrifying than sharks um the thing that AI can do the things

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that I can do are almost everything like Flash Forward 15 years and there might

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not be a role for Humanity because there’s nothing that we can do that’s better than AI but what we have that AI

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doesn’t have is what you just said the personal story you know in fact I would

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say that that becomes 10 times more important because it’s the personal

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stories it’s our life’s journey right nobody can no AI can mimic my life’s

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journey even if they say the words it doesn’t ring true because it’s not their

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life’s journey and that’s what you guys are doing with marketing is helping a company become

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personalized which again we can’t although who knows what AI can do in the

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future but it doesn’t seem like they’d be able to do that right not yet right

21:18

they’re terrifying AI is terrifying because it can do I mean in the future if you have a choice of having surgery

21:24

done by a robot or a human you probably take the robot every day right no human

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error in a robot I’d rather risk the minor software issues than the trembling

21:35

hands or the you know drinking the night before who knows what else right well even automobiles we won’t be driving

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because AI can manage our driving better right yeah it’s only going to get better

21:47

if we can yeah I mean it’s not going to go away so we’ve had this discussion internally we need to we need to utilize

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what is used for for us it can be an idea Creator if but it cannot develop a

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a brand it may be a can someday it it can’t know

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that person the way that small business owner the way we know that person and it

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can’t know how they think because only they know how they think you know it’s when it comes to like in digital

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marketing everyone talks about how great digital marketing is which it is but it’s great because of attribution and

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it’s a big it’s a pet peeve of ours because there’s no such thing as absolute attribution maybe someday AI

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will be able to figure out how you think but just because we ran a Facebook ad for a client

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doesn’t mean because of that Facebook ad they got that piece of business even though the Facebook data shows that that

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person consumed that particular ad because we don’t know who they what they talked about with their neighbor we

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don’t know what happened when they went to the grocery store we don’t know who influenced them and their decision making at all there is no absolute

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attribution some yeah maybe Tom someday maybe AI will be able to figure that out

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but right now right now Steve Maria and Jamie still have jobs exactly right

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exactly right yeah that’s good so plus your score one for the humans and minus

23:13

for the a yeah excellent let’s go you said something important though dot it

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it is about it is about humans people like to work with or purchase

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items or services from people they want human beings uh and and if it is a

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robotic surgery by the way right now I want a human running that robot there you go but you know even on the phone

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like when you make a phone call to like Verizon or something and you’re stuck with the the the robot attendant and

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you’re just craving a human you know and I think being able to speak with a human regardless of where they

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are in the world is so much better for humans and I think that is another opportunity that we have in business

23:56

over AI which is the human element I mean I don’t think AI can replace relationships you know I don’t think but

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I mean not real relationship yeah right right yeah right right right but I mean there’s something unless you trick

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people into thinking that AI is human they’d rep they’d rather communicate with a human who wouldn’t I’d rather be

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in a relationship even if it’s online and communicating I’d rather be with a human so so I love the mentality that

24:24

your firm has that’s you guys are all about telling the human story for businesses it’s all it’s all because

24:31

and that other questions or other although it doesn’t happen as much anymore people used to say well uh do

24:36

you work b2c or or B to B like well we work human to human it doesn’t matter B2B marketing is the same as if it’s B

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to C because people in business and B to B are human beings just like b2c customers are human beings it’s all B is

24:52

just a bunch of humans in there right but you know you’re going to talk you might use different language in a b to B

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then a B to C but then they have different needs but different of course it’s all different right right but the human development of your brand exactly

25:06

is something that will speak to both because they’re all people exactly how are you going to connect so I have a

25:12

okay so so small business owner um uh goes through and they’re like all

25:18

right so we we have a new slogan we have we hired Maria and they we have a new we

25:24

have a new logo we have a refresh brand we’re keeping the same name we we contacted Tom and his team and

25:30

everything looks good for trademarking okay how do I protect now I I think this

25:35

idea is really good now obviously probably no one else has it because it

25:40

is about me but I still want to protect it so what do I do now how do I what do you mean by an idea do you mean a great

25:47

question brand idea an Innovative idea a great question idea okay so let’s go to

25:52

to I see two things I have an idea for the brand itself okay we have here is

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our here’s our name here is our uh logo here’s our slogan here’s our call here’s our hope here is our um uh our whole

