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- [00:00]
American Express Representative
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Business Lawyer
Can I get you a refill?
- [00:20]
American Express Representative
You can stay fresh wherever your business travel takes you. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply. Learn more@americanexpress.com AmExBusiness no offense, but your.
- [00:31]
Wix Representative
Brain is a terrible place to keep your big idea. It belongs in the world. But you know that already. You have a calling, a voice that says, this is what I'm meant to do. Create the website your big idea deserves. With wix. Make it your own with top to bottom customization, AI to help realize your vision and built in business tools to turn your daydream into your dream job. WIX supports every stage of the business journey except one. Your decision to begin. Ready?
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Dirk
Go to wix.com what's the difference between trademark and copyright?
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Business Lawyer
So the difference between a trademark and a copyright is a. Copyright is a creative expression fixed out of a tangible medium, right? A trademark is a source identifier for consumers to relate back to where product or service come from. So I'll break it down for you. So like a copyright, you can protect a photograph, a painting, a, a picture, you know, songs, art. It cannot be in your head, but it has to be fixed into a tangible medium. But there it goes.
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Dirk
Dirk. Yo.
- [01:35]
Business Lawyer
Yes, Dirk has to come in the interview. Represent Chicago. But it's okay. That was good. Yes, Right, but, and so here's the thing with the copyright. A lot of entrepreneurs don't understand that whoever the creator of the copyright is, that is who is the owner of the copyright. Under the law, it said the creator who births the creation is the copyright owner. Now why is that important? Because as entrepreneurs, we hire graphic designers, we hire photographers, we hire people to come in and create creative works for our businesses. Right. Have you ever hired someone to create a logo for you?
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Entrepreneur
Yeah.
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Business Lawyer
Yeah, right. And by paying them, you think you own that logo. It's yours, right?
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Entrepreneur
Well, I know different, but yeah, right.
- [02:26]
Business Lawyer
Most people, and it sounds like it makes sense, but unfortunately because they created the logo, they're actually the copyright owner of the logo unless you have them transfer their rights in writing. Now some people think, well it can be a or no, it has to be in writing. And so usually you will have them transfer it through a work for hire agreement. So, like a company like Disney, who is creating amazing copyrights and multiple copyrights, the company is not creating, it's actually people there. But all of those people who are creating it, they're on work for hire agreement.
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Dirk
So. Okay, so how do you increase the value of a trademark?
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Business Lawyer
I always tell people you have to start with great quality products and services for your. The value of your trademarks to increase and go up. Right. You know, people, I'm a brand buyer, right. I like certain brands. Like, it's certain soaps that I use. I'm only going to use a certain type of deodorant, right. Like, I'm a brand buyer and a lot of people are. Right. Like, some people, I don't drink pop anymore. We call it pop from Chicago, Right. What do y' all call it here in New York?
- [03:39]
Entrepreneur
Soda.
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Business Lawyer
Soda, yeah. Okay. So are you guys like a Coca Cola or a Pepsi? Kind of.
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Entrepreneur
Oh, man, it's gonna be tough. If I had to, it'd probably be Coke, maybe Coke.
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Business Lawyer
Oh, my God. You probably going to get in trouble because you're from New York, right? And they like, it's a real battle with Pepsi and Coke. What about you?
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Dirk
I don't drink soda.
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Business Lawyer
But if you. If you had to. Because I don't drink it either. But I have a pick. If I have to pick one.
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Dirk
If I had to, I don't know, I would probably say Coca Cola because I think that the. The brand is stronger than Pepsi. I just identified it as a strong. Like, I don't eat. I don't eat fast food. If I had to, I would probably. McDonald's is a stronger brand than Wendy's.
- [04:17]
Business Lawyer
Right? So the fact that he just has that mentally in his mind that these brands are stronger, Right. It's because of how they are boldly and notoriously representing the brand in the marketplace. And as business owners, that's what we have to do in order to increase the value, right? You guys did a great job with increasing the value of earn your leisure, right? And so now people want to be attached to it. They want to be a part of it. And so it's just like, you got to just like, you know, for me, when I picked the Biz Lawyer as a Instagram handle, I was just trying to pick a cute name on Instagram. But because my services is great, my team is great now, people want to make sure when they do their trademarks, they do it with the biz lawyer because they know the type of quality of services are going to come with it. And so that increases our revenue and our value.
- [05:04]
Entrepreneur
This is something that we've learned. We filed a bunch of trademarks. You talk about the time it takes. Right? So obviously we got the first step. We get the attorney, we did the search. Talk about the time it takes. I know you brought up first rights, too. That's important, too.
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Dirk
Yeah.
- [05:17]
Entrepreneur
Can we, can we get into that a little bit?
- [05:18]
Business Lawyer
Yeah, for sure. So first thing first, you want to do the search. And, you know, a lot of times people, it's important you do a search not only with the USPTO.gov but also to see who is using the trademark in the marketplace or whatever, because common law rights can fall into play as well. But then once we do the search, we actually will issue an opinion letter with the search results. We'll go through the opinion letter. Um, you know, one thing that I think is very different about our firm, aside of the fact of it probably being, you know, black owned by me, the female. But one thing we do is we counsel and advise our clients based on the search results. Not a lot of people do that. They do the research and they just file the application or they don't. Right. We tell our clients. And also, too, if we see challenges, we create strategy on how we can possibly win a trademark, especially if the client already has invested dot, you know, thousands of dollars into the brand. But once we do that, we get it on file. Now, here's the thing. A trademark application used to take about three to four months for the government to review it, but now, because after Covid, I feel like a lot of people was empowered to become entrepreneurs, but also a lot of people are more educated. So people have filed trademarks. Actually, during COVID the most trademarks ever in history was filed. Okay. Yes. And so now it has pushed the government review time back to actually eight to nine months. So now it takes them eight to nine months just to review the application. Once they review the application, they can either approve it or issue an office action. If they approve it, it goes to what's called publication for opposition. Now, publication for opposition allows anyone in the public 30 days to oppose your trademark. This is why it's important that we file trademarks with integrity. And, and also, too, we watch our trademarks because if you file a trademark like I'm Coco Chanel, Chanel is going to come and oppose the trademark and probably send you a cease and desist letter right away when they file out that you filed the trademark. But the good thing about it is is that as a brand owner you want to watch your trademark because people can be filing things confusingly similar to your brand as well. And the government, they try to stop things but they sometimes they let things through as well. So once you go through that phase, if no one opposed trademark, you can have registration within 12 weeks from the 30 day deadline. So that can take about nine to 18 months right now to get a trademark register. I'm sorry, 12 to 18 months to get it registered. But let's go back. If the government takes issue with the application, they can issue an office action. Bless you.
- [08:00]
Dirk
Thank you.
- [08:01]
Business Lawyer
The office action can require either substantive response or non substantive response. If it's a non substantive response, that means something minor is going on and the government wants you to fix it, and that's no problem. But if it's a substantive issue, the government is refusing it on a likelihood of confusion or failure to function as a trademark, or the trademark being merely descriptive. And you will have to present legal arguments with a legal brief to argue why the person should have the trademark.
- [08:29]
American Express Representative
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- [08:59]
T-Mobile Representative
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