How to Protect Your Ideas: Trademarks, Copyrights and Patents | Domonique Price Esq.
Protecting your ideas and brand is key in business. It’s a cold world out there and you need to make sure you’re protected or it will cost you. Not sure where to start?
We got you! In this episode, Victoria Jenn is joined by her business bestie, Intellectual Property Lawyer, Domonique Price, Esq.
In this episode:
The difference between a trademark, copyright, patent, and which one makes sense for your business.
What is a feasibility plan and why you need one.
How to assess lawyers and their services.
The #1 thing every entrepreneur needs to have to save money, time, and agony.
In this episode:
00:10:43 - Do You Really Understand Intellectual Property?
00:16:52 - Why Is It Important To Work On Your Feasibility Plan?
00:21:33 - How Can A Trademark Protect Your Intellectual Property?
00:25:57 - Is Trademark Registration Still Important Even If You've Already Started Marketing Your Brand?
00:34:20 - What's A Patent? Understanding The Key To Protecting Your Inventions
00:37:51 - How Much Does Intellectual Property Registration Cost?
00:50:25 - Why Should Minorities Consider Estate Planning As A Key Financial Strategy For Their Families' Future?
Follow our Guest Domonique Price Esq.
📲Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/attorney.domoniqueprice
📲 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@domoniquepesq
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Full Transcript:
Welcome back to another episode on Banking on Cultura I am your host Victoria Jenn Rodriguez and I'm coming to you live from hot ass New York City it has been like a crazy heat for the like last week and a half that's why your girl got the spaghetti straps out here because it is just it is just Cente out here y'all it is sizzling sizzling hot to the point where it's almost like hard to breathe like I was walking to the studio from the train station and I was like oh my God like I was like I need need to go more to the gym or is it just hard to breathe probably a combination of both but any who I'm really excited about today's episode because this is something that a lot of entrepreneurs like to skip over whether it's because they're not educated they think they're not big enough or they're just like you know what I'll get to it I get to it and the next thing you know [ __ ] H the fan and you end up spending a lot of money to get out of this predicament that you could have avoided from the beginning and that is n other than trademarks and protecting your IP y'all your intellectual property and so I invited an amazing guest Dominic Price who is a lawyer to tell us about how we can prepare ourselves on all things trademarks and just protect ourselves out here so Dominique welcome to Bing thank you I'm so excited to be here but I cannot start before I say congratulations watching this go from ideas to launch to you having a few episodes under your belt I could not be more proud of what you're doing what you were doing for the culture and I pray it continues to just get bigger I appreciate that and you know Dominique you've literally been there from the beginning because we were talking about this like a year and a half ago when I was first you know in conversations with my girl Alex shout out to Alex um Drea I I don't know she like she's changing it up she's changing it up she's like a do yeah she changed up her name but she's amazing we were thinking about this podcast and so we brought you in to kind of consult and think about like how we can protect the brand and make sure that we're like crossing our eyes and like crossing our eyes you hear me dotting our eyes crossing our tee you guys know what I'm saying it's the heat y'all and um making sure that we protect ourselves so I'm really excited to have you on the show but give people a Vibe of who you are why you are and all the things and then we'll get into the nitty-gritty thank you thank you um I tell people all the time I'm just a girl from around the way that they accidentally gave a law degree I don't know how it happened and I don't know accidentally girl it happened from you taking your ass to school well it's funny because it was the plan but yet very far from the plan so growing up I did pageant I modeled and I really wanted that to be the game plan um but I also secretly always wanted to be an attorney and so I was like okay we're going to model why this body is hot and then when things slow down we'll go to law school and all of that um and so fun fact I tried out for America's Next Top Model the same week that I got my letter of acceptance to Virginia State University and I had to make a decision like okay modeling and doing Social Media influencers stuff like that'll give you a certain level of a bag but being able to actually help my community in areas that I've seen them struggle is is literally gamechanging and so I was like okay you know what we're going to do this it's going to take seven and a half years anyway so you might as well start now and you can model on the side um and so I applied to law school got in and was the then reigning um Miss Oregon United States and so I just was like you know I'm going to take you know fewer classes so that I can still you know live out my rain but in doing that it kind of sparked my interest in wanting to really really help not only small business owners but influencers really really really galvanizing and driving the point home of why it is so so so important for you to be protecting your intellectual property and from there you know started a whole firm wow that I did not know that fun fact about you okay Miss Oregon okay honey I see you um and that makes sense because if you guys are not if you're just listening and you're not tuning in on the YouTube streets like she's tall she's gorgeous so I can totally see you going down that lane and we did not plan to both wear glasses today it just happened that way that's we're fabulous yes cuz we're fabulous starting and we both have them super cute and stylish cuz that's how we do yeah um so we like to start our show with some so give us something that we can't Google about you something that you cannot Google about me and I I don't tell people this you'd have to have gone to high school with me but I played volleyball and I was horrible okay shout out to the Olympic team right now but I was horrible I wouldn't invite people to the game I didn't want anybody to know I played you Sher I what first of all I'm like balls flying on my face no thank you okay um so I played volleyball actually for two years and I don't tell anybody like I won't even play beach volleyball for fun that's it you're over it I played volleyball in high school too I like to think that I was good I I mean that's what I have to tell myself I mean we were I mean my team was good and I feel like I I did my purpose but that's so funny that you played volleyball look at that we have