26:07

brand identity and then the other thing is we’ve got this system I don’t know we’ve got this system that we use uh for

26:15

a product that we create or a service that we create and we’ve named it XYZ I

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I’m a small business big company comes in they have 100 lawyers working for them I Outsource my legal how do I

26:28

protect myself because I think these are this is a great brand identity and these are great ideas yeah so so a few things

26:35

one is when talking about brand right first thing after you’ve searched

26:40

it you have a good brand excuse me start using it in the marketplace that’s like number one mark

26:46

all your your references to that brand to your to your trademark with a TM

26:54

file trademark for trademark you know federally registered trademark and get

26:59

get a trademark right that’s that’s really obvious everybody everybody should do that but the most

27:05

the least obvious thing is the thing you should do the most which is do the search to make sure that you’re not infringing someone else and that

27:11

eventually you don’t put a whole bunch of money into a trademark that you’re going to lose so but then the ideas though that’s

27:18

different and the problems small companies have is they’re outgunned at every turn

27:25

you know they don’t have in-house IP Council they don’t have anybody giving

27:31

them this advice on a day-to-day basis they probably don’t even know they need it right they don’t even know they

27:36

should be thinking about it so when you have ideas if you’re a little

27:42

guy and you get into the marketplace and your idea works you will be ripped off the moment your idea starts to work and

27:49

you’ll be out of business you know um somebody just came to me

27:54

yesterday yesterday morning and they had this idea which I won’t disclose but

28:00

it’s basically around the cell phone right and they came up with this cool thing that you could do with yourself

28:05

with uh you know Community Telecommunications and they called me because they know

28:10

that if this thing works you have Verizon and at T they will take it offer

28:16

it for free and you will be out of business in a heartbeat so the only

28:22

thing you have going for you other than building your brand recognition which is really difficult for a small business to

28:28

get you’re not going to get Coca-Cola style brand recognition right in a way your trademark is almost worthless until

28:34

people know about it right so until you have a lot of brand recognition your trademark doesn’t mean anything

28:41

you need patent protection because that is the one tool that you

28:48

it’s the one weapon that you could hold over people who are trying to steal your

28:53

ideas because you can’t copyright an idea right copyrights are just the written or or audio or you know visual

29:02

embodiment of an idea it’s not the idea itself patents are the things that small

29:08

businesses need the most if they’re in an Innovative field

29:13

they need it more than a trademark again because trademarks only matter when your

29:19

trademark has recognition until it has recognition it could be anything I mean look at the trademark Apple maybe the

29:24

stupidest trademark ever made but it’s the most brilliant trademark ever made now because it’s got recognition right

29:31

apples for computers is just stupid beetles it’s just a stupid name for a

29:37

band right but it’s a brilliant name now so the trademark value is all about

29:42

recognition which is what you guys do but the patent value that’s valuable

29:48

independent of recognition no one even knows who you are they don’t even know about your patent but your patent can

29:54

still stop them dead in their tracks so patent protection is what small

30:00

companies need to figure out a way to get if they’re in an innovate if they’re in an Innovative field if you’re a

30:06

barber shop or a hair stylist or something you don’t need patent protection you need

30:11

recognition in your community right you need to start doing a social media campaign and and you know put Billboards

30:19

up or whatever but it’s all local because you’re a barber shop but if you are developing Innovation you

30:26

got a widget that’s pretty cool you’ve got to be able to protect that

30:31

thing now one thing you could do is I mean as soon as you get to the marketplace if it can be reverse engineered you’re totally screwed right

30:40

in the me in the interim when you’re trying to do Partnerships and stuff with people you can have them sign ndas you

30:46

know and keep them from disclosing it but thing about ndas is they don’t prevent people from unlawfully

30:53

disclosing your stuff they just deter people from unlawfully disclosing your

30:58

confidential information so It ultimately comes down to patent so if you have an Innovative idea

31:04

you know and and don’t even really think about filing a provisional patent application without using a lawyer

31:10

because those things are just dangerous you know you think you have something you don’t you go to converted a year

31:16

later and you didn’t draft it right so you’ve lost a year and now you’re already in the marketplace which means all your patent rights are burned so

