Patent Attorney and Founder
Hi everyone welcome to the bold today show i’m your host jd hoovener owner and managing partner here at bold patton’s law firm it’s a pleasure to be with you and all the invention community here i welcome entrepreneurs business owners inventors here each week at 9 a.m pacific and noon on the east coast uh this is our first live format in front of the linkedin audience so i’m really excited for that a little nervous so we’ve been doing this bold today show for about a year now and so it’s a real honor to be able to share this with with our community so please bring all those live questions i do want to offer a disclaimer i’m an attorney you probably saw that coming so please know that in this live broadcast in this format we do ask you to not share confidential information there is no attorney client privilege formed here so please do uh keep that to yourself if you want to follow up and you want to get a discussion with an attorney right with our law firm i encourage you to do that and i’ll be providing you a link for that in just a few minutes i’m excited to share with you today i’ve got a special guest one of our long-term b2b referral partners kevin harten of making proto he’s a 3d prototyping expert and we’ll have him on just a few minutes so hang on for that all right so our normal our program today is going to be a discussion about the bold patent process i call it the abc patent process so that’ll be coming up as well um before i get to that let me just put up our agenda for today and for those who are joining in right now again i’m jd hoover owner here at bold patent law firm uh dallas good to see you yeah go bulb awesome to have uh have a good community here so thanks for helping on dallas is a member of our team so it’s great to have him here so yeah what i’ll do is uh go through our our normal introduction as i’ve done i want to offer you a free screening session if right now or maybe after watching this program you’re making the decision to take that bold step that bold action and you want to schedule a free screening session this is where we have one of our non-attorneys speak with you about your invention about where you’re at in the process and see if now is the right time to speak with an attorney so if you’re ready for that discussion and you want to get started that’s your link right there okay uh calendly.com forward slash business consultations uh that’s going to get you in contact with one of our three awesome non-attorney advisors all right so that’s how you get started what i want to do is jump to a brief discussion of our our abc patent process i built this about four or five years ago and it’s been a really cool way to explain a pretty complex matter right subject matter um in a straightforward way so let me share my screen here with you and i want to go just flash this on your screen so you’ve got it and if you have any questions of course let me know so here it is and all of this beauty okay and this is uh an abcd format this is all you got to do to get a patent okay first step uh is it patentable or not this is step a can take between four to six weeks for our firm to take care of this for you to get you a real good answer on should you patent it or not is this something worth moving forward on uh we give you the hard truth right good bad or otherwise if we’re saying green light we are with you behind you 100 cheering you on for most first-time inventors that are looking to just dip their toe in the water and get started in the patent world a provisional patent application is typically what’s recommended it does give you a full year after spending that six to eight weeks preparing it and filing it you have one year to then file what’s called the non-provisional application that’s step c which is the much more formal with claims uh formal drawing requirements and the specification must be formatted in a particular way so it takes us a little bit longer 10 to 12 weeks to get done and then at this point it is finally off to the uspto that’s the united states patent and trademark office and the examiner will get assigned and they will do their own search and examine to say hey is this really novel non-obvious does it have the utility necessary for us to grant you that 15 to 20-year monopoly in the u.s market so certainly there’s a whole lot more detail involved in the process but that is it i want to show you that process start the conversation so if you have any thoughts on that questions about it i’ll stop sharing and let you uh let you bring that on yeah we do have a youtube channel uh gerald uh you can check us out go to bold patents search for that on youtube we’ve got a ton of stuff on there and so if you have any subjects that you don’t find there let me know i’ll be happy to put a video up on that subject um awesome all right well what i do without further ado i want to bring on our guest kevin harding he’s been waiting patiently backstage let’s bring him on kevin are you there hi j.g thanks for having me all right you bet so good to see you and uh we were chatting before i’m jealous of your foliage man it looks very very uh tropical there i love the i love the green thanks yeah well so um you’re a 3d printing expert i think i see a 3d printer behind you um and you’re with making proto tell us just real quickly what uh what making proto is is all about so i really specialize in helping uh create both functional and visual prototypes of people’s inventions or ideas and using 3d printing or additive manufacturing to help realize those you know there’s one thing about seeing something you know drawings and pictures and cad but there’s just something different about having in your hands and really exploring does this thing work the way that i had it in my head and then how can i improve that through each iteration and with 3d printing has allowed us to do is it allows us to just iterate on an idea so much faster than we’ve ever been able to before awesome yeah i mean i’ve heard a lot about 3d printing over the years and with our clients you know they’re something they’ve been interested in doing and so we’ve been sending quite a