a lot of things Comm over here cuz listen I wanted to model when I was young as well and you still can and yes I can cuz this face okay but also I wanted to be a lawyer no way I did I wanted to be a lawyer and I did this uh it was kind of like an internship program with the district attorney in Queens and after that experience I decided I no longer wanted to be a lawyer because honey it was too much reading too much reading paying attention to detail like I'm more of like a Visionary big picture kind of thinker that's like my jam that's where I shine and I knew law school and being in the trenches in that way and just having to be so finite with everything it was like no this this this is not my calling this ain't for me so I salute lawyers because I know what is required well I think you you I think you are multifaceted I think you would have excelled as an attorney but your brain just wanted to take you down a different Lane because you're so creative and you're so driven there's so many things that you could have done so it's not too late oh thank you darling nope not doing it not not going for the bar I mean shout out to Kim Kardashian and all the girlies are going get their law degree I do love a good debate though me too I do love a good debate and I love making a business case for things but I I just it's too much it is a lot it's too much so so kudos to you for that so first of all what is a trademark and why is it important for entrepreneurs to make sure they are protecting themselves so I never do this but this summer I'm actually opening up two slots for private coaching to work oneon-one with me and this specific opportunity is geared toward leaders who find themselves questioning their purpose and are unsure of what their next chapter in life will be they're essentially at a Crossroads and they want more out of life and are just tired of following the rules they want to trailblaze their own path and live life on their terms without risking their credibility in the marketplace does this sound like you well look coming from corporate I have over two decades of experience and I understand the sacrifices the risk darling and the game that you're forced to play in order to be taken seriously or Worse accepted you've worn The Mask dressed apart talk the talk and from the outside looking in you've made it yet you're unhappy you don't want to fake it anymore and deep down you know that you're destined for more I've trained over 20,000 leaders on how to use their uniqueness and their magic to build a life of influence purpose and freedom a life where they don't need a vacation to escape or feel alive a life that is exciting and peaceful at the same time so if you're listening to this and it resonates and it's speaking to your heart and ready to transform your life expand into the unknown and explore the beautiful parts of you that have been hidden for far too long I invite you to complete the application to participate in this private coaching opportunity this is going to be super high touch very white glove kind of experience so once the two slots are taken they're gone so if you're interested I will put the application Link in the show notes make sure to apply check that out I can't wait to hear about your goals and where we are going to take your life next so cheers to your renewed life that is such such such a good question but it goes a little further than just what is trademarks you really have to understand the suite of intellectual property and so intellectual property are actually tangible assets and so in that Suite of um protection you have trademarks copyrights and patents and so I like to tell my clients think of it from the perspective of trademarks are going to protect the external of your business so think of the Nike brand name the Nike Swoosh the just do it but for their internal um I don't know how many of you caught Jordan's um Nike special that they did they've done some videos for Phil Knight and really explaining the history of Nike those genius creative Works will be done um protected through a copyright now more of your technical your actual inventions your methods that act can be patented um and so you always want to understand because depending on what type of industry or service or product you decide to to launch you potentially could need all three you may only need a trademark or you may only need a copyright and a patent but it's really critical to understand how the three different intellectual properties work because you want to know what triggers in your brain like okay I just created a new shampoo collection is there anything patentable in in this um recipe that I may want to see if it it aligns with patentability or I am the next Louis Vuitton and I've just created my own signature fabric does this align to the effect of having a copyright or I know that I have the next apple brand which is literally worth billions of dollars for their trademark alone and so because you don't know what you are starting off right now what that can grow into just like having children you don't know what they're going to grow up to be you want to make sure that you're putting them in the best position to win and that's having intellectual property protection surrounding it mic drop okay so okay couple of clarifying questions so what about if you're like a Learning and Development consultant or a coach and you've created this framework like what does that fall like I love this I'm about to get excited these are the questions that I live for okay so two things so or like your Training Method materials any workbooks you're going to get a copyright but because you're building a development company you might potentially want to hire on other coaches or you want to be able to go out into the community and teach other people how to do your methodology well that type of branding you're going to want your trademark for so remember that type of business is going to need both trademarks for their branding but then also a copyright for their training materials hm interesting okay so what if you're like first starting you have an idea you haven't produced anything yet what should you do so I always say like put five attorneys in a room and each one is going to give you a different response look before I was ever an attorney I was a business owner and so I attack every single thing that I tell my client is what would have made sense for me as a starting out business owner and not just a business attorney and so what I basically tell people is that have a solid feasibility plan which is a shorter version of a business plan because this we're in the cookie cutter stage like we're not trying to have a 30 page business plan CU we don't even know if this is going to pass muster like right now we just need the nitty-gritty so that we can go ahead and do some beta testing to make sure that it makes sense to then pour money back into this business and so what I tell