31:23

what I would do is call and I’m not just saying me call

31:29

someone like me because number one here’s the advantage I have I’m an

31:34

entrepreneur right I’ve started three companies I’m running my training company right now we’re in our 10th year

31:39

and we’re probably valued at over 10 million dollars now so I know what it

31:45

takes to go from my garage out into the marketplace and have employees and the

31:51

struggles of trying to keep your billion dollar competitors from just destroying you with one step right

31:58

two I’m a patent lawyer so I know all about intellectual property fundamentals

32:03

and the types of things people should be thinking about and three I’m an innovator I have like five patents to my

32:10

name I’ve written children’s books I’ve got adult books so I’m a Creator so I

32:16

can see it from all different angles and believe me I’m not unique there’s a whole bunch of people out there just

32:21

like me that people can call but you want to talk to someone who’s got all

32:27

these views of Entrepreneurship you know the business side the Innovative side

32:33

and the legal side all in one brain so that you could just pick their brain I

32:38

mean I get on calls with friends and family for 30 minutes and just because I do this stuff and

32:45

I’ve been doing it now I’m until like my 30th year you know I know stuff that’s just normal for me that they’ve never

32:51

even thought about because why should they think about it right they don’t have a law degree they don’t have a pat they haven’t taken the patent bar they

32:58

might not have even ever started a company before right so these are the things I mean if I’m if I’m a small

33:04

business I’m thinking about my trademark of course probably common law trademark at first because I don’t probably have

33:10

the money to spend on a federal registration so just put TM but then I’m thinking about patent protection do I

33:16

have anything that’s patentable and that’s going to cost you I mean believe me you’re not going to get out for under

33:22

eight to ten thousand dollars before you’ve got to prepare and file patent application then you got to prosecute

33:29

the thing over two to three years that’s another four to five thousand dollars it’s expensive it’s not a game for

33:35

people who are timid about their money right but you might have no choice if

33:40

you want to get somewhere that’s just not yeah services business I mean if you want to do Consulting Services you don’t

33:47

need patents just go out and do your thing you want to have a hair stylist or a landscaping business or a restaurant I

33:54

mean these are things you can do without patents but if you want to be in the product game

34:01

be careful because IP becomes very dominant in your life very quickly if

34:07

you’re going to get into any kind of product game anyway does that answer that question that was that was great that was you

34:13

answered the question and then some it was awesome so I think what my takeaway is if you’re oh unless you mentioned

34:20

restaurant unless a restaurant creates a new oven that does something specifically then they would want to

34:28

pack that right yeah there’s a lot of restaurant Innovation going on but you

34:34

don’t need it to have a successful restaurant right right you can just buy Products off the shelf all to use them

34:39

in your restaurant if you come up I have a friend that that has a wife who has uh like a Colombian or Mexican restaurant

34:45

and he came up with this device that makes I don’t know chalupas or something super fast like the corner it’s the corn

34:53

the corn shell thing right a tortilla like five hours and his thing only takes

35:00

an hour and I got together with him in DC recently and I said dude you should file a patent application on this and

35:05

start licensing it out to all these other restaurants because if it really does what you say and it saves four

35:12

hours out of five everyone’s gonna want this thing but you don’t have to be an innovator to be a restaurant you could

35:19

be an innovator in the theme of your restaurant you know in your brand development in your in your mark in your

35:25

uh customer service you know in your attracting customers to come into your store but you don’t have to be a patent

35:31

innovator you know makes sense that makes complete sense what about what

35:37

about we mentioned AI before you’re a content creator

35:43

yeah okay uh who all same say someone

35:48

creates some they get help from AI maybe it’s not

35:55

maybe it’s maybe they didn’t take it word for word but it helped them and

36:00

they created some kind of content who’s who owns that content oh yeah by the way they’re getting more than just hell yeah

36:07

right people are using chat GPT to create their content yeah and by the way

36:13

chat GTP is scary because it creates content really well you know I’ve tried

36:19

it out just to see how it works and I’ve watched it sentence by sentence forming a well-reasoned

36:25

five paragraphs right in front of my eyes and it’s scary so the question is who owns it right

36:32

good question it’s unclear as to who owns it because it’s copyright right at the moment at

36:40

the moment copyright I wrote down the deaf or what you own your way to say let me see if I could find it on my sheets