few people your way and and getting really good feedback um you know and i think people you know 3d printing isn’t new it shouldn’t be new to anybody but i think there’s some things that are that are happening now that it’s kind of gotten to the point towards in a way uh developed and and become more cost effective and so it’s really brought i appear you know it seems like there’s been like some great opportunities that have come in now we were just talking before the show and this subject really intrigued me tell i wanna i wanna get to it so up until now i’ve been telling inventors hey you know you should prototype it’s gonna help you think about is it really do what you think it’s gonna do um but you were sharing with me that it’s got the technology’s gotten so good that you can actually do more than just prototype you can develop market ready products with a 3d printer can you share with us a little more about that yes as you mentioned the technology’s you know 30 plus years old for fdm and sla 3d printing but what’s happened in just the last few years is the it’s become so much more accessible and in the early stages it was so expensive that was only really viable for you know prototypes and aerospace applications and now the cost of 3d printing has come down to be comparable to even injection molded parts now for if you’re making a million or 500 million of something injection molding and mass production is definitely always going to be the cheapest method but if you’re in the like hundreds or even thousands range depending on the you know complexity and the number of parts you can use 3d printing as your final manufacturing method so there’s um now there’s a little sometimes there’s consumer kickback depending on the type of product but products that are good for 3d printing fit into three categories so it’s a high value product so 3d printing isn’t going to be a good solution if your product if your retail price is going to be like five bucks right you just but uh you know if you have a really high value product then you have more margins to kind of play with like hey let’s use additive manufacturing another uh key aspect of something that’s a good fit for 3d printing is really high complexity so if you have if you’re just making a little box right that might not be a good fit but if you have a really complicated part then 3d printing do is the better application for something that’s really complex and then the other one is low quantity so if you if you’re expecting low quantities then 3d printing often makes sense because you don’t have that huge investment in tooling and lead times you can just start producing your parts and start selling those little quantities so a good example would be like custom hearing aids they’re they’re highly individual like they’re customized for the individual user they’re super expensive and they’re really complicated geometry to fit each person’s ear so that’s a good application of using 3d printing for a final manufacturing solution that is cool yeah so i mean so your your recommendations are so you said uh you know when the high margin areas where this can be custom building and um i i assume even for you know a simple part on the prototyping side probably still helpful but as you said it’s not going to be the final end manufacturing method as you go to market but you’re saying for more complex stuff that is the way and maybe you spoke to uh hearing aids i mean are there any kind of materials that are sort of limited now metals would i mean can you talk about different types there there’s been huge advancements as well in the material side so um there’s maybe four or five major technologies available the different kind of ecosystems of machines and so behind me i’ve got on this side i’ve got a standard fdm machine fuse deposition modeling that’s spool filament and that’s the lowest cost thing you can do and then on the other side on this side i’ve got um an sla machine that stands for stereo lithography and that uses a vat of resin that you know puts in the part and puts in the build plate and then pulls the part out of this vat of resin which is pretty cool and on the sl on both of these machines they’re probably the most accessible for consumers and kind of low cost options um there’s been huge advancements in materials so for fdm you can now print with carbon fiber you can print with like wood infill and on the sla machine you get really super high resolution parts and you have all sorts of different materials so you can do flexible you can do rigid you can do stuff that’s bio compatible you can do high temperature in effect you can even make sample injection molding
parts using the sla to make the actual molds for ultra low runs as an option as well and another really good another really good technology to explore that’s really up and coming is by hp the multijet fusion you end up with really high quality looking parts and the cost is again like really come down in order of magnitude so um that’s not going to look like a part that’s 3d printed so that’s that’s a big advantage for inventors that want to you know they want to make something but they’re like i don’t really like the look of 3d printing a multi-fusion is a good a good option there cool well thank you so much what i want to do oh we had a question come in from flavio um how much to make my face uh on 3d printing eight eight by ten inch eight by ten so um there’s now we need to talk a little bit about uh cad uh and so there’s two styles of different cats so the one i specialize in is like engineering cad where you have dimensions constraints and you’re building you know geometry and to build your face you would need like a sculpting program so i’m not as advanced in that type of you know so i can model a bracket but i can’t model a tree so you would need start with getting a 3d render or 3d model of your face and then on the fdn machine it might be in the range of maybe 20 to 40 dollars to get a 3d print um well if you wanted your whole head that would be a pretty big build volume and um 3d printing is oftentimes the most the way they price it is just by the time it takes to print