people all the time is Crafter good feasibility plan make sure that the business name that you want to use is actually available you want to not only do a basic trademark search but you also want to search on Google and on social media platforms because a name may be available on GoDaddy but it's taken on all the social media platforms and now you have to start from scratch from a naming perspective so kind of going through those are my two like really big ones is having a feasibility plan and making sure whatever naming or branding configurations you're going to use are actually available so where do you go to like find that out like is it just Google or is it somewhere else two two places I want you to go and I want you to actually take notes here and if you are watching the video and you can't take notes right now screenshot where we are in the video so you can come back to this the very first thing that I want you to do is go to uspto.gov and you are going to do a basic search so if you click on their top Links Page it'll give you kind of like a drop down of all of the important stuff that are high level for the United States patent and trademark office you'll go down a tiny bit and you'll click search you'll put in whatever your naming configuration is and you'll click search now all you're looking for because you're not a trained attorney is just to see if you see any hits if you don't see any you're in the clear but little note here even if you do get some results back you still want to have an attorney vet those because they potentially could be in a completely different classification than you and you'd be totally fine with still operating think of Delta airplanes and Delta faucets they're able to coexist because they're in two completely different markets so it wouldn't cons uh confuse a consumer then the next thing I want you to do now that you know that it's available on USPTO I want you to do a Google Search and in parentheses just put website social media or any other mention and then whatever that brand name is and so if there's an Instagram or a website or a Facebook page page that should pull up those results so that you can make sure that you're in the clear wow okay so that is really good to know so okay so let's walk through the process yes new entrepreneur I'm like okay this is going to be my brand name I have my feasibility plan by the way what exactly is included in that plan so a feasibility plan is basically a business plan but a shorter condensed version so think of like Twitter versus an Instagram caption like it's just the brevity of what you are speaking to so in a feasibility plan you're going to still list out like your mission you're going to list out your target information so who is your Target customer um what does the actual market look like for the space that you're going into what will be your initial launching marking mechanisms um and what key individuals do you need to have to make it come to fruition that's it like you this is literally Bare Bones I literally have a free one on my website that like walks you through the steps of how to do it because I realized that so many like back in the day I don't know if you remember this people were spending thousands of dollars to get businesses business plans made off of a pure idea but you've now let's say for example you've now spent two to $3,000 on a professional business plan only for you to have one meeting with an investor and you done flipped your whole idea on its head and you're starting from scratch again and now you're going to have to reinvest that money again on another their business plan but if you go the route of doing that information yourself and doing the feasibility guide you'll at least have an idea of if there actual Market space for me to enter this area do I have a good understanding of the people that I want to Market to as far as my ideal um customer and can I really scale this is what you're going to be able to answer in a feasibility guide so then you can ask yourself is this something I do want to put money to is it something that I want to protect with IP or you know is this enough bones to it that I could go seek out an investor but you again like I said you don't want to put all of that time and Research into drafting a formal business plan if you haven't even kicked the tires or you don't even want to get a trademark if you haven't don't even get me don't even get me stuck if you haven't gone through it because I could totally see you know CU ENT we're special creatures and we have Amazing Ideas 10 ideas we want to trademark all 10 of ourand ideas and not even move forward with any of them right is the recommendation that like before you put any monies towards trademark copyright any of that you actually give this some real thought yes and make an executive decision like okay I'm doubling down on this I'm moving forward with this yes and I again some of my fellow attorneys are going to hit me when I say this and I can protect myself if you want to be a Instagram Thug so I got this but because I know that I'm I'm definitely the minority when it comes to this thought process but I personally feel that you should have made at least a few dollars in what it it doesn't have to be a lot but one sale even if you discount it 95% but you want to have one proof of concept fully from an actual funding perspective as well unless you have ton of money to invest which some of us are blessed to have when we start our business especially if we've gone from 9 to five but you really really really want to make sure that you're not throwing this idea or this product into the abis praying that you know customers come and then a year later you haven't sold a thing and you got this expensive trademark and now you're trying to figure out how you're going to reposition yourself so a lot of people say like you should trademark before you launch it's not that I disagree with that thought process but I want to have seen you do some beta testing before you have launched so that we can in that interim time protect your IP right let's give a real life example because you and I worked on trademarking banking angura yes and there were tons of questions you were asking me and I was like uh I don't know so because it's like one thing to trademark and then there's like subcategories within the trademark situation which makes things really complicated so let's share with the people like like for example let's just use banking Ona when we were trademarking banking on Cura your advice to me was to like start with like one of the categories right yes and then it was like once it grows will expand it to the other categories yes so we applied for this yearo Oh I thought you were going to say what classification no we are going to get into the classification but we applied for this over a year ago over a year ago and application is still still pending still pending still pending so just to give people