36:46

of paper I should know this since I create training on copyrights but uh oh yeah it’s got to be an original

36:52

work of authorship by a human okay so in order for copyright in order

37:00

to have copyright protection you need an original work of authorship that you

37:05

created and you’re human so if I type in a sentence on chat GTP

37:11

you know paint me a picture of um you know a cow jumping over the moon right

37:18

it’s an original work of authorship but it’s not created by a human

37:24

all I did was give it an unprotect-able concept a cow jumping over a moon but then it did all the

37:31

brush Strokes or whatever it does to create the cow jumping over the moon and

37:37

that’s unclear right now who owns the copyright on that throughout the world Google it and you’ll find people are

37:43

talking about this all the time because some people are saying oh should the the person who created the AI own it well no

37:50

because they didn’t create an original work of authorship they didn’t even have the concept right

37:57

so they shouldn’t own it should the AI own it no because it’s not human and

38:02

even there’s this there’s this judge in Australia I did a podcast on this about a year ago judge in Australia agreed

38:10

that an AI could have uh inventor-ship in a patent like a year ago and I think

38:17

that’s been reversed and then somebody in South Africa did the same thing but nobody with any like rational thinking

38:25

is saying that AI can be a copyright owner or a patent owner today

38:32

and so right now it’s unclear as to who owns this but

38:38

the challenging thing for AI though is there could be copyright infringement going on because I don’t know how Ai and

38:46

chat GT work and I think that’s owned by Elon Musk and one other guy um it was

38:52

um

38:57

can one other guy own it it is so the thing is I don’t know how it works but

39:03

if it’s going out like it uses all the stuff that’s available on the web if it’s copying stuff

39:09

and then utilizing the stuff it’s copied to create stuff well number one it’s

39:15

copying and that might be considered copyright infringement number two it’s creating derivative

39:22

Works arguably which means a derivative work is taking one copyrighted work and

39:28

using it as the foundation to make another one an example is if you see a picture and you make a sculpture from it

39:34

a sculpture or you see a sculpture and you draw a picture from it or you translate a book from German to English

39:39

or or you fictionalized a book right like a non-fiction book you

39:46

fictionalize it so you’re creating a work from another work well if you go to

39:52

chat GPT and say paint me a landscape in the spirit of Picasso right so then they go out and

39:59

they take all the Picasso Works they kind of get the flavor and then they create a new work that’s kind of a derivative work right or if I say give

40:07

me a story about a lawyer Who’s down on his luck and becomes a big success in

40:12

the flavor of Grisham right so they do that well one thing is is it a

40:17

derivative work that could be copyright infringement that’s an issue that’s still out there in the world being considered you know the other thing is

40:24

are they copying all the original Grisham Works to make the new work I don’t know how the mechanisms are of

40:30

that but that could be an issue another thing is what if they hold it out as a Grisham book right this is a John

40:37

Grisham novel well that’s clearly a problem right so or marketing like you mentioned earlier marketing material

40:43

people are creating their marketing material utilizing the the AI systems that are out there and chat gbt is the

40:50

most common but I’m sure there’s going to be maybe there’s already a bunch of others right same kind of thing where are they

40:56

getting the material to create this derivative work but then you’re going to use the work do you have a problem and

41:02

it’s unclear today as to whether you have a problem because it’s unclear as to who owns it but if you ask me this

41:11

could be the kind of thing that nobody owns right it could be the kind of thing that’s public domain why because you’re

41:18

not the author you’re not the original author of it all you did was say take a look at my website and create a

41:24

bunch of stuff it’s not chat gbt because it’s not human right it’s not Elon Musk because he had

41:31

nothing to do with the creation other than creating the Hammers and chisels and all that stuff it’s like a sculptor takes the hammer and chisel and pounds

41:37

stuff out the maker you know doesn’t own that that sculpture right so it’s

41:43

unclear as to who owns it and maybe nobody owns it which is also a problem

41:49

because that means other people can copy you yeah that’s right nobody owns it

41:55

that means everybody can use it yeah so now I have stuff that people are using and I had a friend just yesterday or

42:01

this morning he sent me an AI Chat thing and he did something that I’ve done so I

42:08

create all these training videos right and I have a particular style to me and I think he said do this in the style of