it doesn’t matter how complex it is if it takes 10 hours to print it’s this cost and if it takes 20 hours to print it’s this cost um so each print farm oftentimes have their own cost per hour to run the machines yeah absolutely and there’s all sorts of different variables there i mean flavio imagine a cosplay different if you want it to be gold-plated you know whatever or nylon whatever the different substrate is so kevin i want to flash this up really quick uh and share this with our community reveal that maybe watching this live or after the fact and they want to get a hold of you you shared with me that your number one place people find you uh is on upwork and i’ve heard a lot of work and heard a lot of good things so this is you right yep that’s me all right and so uh they can find you an upwork and you just search for kevin h um mechanical engineer 3d design and 3d printing specialist so you see his hourly rate and kind of see his uh his resume with some of the you know nice things that his clients have said down below here so find him on upwork if you want help certainly um you’re welcome to also just reach out to him via email i got permission to share his email with you before the show um and so let me just share that with you right now it’s kevin at makingproto.com is that the that’s the best one to use yes okay cool well i’ll put you backstage sir and there may be some other live questions come in i will bring you on at the end of the show if they did come in but thank you again for being with us i appreciate it thanks for having me on all right awesome we’re gonna go to our regular program show and cover our albo.com questions that have come in this week i was looking this morning no patent questions but we have five trademark questions there’s no uh shortage of trademark questions these days so i want to uh i want to get to those here so thanks for waiting for anybody that was from avo this first question comes out of los angeles california and i’ll throw this over here on our q a page
do i need any certifications to sell candles in the u.s i have a candle product made of natural beeswax and i’m not sure if i can sell it in the u.s well okay this isn’t necessarily a trademark question this is kind of more along lines of labeling or product liability and so um the answer here is i don’t really know in terms of certification i know there is there are certain requirements with respect to labeling um especially products that will be flammable but i might as an attorney i’ve got to say i don’t know and i can’t give you an opinion on that because it’s not necessarily down the middle trademark um if you’ve got a brand obviously you’ve got a company you’re developing it will be wise for you to look into protecting and registering a brand name for your product maybe for your company so you can distinguish yourself from other competitors in the candle space you know certainly you’ve got a little niche in the natural um more organic if you will candle market that’d be important to emphasize so if you have any questions with respect to that please do reach out um i’ll be putting here uh i’ll put it right now actually my personal email address with a and also a text only phone number if you have any questions there as well uh gerald i see you have a question on patents um welcome to bring that up and fire away uh if you have anything specific i’ll get to it um yeah go ahead with that question gerald be ready when you when you have that submitted all right so let’s do um our second question on avo
i think i haven’t pre-screened these so some of these are
potentially off-subject all right here’s the next question a little bit longer format
all right is it legal to use a domain name which is trademarked from someone else i used a domain name for more than three years and i was planning to build my own website for the business so i was trying to trademark my name and i figured someone else did my name so is it legal to use my name for business is a different business type from a trademark register um so okay yeah this is interesting so come the interplay between domains and trademarks in terms of the legal right to do business under a name that is trademark law okay and in almost every case trademark law will trump will win out and the the individual or the company that can prove that they’ve been using a specific name a word mark or a design logo in association with their goods or services will be able to prevent anyone else right from using that name for goods or services if they came after so of course it comes down to priority when did they start using that name or mark in commerce so if they had a date that predates your use um then they will get ownership if all you’re doing is in a way squatting right on a domain name you know uh that is not going to be something that you’ll be able to hold on to right you’ve got to demonstrate that you’re actually selling or in the stream of commerce interacting with other parties uh interstate to have that prior use so a lot of open under trademark law and again like i said that will in almost every case overrule any type of ownership of a domain so if you’ve got one that pre-exists let’s say you had you know the dawn of the internet you decided to just sit on nike.com uh of course nike’s trademark already existed you’re not gonna be able to hold that hostage over them they will simply be able to get access to that over the domain registrar hope it helps you there thank you for your question
all right let’s jump to our third question on ava
okay
so this is a