like a heads up of how long this takes but the good thing is you did tell me that like once you put in an application it's like somebody can't come in and be like oh well it's not that they can't they can still kind of come in and try and oppose your trademark but you have more rights because you've done your due diligence and you've gone ahead and filed so it's now it's their burden of proof to prove that you they either had Superior rights or you filed yours wrong like they literally can come up with a million reasons why they want to oppose your tradear markets it's a whole another conversation as well okay but if you had already filed if you had already been using it it gives you priority more leage which is also the case like if you go live with a website you go live with a brand and you're doing events you're marketing Etc and you didn't go after the trademark if someone did try to come after you you have all of this kind of proof that well I've been using this name selling this blah blah blah and you have more leverage at that point right yes you have more leverage and not only will you have more leverage so there's this weird interesting thing in in the legal world where certain things are automatically fact you don't have to try and prove that point it's a matter of factual law so when you already have your copyright or your trademark or your patent you don't have to spend a ton of time showing and proving that you own it because your registration is automatic proof that you have ownership so then it becomes on their terms of really trying to come like you'll literally see things written on napkins like old like pieces of facts paper like people will literally dig up anything they possibly can to try and oppose a mark to try and say that they had prior rights but that literally is going to be the first thing that they look at is who actually has registration and that it just gives you a different playing field and filing an application doesn't mean registration or no so like you were saying before we started your application over a year ago and so the trademark process can take over 18 months like cardi Beach trademark took years like I want to say off the top of my head it was think it was like two and a half three years before her slogan was officially trademarked what the yes I can't do it or El I would have done it I I have practiced she tradar that she tried to she and she actually did an interview on it she's seen the girls from keeping a with Kardashians do it on the show and she was like hold on now I want all my coins so they started the process late which is which is one of those things again why I started off with saying is you want to understand all three of the different intellectual property protections because she didn't realize that that's something that she should have protected straight out of the gate and if she would not have done that think about the licensing opportunities think about the merch opportunities like she would not have access to because she didn't trademark it interesting so regardless of how long the process takes still do it as early as you can financially afford to do it yeah but I think in this case like nobody knew that that was going to pop right kind of like it was kind of like um what's her name Kylie yes when she did that good morning sunshine or whatever it was I was it like rise and shine yeah something and then it went crazy and then she went to kind of go and trademark like some things you just don't know if it's going to pop and I and I tell you I tell business owners all the time like you have to look at companies like a Microsoft like they started with one trademark they now have hundreds of trademarks copyrights patents like just start with your one and you can add on as you go and when you start seeing like say for example you have a really dope collection name and you didn't even think to trademark the name of your collection but now you see people your customers is using in everyday lingo so you then go back and tradem Market that's fine but for those major points in your business don't wait until the shoe drops to go ahead and start the protection process so some might argue that like if you already have the website if you're already doing events if you're already the brand is out there like and that you have proof of that then like even if somebody does try to come for you like you're good so what's the point of a trade if you have tens of thousands of dollars to litigate that in court that's the issue okay it's not a matter of do I have the time to argue this do I have the evidentiary proof to prove it it's do I have the time and money to actually litigate the issue right because for example um I very early on in my career I worked with a client who was receiving cease and desist letters from Louis Vuitton because he was a designer and he thought that it was okay to use their um logo and Fabrics on different items that he was making and he his perspective was everyone does this on social media so many fashion designers take like similar looks or patterns and they try and do like spoofs why is this a big issue the issue is that they own it and so regardless of if you're trying to say like well this particular design they don't even do like so what's the big issue this shouldn't be infringement it is and if he wanted to fight it he could have and I gave him the you know quote unquote percentages of success but off the top and on average on a low end it was going to cost over 30 grand to just start litigation and you got to think these larger luxury Brands they have whole budgets to bankrupt small businesses it's literally one of the things that like I get Tey and frustrated about cuz I've seen hardworking like single moms like single dads like older people get totally just like bombarded by the anxieties of getting a letter from a Louis Vuitton or Nordstroms or ESPN and you're being told that you are in violation of this large company's intellectual property that's scary for a business owner super scary and even though you know you're right and you have the arguments like to back you if you can't afford to actually protect yourself and litigate like how you feel you're dead in the water right so instead just go ahead and have the protection because like I mentioned before it's going to be a matter of factual law that you can already prove that you own it so the amount of money now that you would have to spend to litigate your ownership is a lot less than what the other person has to actually prove got it okay I know that was a little long-winded yeah yeah no I get what you're saying and this is helpful so let's Circle back so Bing on Cultura we were going for the trademark and you advised me to kind of go into one particular category and this is why it's important for you to like I believe not to do like Legal Zoom cuz there's tons of ways for you to get trade there is but in my experience I was like I