Patent Attorney and Founder
All right guys, a little background on JD. So JD is a registered patent attorney. He has an undergrad degree in industrial engineering from the University of Washington and his MBA and Juris Doctorate from Seattle University. He has a huge passion for helping inventors, specifically first-time startups and new entrepreneurs.
And guys what I can tell you is from having had JD as a client for the past, I don’t know, Jenny what’s it been about six months give or take? I can truly tell you guys that just watching how he works with all the individuals regardless of what level, regardless of experience, he is just he is just a very down-to-earth caring kind of dude right? So in terms of that I can promise you you guys probably will feel a little fire hosed over the next five days. That’s totally normal and completely okay all right? In that case that is what our VIP section afterward is after four specifically so that way you guys can ask those questions, you can get your questions answered and then ultimately for those of you saying like “Hey I don’t know what direction to go,” at the end of this you probably by like Wednesday we’re going to show you just a little behind the scenes and for those of you that raise your hand and say “You know what that’d be really cool to do this with JD I would love that,” you guys will have that opportunity as well.
All right so JD I want to bring you to the stage man let’s bring us front and center and let’s talk about some some invention stuff how’s that sound? That sounds great let’s jump into it all right. Cool so guys in your workbook by the way when you pull that up we are officially over on page one for the foundation and validation.
JD tell us a little bit about your background man just real quick like what got you even into this whole crazy inventor space like why do you do what you do? Yeah I mean I, I was first inspired I think by many of you, by Shark Tank. Shark Tank was like the the inspiration. I had to be I was at Boeing working, it’s at 7-7 on the Dreamliner as an engineer and I was thinking how am I going to own my own business? I want to do something and impact the world in a way. And I just come alive watching this TV program come on and they mentioned “We have a new product or a new device or gadget…Do you have a patent on that?” And I was like “Puts in me, what do they keep asking about patents for? Why is that so important to these investors when they’re talking about making a business work?”
And I dug into it and sure enough to become a patent attorney you’ve got to have an engineering background, a science background. I was like “Hey I’ve got that, that’s pretty cool.” Yeah that started my journey. I’m gonna do this. And so I shipped away at evening law school until I got past the bar and decided to open up my own practice on the side and launched it from there. That’s awesome that’s awesome man.
Real quick any, give me a little thumb up emoji anyone a fan of Shark Tank? Little, little Kevin Harrington, Mr. Wonderful…everybody says I should go on Shark Tank and I’m like no thanks. There you go! Hey man I know some people love it…Other people just they love to watch it. So JD you’re in good company man. A lot of people are loving us some Shark Tank. Awesome!
Yeah it’s fun and in fact we actually did a quick little plug – I have a YouTube channel. We do a weekly…we call our “Bold Bites.” So if you haven’t seen that go to Apple Patents you can check out. Matt and I we do a critique on their pitches and we go look it up to see if they actually do have a patent. Some of these folks are liars right? They say they’re patent pending or they say they’ve got a patent and they really don’t or it’s something else so…Yeah cool side note!
And I know you know you’ve got your own story on how you like even got into this. I want to talk about you know so there’s a lot of folks in here I think at a lot of different levels and when I asked before anywhere from like you know one to three somewhere around a two. So I want to talk about some of the journeys as you’ve been doing this now for how how many years now it’s 10 years this is it? Yeah okay so so you have some experience right? So like you know you’ve seen a sort of like the good the bad the ugly the amazing. You know the people that are just kind of like totally start from scratch is there anyone in particular that kind of like comes to mind that you know maybe when they first started they’re like “Oh I think I’ve kind of got this idea” and then you work with them massaged it and then like something cool has come out of it?
Yeah there’s a lot you know and what’s interesting is as this premise evolved of course at the beginning I was doing all the work right? Hands-on with all these clients. In the past four or five years I’ve actually stepped away from doing the hands-on writing the application. I get to see and cheer on and you know work with our other attorneys that are better than me now.
But when I was working with the inventors one-on-one personally…someone just popped my head when you said that – it was YC Chen with “From Lubn Lubbox.” When he was it was just him right? He’s the inventor, the founder, before he even informed a company and he had invented a smart lock box. It’s not that out of the box crazy but it involves your phone and owners of Airbnb around the world can use this to have a smart lock box and can give access remotely using their computer using the software.
He invented a new way, a new system, the software platform that made that possible along with the design of the box itself. So I just, but it took dog determination right? He had to go through two or three or four manufacturers and just stay so motivated and intensely focused. You’ll probably hear that again as I mention…You know what it takes to truly be successful. And he’s he’s definitely who comes to mind.
So why was he so motivated? Well I mean you got to say money is part of it. Sure. You know and he’s got a young family it’s like there’s sort of that inherent “Yeah I need to make a living for my family.” But there’s there’s also that that sort of play and that “I I wanna I wanna enjoy and have fun in what I’m doing” and creating that that kind of keeps it going when things might have gotten boring in sort of another job.
This is what he plays in, right? This is his passion – it’s is coming up with something new and innovative. And so it’s found that that amazing, you know, that point in your career where you’re like “I’m enjoying doing what I’m doing for work.” That’s how I have to go and you know disconnect or whatever or you know…You’re doing this for fun. So yeah it’s not like a a gruesome kind of like “Oh my god I have to do this” kind of thing.