another question can i use the dara knot or the celtic knot as my usa company logo can i trademark it as my company look thank you julie i am starting a new llc and i want to use one of these as my logo well and you know good for you for asking questions first this is going to be something that you don’t have to work with an attorney on specifically uh so i’m going to want to have you you know submit you know as much as you can about this specific type of knot the celtic knot or the design you want to protect um just like with patent law before we recommend you file or seek rights you want to conduct a professional search to see if anyone else is already using that in the stream of commerce uh for for this first question the important thing to look at will be are you what goods or services are associated with that uh it could very well be that you know the celtic knot may already be you know registered or basically be not distinguishable in um you know i’ll call it beverages okay someone else is using that but let’s say you’re hoping to start a moving company uh using the celtic knot so there may not be any conflicting uses in that industry or that classification so that’s a good reason to get a trademark search done and have an attorney give you their opinion on should you seek registration and at the same time asking hey if i decide to use this logo or mark am i at risk of being sued by a rights holder that already has those rights on the trademark side so thank you for your question there we’ll do one more question and bounce back and wrap up here okay fourth question on trademarks this one is out of waldorf maryland
looks like kind of a longer form question uh let’s see if this will fit in the box
all right
okay can i do anything about someone using my name in the following situation in 2013 i created a website using my first initial and last name which is very unique to run an online store where i sold shoes in 2018 i didn’t want my name as my business anymore i thought it was too personal so i went through a name change for the business i let the domain expire and i go to check on the site today and it’s currently being used by someone else to show inappropriate content yikes my issue is my name
is yeah currently being used to show inappropriate content my issues my name is very unique and of african descent this contact can be damaging to my name and my old customers may still uh be associated oh yeah you know there’s a lot of things going on here um i i will say this first and foremost so in 2013 if you started using your name right first initial last name and it was part of the branding okay that’s very important not just the domain name right not just the website url but if you actually use that name in association with selling the shoes right let’s just say jay smith okay if you sold the and on the on the tag right on the tag of the shoe or on the logo um it said jay smith and that was the way your customers knew the product the shoes were associated with you definitely you definitely have common law trademark rights that go back to 2013 sounds like okay i’m assuming that’s the case um foot of reason right in 2018 you decided to change your name or change the logo or the trademark brand and move to a different name when you do that you sort of you can lose rights in a way and abandon a trademark and so if you have abandoned it right for really any amount of time uh someone else can take over that brand and assume the rights now uh it sounds like someone else picked that up perhaps just because of the website traffic right maybe there was some benefit to using that name or it was known for um something else okay and so it sounds like they were not selling shoes if someone’s sort of inappropriate content maybe they’re selling the news or media or some other illicit type of behavior so that’s not necessarily conflicting with shoes okay so i think from a pure trademark perspective i don’t think there’s a real good legal standing for you um especially if you’ve abandoned the mark in 2018 and it’s been several years since then you haven’t really claimed ownership on that the other side of course is on privacy law okay and so you may have a definite legal recourse uh for libel or sort of defamation if you can identify that it’s particularly pointing to you and there is you know direct privacy or misappropriation of your your likeness in in sense of your name um that will be a very separate discussion and it sort of goes away from the traditional transactional ip and you may want to proceed with you know a criminal uh action uh if you believe that has taken place right so i hope that helps you answer your question i know it’s a tough situation sounds like all right let’s bring kevin back on i didn’t see any uh any more of the fallout for you kevin did you want to comment on any of those questions at all or have anything pop up in your head no those are a little bit outside the realm of my expertise but one thing i did want to mention i think this might be interesting to your um your viewers here is this think about how 3d printing is changing i thought there’s a big fundamental shift from mass production to mass customization so instead of making one product and selling a million of them now you can have one product that’s customized a million times to each individual user and it’s similar we’re seeing other we’re seeing this happen in other industries like uh think about uber as a customized app right it’s customized the experience is customized for your right your for just you you want picked up at this location and go to this location what we’re seeing in a consumer product or in the product world is the same sort of customization where people users are expecting i want my car or i want my shoe or whatever it is to be all these check boxes made specifically for me and 3d printing allows you to make a specific thing for a specific person and that kind of is going to be a shift that we’re going to continue to see growing the next few years awesome i love that yeah going from math customization to more for custom what was the phrase again mass production to mass customization mass production to mass customization that’s neat i like it i i i definitely feel that based on what you’re saying so thank you for that thank you for your time i’ll uh we’ll have you on again i think if we can bring on a little more detail deep dive and look at some products they have you show off some of the work you’re doing uh down the line so thank you again for coming on we’ll uh we’ll let you guys go have a good rest your day kevin thanks for having me on all right thank you to all we’ll be on uh next week at wednesday nine am and i’m your host jd hoover the bold today show go big go bold