got tons and tons of questions and I need somebody who's going to like break this down and almost like handhold me through this process which is exactly what you did like I was like um what does this mean should I not go this way should I not go that way which is like really helpful versus kind of just being thrown in with like a subgroup of people to do it but so we decided to go after like an entertainment category was called yes so when we originally spoke the lanes kind of that you were and I hope I don't give anything away um should I be saying know how do this I know how to do this first of all what you don't want is me on your back okay don't play um oh I'm like a pit bulling skirt I do not play about my clients okay n lost my turn of thought cuz you about to bring we went after one category and then we're going to build other category yes so when we originally talked I'm really big on I want to know your vision and that's what you don't get with going through like a Legal Zoom because when I ask what's your five-year Vision I'm asking because I want to listen to the nuances of what you potentially may need protection for so when we originally talked you were so excited about the podcast but you also were going to potentially have other trainings workshops Live Events we even talked about potential merchandise well all of those would be separate categories but if you need the actual podcast before you can kick off the events before you can go live with your products and your collections you got to start with the main thing so what do we do we started with let's make sure that the podcast name is protected and then as we grow and we make sure that this has legs we'll add the other classifications yeah which I think is really great advice because I know for me the way I usually work is I'm like let's just do everything so I don't have to worry about it later but when you get into like strategic wise like what makes the most sense and also so expense wise what makes the most sense you you tend to retreat and think about like okay hold on a second like what do we need to do right now like what is the first step to make sure like we're protected going into this launch is kind of like how I was thinking about it yes and so for you in particular your very first thing that I told you you needed to do from a protection perspective was to make sure that the brand name was protected but let's say for example if you were more on the Ed educational side first and you already had a course that you were going to be launching before you did the podcast I would have gave completely different advice I would have wanted you to protect that under the educational classification and then do the podcast later um so I always tell people like there's no one-size fits all for how you should move with your protection because if you are in fashion it's going to be a different process if you are in entertainment it's a different like you're still going to do all the same things but your order of priority is just a little bit differently and then major facts on this you could potentially change your mind completely about the other six categories you wanted to start in a year because you realize that this is the bread and butter of what your audience really wants so I tell people don't get too big for your britches let's start with the main thing and then as you grow We'll add on the side dishes yeah which makes a lot of sense so before we get into cost because I know people are literally like listening to this and they're like okay when are we G to talk about how much is it's gonna cost me we interrupt our program to bring you this important message ooh this is really good you should know about this so I don't know about you but I've been known to procrastinate especially when things scare the hell out of me the fear alone would have me stuck overwhelmed confused and all types of self-doubt and don't even get me started on the impostor syndrome okay okay after getting laid off not once but three times honey I realized that the security blanket that I made up in my head was just an excuse because I didn't really want to bet on myself the corporate benefits that had me in that headlock girl they went out the window once my job decided that they no longer needed me turns out that I'll save a whole nickel if I cut your salary completely the truth is the only security blanket guarantee is the one that you create for yourself in other words until you start a business you will always be at the mercy of a company's head account and you will never have complete control over your time which means you'll be renting out your thought leadership and helping build someone else's dream instead of your own if you've been waiting for a sign this is it don't you think it's time you stop playing small and tap all the way into your PO s click on the link above or below this video to learn my three-step process the exact three steps that I took to make the transition from corporate to entrepreneurship and this is helpful even if you don't know what type of business to start and have only one source of income and this is absolutely free it is my gift to you I want you to win it's winning season in fact what's that it smells like winning season okay so tap in and I'll see you inside the training let's go I would like to address because I'm still trying to make sure I understand trademark copyright and then what's the other one patents patents yes so is patents are they more aligned to like a formula like for a tangible product yes and no because potentially like a gas could be patented which isn't technically tangible so I'm like I want to pick my words right but look at it like just you right now in your glorious goddess we would paten your mic if we had a bomb name for your glasses we would trademark that and the notes that are on your card would be copyrightable oh okay does that help okay that helps a little bit okay no I want to walk out of here with you being very confident okay okay okay so you said patent the glasses like the frame we're Pat yes we could Pat in the frame okay like the frame okay and then we would copyright like my format of how I run my show and then we would trade mark the name yes okay so and I looked at you a little puzzle when you said glasses frame because one of the big things with patents is that it has to be unique and not and not Noble so there's not a lot of changes so okay a really great example is the new Google Glasses patentable the frames that we have on they're not unique unique in color and design but the actual like framework of how to build it is going to be the same outside of the design Aesthetics okay okay so let's say if I'm making AES I'm making rice and beans Okay and like I'm putting all my ingredients my salt my pepper my alol song all the Jazz but I have this like Grandma secret ingredient if I add that to my recipe is that like patentable no so what they're looking