42:15

me and I’m telling you it sounds a lot like me and it’s it’s scary because number one I feel like I’m losing my

42:23

uniqueness right what is our self-esteem based upon in life it’s what we do what

42:28

we accomplish what we could do that nobody else can do that gives us confidence and self-esteem but if ai’s

42:34

doing it holy what are we then right so anyway in terms of marketing material and all that and who owns it I

42:42

don’t know as I sit here and I don’t think anyone knows today who owns the

42:48

output of chat GPT I mean I would think for small business maybe they have a marketing director

42:55

maybe they are their own marketing director I think

43:00

besides I just don’t think it’s a good idea to copy and paste and say hey

43:05

um you know hey Bard hey chat GPT give me 10 social media posts copy and paste

43:11

those posts I just if they’re just going to be like everything else around the world it’s not going to be unique to you oh yeah it’s yeah it’s not going to be

43:17

unique it’s not going to have that personal flavor that you’re talking about and every one of my training videos and every one of my books

43:24

a personal flavor my book’s more than my training material because my books are all about things I’ve learned in life

43:29

but you’re right you’re not going to have that personal thing and I don’t know how obvious it is when something’s

43:35

written by a I don’t think it’s obvious enough maybe it should be more obvious but I think you’re right people will get

43:40

bored by AI content but they won’t get bored by content that you create that is

43:47

personalized to the company absolutely I mean I think your business could really take off because of AI interesting you

43:55

know because you have an approach that AI doesn’t have

44:00

interesting yeah it’s a human approach it’s it’s humanizing Brands one other thing about a the uh this AI the the uh

44:08

what you call it again the open open and it’s open AI what are the other challenges about open

44:14

AI is you ask it a question and it utilizes the web to give you the answer the web

44:22

is filled with misinformation you know right and I don’t know how smart it is I look at humans like I’ve tried to

44:28

educate my kids on how you evaluate something to figure out whether it’s true and I because I’m a lawyer I cross

44:35

and of my generation where we didn’t have you know Ai and social media and

44:40

all this misinformation we’re used to being Skeptics about everything so if I

44:47

see a video that just doesn’t look like it makes sense I’ll say it’s probably not right and I’ll search around more

44:52

but how does AI do that like how do they mimic what I do and other people do to

44:58

assess whether something’s valid or not there’s a lot of misinformation on the

45:04

web and if these but I mean Elon Musk is a brilliant guy right I’m sure he’s thinking about this if I’m thinking

45:09

about it he’s thinking about it years ago so but still that could be a challenge right it could be your your

45:15

answers could be filled with what is the most popular answers out there and those might not be correct right now now with

45:24

the Elon Musk has thought about that and he has regrets he was pushing for AR

45:29

remember AI Hold Us on a six month hold let’s figure this out before it gets out of hand and and into and and used for

45:36

the wrong reasons for bad reasons but the misleading stuff on the web I

45:42

believe is going to get even more so now because of what you talked about earlier where your friend created something that

45:48

sounded or looked and like you because of AI so now we can create photos and

45:54

videos that just aren’t real oh yeah and you think oh that that looks real yeah

45:59

people can people you can now be someone out you’re out you’re all over the

46:05

Internet someone can now record grab your voice call a loved one and and and set it up

46:13

so that it’s from you it’s yeah or or they could take a politician and have

46:19

them say something that they never said yeah you know and you know what else happened since I’m a divorce guy I’m

46:25

dating a lot people are putting up fake pictures right like they’re perfect the pictures

46:31

and you show up and you’re like whoa whoa you know so who knows what the dating world’s going to become

46:38

great Point yeah um maybe that’s a good note to end that yeah that is a good note uh hey man I

46:44

appreciate your full of knowledge it’s it’s awesome and energy and your passion for what you do is appreciated and uh it

46:52

comes out within seconds so my pleasure it’s fun but I know you’re a busy guy thanks man thanks for the Insight it was

46:59

great we learned a lot um and hopefully it helped everyone out there as well so Tom Colson CEO of

47:05

executive IP um but check out his podcast uh you and Ray do the podcast yeah that’s fun stuff

47:12

you should know about IP um every small business owner should know a little bit about IP okay

47:19

absolutely let’s let’s be safe all right man thanks Tom thanks

47:24