for is kind of like a complete new and different way that something can be used or offered so it's the reason why the iPhone was such a big patent for a long time because the actual designed to take the keypad off the interface was so new and different like so I want you to think about it from that perspective it's like it's it's like when I said the Google Glasses it's like who in their right mind would have thought to put a camera like and internet capabilities like actually in the form of glasses so it took it to a new use got it okay okay this is helpful now I feel like okay I'm more clear I love this on this yes because people need to be informed like even when they're speaking to like an attorney or trying to seek out advice like I feel like that foundational stuff you need to know because it's very easy to kind of like dance circles around someone if they're like not clear and then next thing you know you got a trademark a patent and copyright for something you don't even need like you don't even need all those things it happens a lot I was listening to an interview of an I'll let him be nameless but a celebrity who was really irate and upset and he was like well I had my copyright so I didn't even understand why it was a problem he needed a trademark and not a copyright and it's those little nuances and why I always stress like I want you to know all three because you don't know when you're going to potentially need one or all three very interesting very interesting okay let's talk about pricing okay so trademarks when a private attorney does it is a little bit more expensive and so you're going to be anywhere from like a th000 to Nowhere more than you should never be spending more than 1,500 on a trademark as it relates to copyrights you're looking more at that I would say like a typical attorney is going to charge anywhere from about 3 to 700 depending on what the copyrighted work is and patents it literally just dep like most patent attorneys have a huge range of what they charge because you literally have to actually design the model and put it in the application so most I should say almost all but most patent attorneys have an engineering background so that they can make sure that the mechanics of what they're drafting make sense and so that's going to be on the higher scale a patent can literally range anywhere from like a few thousands to in the tens of thousands of dollars depending on what you're building oh wow so think of like the Ford motor you know um or the iPhone two completely different applications because of the blueprint and the models that have have to go inside of the application so you can't just go to like one lawyer and be like get me my trademark my copyright and my patent you have to go to like you can okay but I want you to make sure that you ask that attorney if those are their Specialties so I am a trained corporate attorney and so anyone who practices on the corporate side is either going to be focused on Business Law employment law or like say for example a specialty area like real estate for most often and so because I got my start with the NBA and then moved over to Microsoft my background was always um contracts and IP well my main bread and butter was always contracts and it just kind of slipped into IP and so because those are my areas of specialty I feel confident but I've had situations where clients will be referred to me we start working together and they're like yeah I had somebody do this for me already and it was a personal injury attorney well your personal injury attorney is awesome probably at getting you damages for an accident but they don't know the ins and outs of the different type of classifications and when to file this like yes there's generalized knowledge but the the real like nitty-gritty you need somebody who specializes in it I'm grateful that I've had my corporate background because it allows me to have a few different Specialties um but always just ask the attorney like what is your actual specialty what do you love doing cuz that shows in people's work as well um and you really just want to make sure I always say like there's business attorneys and there's litigators so you want to make sure that at least if it's not their specialty they're at least a business attorney okay okay guys I hope listen to me I hope you are taking all the notes cuz this right here this right here is just amazing gem so thank you so much of course all right so let's keep this party going classifications because what I did learn as I was going through the trademark process is like there's a cost for the trademark and then there's cost for each classification class so a classification on average like how much is that anywhere from 200 to like six at the most but you should never be spending more than half of what you spent on the initial application for an additional classification the key though is to add the classification at the original time of filing because when you like say for example people say I have a trademark but I want to add a classification well it's not like an add-on thing when you are doing it after the initial application has been submitted it's literally just submitting a whole brand new application so nine times out of 10 unless you're working with the same attorney who did the initial filing you're literally just going to be spending money on a whole new application oh Zam yeah damn I know [ __ ] know now I'm like damn should we have just no no we talked about this I got you uh to have business besties I'm trying to tell you uh for real though I'm no super important to have like like your business besties and like a variety of people who have a skill set outside of what your skill set is because it helps really really helps um so thanks for being you know a business best um Okay so we have uh pricing models can someone actually apply on their own yes people do it every single day and 90% of those applications get rejected and so I I I struggle because I never want to make and I know it's in in messaging and how I say it but I never want anyone to think that I'm telling them that they're not intelligent by saying don't do this on your own it literally comes from the perspective of I've been doing this for over 10 years I've done it from the highest level of a literally Fortune 500 company to working with your Nana and Papa's business down the street one thing I know for sure is that there's little nuances that get missed and what happens is the application is not necessarily difficult to file it's if you get an office action it scares people they do not know how to respond you're giving a very finite time to respond to it and if you don't respond in that time period you automat ially lose it so I always tell people if you have the money to invest just pay for somebody to do it because you potentially could be losing time and more money if it has to be refiled down the line yep a business right off come on now business write off I agree I mean I I mean I think technically anybody can do anything on their own I agree but if you want to accelerate the process if you want to save your time the anxiety the thought leadership that you're going to have to actually apply to this thing you might want to invest but for those of you who are Scrappy and you're like on the hustle Vibes listen you got options you know what I mean you got options you can visit Dominique's site you can go to her Instagram she dropping gems all the time to get you started but more likely than not like in most cases you're going to have to reach out and invest at some point when things are kind of above your head and whenever it comes to like legal stuff and reading the fine print and all that jazz I go to professionals it's like when you have a cold the first intin is like oh okay I could cure this myself like I got my nqu I got my routine you know I have my house kind of remedies that I do you know vix for Spanish people s everything like you know what I mean so it's like we have those but like once it goes a level above that where like you can't do it anymore you go out and you see a professional I on the other hand rather work smarter instead of harder so I'm just like you know what I'm going nip this in the bud from the beginning send it to an expert that's just my rule of thumb with everything especially when it comes to like legal stuff okay so I want to touch on the fact that you were in corporate and made the transition why did you make the transition and ultimately like what needed to be in place in order for you to make the decision like talk to us about that oo such a good question well technically so I started my firm in 2016 but didn't actually leave my corporate position until spring of 2017 and so what I always knew that I wanted to have a small or solo law practice because I I knew that I wasn't going to be a lawyer forever but I'm really big on multiple streams of income and so if I have this int and this skill and this talent in this one area whether I do it on a large scale full-time or small like I'm always going to hold myself out as a lawyer to receive clients to do services so it's like okay let's start this business let's see what happens and so I started my business and literally most people have like slow churn where it takes a minute for things to get going like I was booked and busy like month one and so what happened was we got into month four and I had an opportunity to do a TV show but they wanted me to commit to 6 and a half weeks but I had eight weeks of Saved vacation so I didn't think anything of it I had already confirmed that I would do the show and emailed my boss like kind of like a curtesy like hey I have eight weeks of vacation but I'm only taking six just wanted to get your approval before I put in my vacation request and literally the day before I was supposed to fly out to shoot the show I had got a response back from our head of Le not even my main boss but the head of legal and were like we can't approve you taking a full 6 weeks off consecutively so you know me I'm like well we in this employee handbook does it say that your vacation can't be consecutive cuz I don't see that language and I know contract law so I took a deep breath and I rode in all caps I quit thank you and I left the next day for angula what yes so I I always tell people when people are like how much money do you need to save before you launch is there anything you wanted to make sure you had before you launched no I was my original plan was that I was going to do both corporate and my firm for a full year before I exited so I left in end of February and was not originally going to leave until that following September but they tried they tried you yeah and you was like you know what I know bye cuz I'm really big on show me where it says that right I'm not going to argue just show me where that it says that M it must be so interesting to watch lawyers go back and forth I get very nervous like everybody turn away cuz I don't want you to see me act like this I was in Walmart one day giving a manager the bees kns and I was so embarrassed but I couldn't stop I could not stop I had the policy in my hand like where does it say that oh my God I I walked out a shame sh it I love it um so seven years in yeah I actually started my business in 2017 as well so what would be your one piece of advice 7 years in it's okay to fire yourself that is the season that I'm in I think so often we start businesses we grow Brands and we become even more chained to it than we did our corporate jobs and that's not why I started a business and so if there's ever a time where I need to fire myself as CEO of Price law I am 100% okay with doing that because I know that the vision is bigger than just me so that means I don't have to be the Le the the primary principal Attorney At The Firm it means I'm okay with allowing somebody else to come in and operate it took me forever to even hire an assistant because I was so nervous of somebody looking at my email like I'm somebody where like I had to like literally grow into this space of being like okay I'm firable I officially can be fired at as head of Price law and I think that is like where we should all kind of strive to get to by the way that name Price law like your name Dominique price just sounds like Regal like it's thank you but like it sounds like it's a law f it is it is I love it okay so let's get into the Talk That Talk segment where we address something taboo okay in the culture and we had previously discussed something that I thought was super super important for us to bring to the Forefront around estate planning yes which is also an area of expertise so talk to us about how our community black and brown communities think about Estate Planning and why they need to get serious about this whether they have multiple assets or they're renting an
apartment I get really fr frustrated when it comes to the concept of minorities and estate planning because I've read research I've looked at the stats I don't understand what our hangup is in moving forward with est State planning because when you look at the numbers it's staggering like literally over 50% of non-minorities have some form of a estate planning done 77% of minorities said that they have zero zero wow and so when you think about closing the generational like wealth Gap it starts with a state planning but more important than just a state planning it really really comes with passing down knowledge I think we got into a season where more minorities were hitting middle class more minorities were hitting that number one% but I don't think we did a good job of going back and actually teaching what that success looked like instead we just started leaving assets as we could because it was the first time in Generations that we had any assets to leave in the first place and because that was a miss it didn't get properly transferred from one generation to the next because a lot of minorities either don't want to face the conversation they think that they don't have enough assets to even start estate planning or shrug mom and them gonna get it anyway so why do the the the hard work but what they don't understand is that you're costing your estate money by not doing any type of preparations because you then have to well not you particularly but your estate has to pay probate fees to go through the process of handling your estate and it's even harder if there's no estate planning done whatsoever so even though a will has to go through the probate process it's going to be a lot quicker and a lower cost as opposed to somebody who dies what they like to call Interstate and they have nothing done okay wait you're too technical okay okay let's let's make it really simple F simple really simple for folks who don't have any assets they don't have a home they might have a car they don't have any kids if you are literally out in this world it's Mi me and your car Daisy if you know that your little cousin has been working super hard or your brother is going to be in high school soon you can literally get a will drafted that literally just outlines that my card Daisy is going to my knce my card Daisy is going to my brother because if something happens to you and you have nothing in writing if your parents are still living they automatically get your estate not your siblings not your cousin that you've helped raise or your your niece it it literally goes to the next surviving family member so I always tell people like don't just watch celebrity news start taking lessons from it that you want to implement in your own life and so one of the things I was talking to a colleague about recently is the issue with takeoff like we're talking about an individual who has a ton of Aid who has a ton of Ip assets as well through his music catalog and had zero Victoria zero estate planning done he was estranged from his father had never really even had a conversation with his father but because he has passed away there was nothing in writing to his estate and even though he has a whole song that he was leaving everything to his mom anyways that's not admissible in court they can use it as character but they can't use it as a determined fact as it relates to State planning and it being drafted and so his mom and dad have been in court arguing over his estate and it's the saddest thing in the world they should be grieving their son and they're fighting over assets so whether you have your C Daisy or you have Grammy award-winning music catalog that you're thinking about protecting you still want to sit down and draft at basic level every single one of us needs to have a will now if we want to get a little bit more Jazzy and we have a business or we have some IP or we have homes or we have children then we want to start talking about moving into getting a trust established and then if you're a Serial entrepreneur or a Serial business person or you know you're killing it on the corporate ladder there's literally different methods that we can craft for you but don't wait until it's too late if Co taught us nothing at all I hope it taught us that time is precious and life can be really fragile and so you want to make sure that before anything happens you are protected so please you guys if you listen to nothing else have a will draft it please okay one quick clarifying Point here what is the difference between a living will and a will we like to use the term living trust because PE so many people get confused by living wheel and so basically what a wheel is is it doesn't kick in or key until you have actually transitioned from this this Earth but a living um trust there's certain things that trigger during your lifetime so in your living trust you're going to have a medical directive which is going to speak to if something happens and you want to put a special person in play this is really really key if you want a power of attorney so say for example what happened with a lot of business owners during covid is that if they didn't have a POA done they might have and they were hospitalized for covid they didn't have anything in writing to be able to have anybody do any type of business moves on their behalf while they were ill and so having those things in place will allow your business to keep functioning or your children to be taken care of like it's it's such a safe all it's like driving in a car without a seat belt like craziness woo I got tons of questions for this but this might this might need to be a whole another episode so y if you want somebody to come back email US banking Cultura Gmail put it in the show notes so that we can have you back because I feel like estate planning is like a whole another episode it's a be that we need to like get the nitty-gritty on but I really appreciate you being on tell the people where they can hire you yes and where they can find you yes I'm on all social media platforms at attorney Dominique price um you can find me um my website go pric law.com or on Tik Tok your legal bestie here your legal bestie here the name here your legal bestie here okay that would be a whole another part three of if you looked at my eyes and I got nervous as I got ready to say it there was a whole trademark dispute as as I talk right now so I'm not immune to having issues of people biting or stealing or saying they've used something that I've said like it happens to everybody which is why it's so critic that you are protected yeah I love that I love that well thank you so much for being on Binga and sharing your thought leadership I hope you guys got tons and tons of knowledge um you heard me mention this listen we have an email address banking oncura gmail.com that email address is for you to give us your feedback ask your questions we want to hear from you guys okay so email us now you can get directly to us to me me my team is reading those emails okay um also if you love today's episode we want to hear that feedback from you so make sure to leave it in the show notes on the YouTube streets or if you're listening tuning in whatever platform you're tuning in from and guys I appreciate you so much for tuning in and I will see you on the next episode ciao miente I need your help look the real game behind podcast is we need to really understand our demo AKA you our audience so that when we go out to sponsors who help us put on this amazing show and deliver this content to you that they can clearly understand who we serve and what is significant to you and what you value and the only way for us to get that information is for you to give it to us so we just created this survey I'll put it in the show notes it will take you less than 3 minutes literally but it will be so helpful for us to get a better understanding of what it is that you care about 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