Patent Attorney and Founder
Hey everybody welcome to the bold today show i am patent attorney jb hoovener also the owner here at bold patten’s law firm i’m here every wednesday uh at 9 00 a.m pacific and noon on the east coast so come one come all we’re welcoming entrepreneurs inventors people interested in learning more about inventions and patent law i do want to provide a brief agenda for today i’m excited to bring on one of our guests also a client of ours here at the firm she’s brave enough to come on the show with us today we were just talking before we went live so i am very excited to bring her on a little quick sneak peek she is in the beauty industry and uh has a great background so the first thing we’re going to do is talk about with our guest and for anyone that has brought in or has asked an avo.com question i will be answering those here in this session at the end so in about 10 to 15 minutes so hang tight i encourage you to stay with us if you’re going to be joining or watching the program after we recorded it so again our agenda is uh to do a interview with our guest we’ll do the obvious questions and we’ll field a live q a throughout the session before we jump to our guest session i want to also offer a free screening session so now is are you thinking about today and it’s the right time to get started you’re not sure if you want to speak with an attorney yet you’ve started the invention process but you want to see if working with a law firm if you’re at that point i encourage you to schedule a free screening with one of our advisors and that’s the link to do that right there it’s a uh it is free it’s a non-um no fee 15 20 minute talk we learn about what you’re up to where you’re at in the invention process and it’s now is the right time for you to meet with one of our patent attorneys for doing that for taking action i’ll give you a copy of this book that i wrote bold ideas the inventor’s guide to patents um here’s the hard copy but you’re going to get a digital pdf version it’s 150 pages or so it’s got all the nuts and bolts about what you need to get started from what’s different between a patent and a trademark provisional versus non-provisional international patent protection trade secrets uh i talked about a lot of those things so you know if it’s your first time you know getting started in this process the patent is new to you i believe hardly that education is a very important aspect and we want to have clients that are informed as we go through this process so it is much encouraged and i appreciate all you are taking action
and we will again like i said before be featuring live questions and jumping in and taking those first um and i uh i’ll be offering that that free screening session with the free book today so check out that link as we move forward in this program okay without further ado i’ll bring on our guest she’s been waiting patiently backstage danielle thanks for joining yes of course so glad to be here awesome well yeah i appreciate you and you’re having courage to come on um and you are ahead of the game for most inventors that i have on the show that are just uh you know for the first time coming on uh talking about their invention you’ve actually got a company up and running and you’ve got a website and a company started so tell me about all natural glow and um and where it’s currently at yeah so all natural glow i actually launched september 1st 2020 that’s when i first started selling a few products on amazon and i was selling hair accessories uh satin bonnets and then eventually hair scrunchies as well and this was actually a really good starting point because it was low cost up front it was pretty low risk it was at amazon where you have a built-in customer base right and then this business is has completely funded my invention so that way it wasn’t having to come out of pocket and take from my savings i was able to fund all of everything related to the patenting process and um in prototyping and all those things related to the business through my existing business so that was um just actually really perfect
it just happened that way okay you didn’t have to you know scrounge up savings or you know bug friends and family or hiring get find an investor you had enough hustle and entrepreneur you know uh you know with it to to get enough revenue going to afford that in investment in your innovation um very cool very cool and and you have an interesting background we were talking before uh how you are currently a civil engineer and also running this company as well tell me about basically how you do that first of all and then how potentially the engineering background supports and is helpful for growing you know your own enterprise yeah so i’m a civil engineer as you mentioned i have my bachelor’s and master’s in civil and environmental engineering and i currently work for the los angeles county sanitation districts and that is a full-time job i have to take time off to do the live and um i have to it’s it’s interesting i know you’re an engineer too i think um with engineering you often find these type a personalities and um in your training you’re very often trying to solve a problem and figuring out how to improve different things and come up with solutions and that 100 is woven in all the way through my business when my first product to my products i’m developing right now it’s i’m my target customer and so i’m using products that are out in the market and i’m saying i don’t like this i don’t like that this could really be improved and like people have those thoughts all the time like man they should have really done this instead and and i made those into products and so my motto is actually hair care engineered better and that’s 100 our mission that’s what we try to do and um it’s it’s really been helpful for sure my engineering background but you don’t need one of course but it’s been helpful well good yeah i think you know certainly having that uh you know technical experience having the background helps you with maybe analytics and help you kind of be more regiment um and ask those questions but i think you hit the nail on the head with you’re out you’re a problem solver right that’s what engineers do and you see problems in your in this specific industry um and you’re you’ve started to uh solve the problem for yourself he said i want different products i might as well just open up and help other people too we have a susan sudeth uh absolutely please ask away you’ve got a question you’re welcome to uh fire away for either danielle or myself and we’ll just keep chatting here so um if you have got a website up and you’ve got a product um you know for sale now you haven’t actually gotten a patent granted yet so some people are new to this process so i’ll walk people through it so you have done a patent search with us you’ve done a provisional patent application so you’re now patent pending which locks in that all-important date so any inventor that tries to file for a product that’s similar to this after you will lose in that priority battle so while your patents pending you’re going to market and you’re a lot of people aren’t even yet developing products and so let’s talk about that how how did that how did you go about that you know developing sourcing prototyping your and your product yeah it was difficult um of course it was pretty different from my original products because nothing like it existed and you know some i didn’t want to pay for 3d render or any of these drawings like these things that some people may come when they have an invention and go i was really trying to bootstrap it so i would reach out to companies through alibaba and i was just having conversations seeing their different capabilities and what they could do and once i found one that was a good match i started talking through what i was looking for and in terms of patent protection it’s not what you should do i know that now i didn’t know that at the time however i was going to a company that wasn’t in this industry they’re making different types of items and they that have electrical elements mine has an electrical element so i wasn’t necessarily worried about some of these competitors that would be trying to copycat me right off the bat because they if they’re just completely upset in the spectrum they didn’t even know what i was trying to get it made for so that helped yeah yeah and just just to clarify for anyone that’s out there listening is wondering what what does she mean by it wasn’t the best for the patent process and the key is that you cannot you know disclose publicly or share your inventions um more than a year before you file so it really puts you on a timeline and of course it puts you at risk to someone else just ripping your idea off without having the following done first so yes that is the ideal what we recommend normally is to get the filing done and then begin reaching out um danielle you’re just you’re on the hustle you want to get this done and get it out so you made it work and i think with limited exposure so kudos to you on that we have a question coming in from susan um we’ll take a quick let’s see if it’s related to what you’re up to daniel okay it looks like it is a different question so susan what i’ll do is when we get done talking with danielle i’ll put your question up first so hang in there just a few minutes okay she has a cool question about a foreign country um or her micro entity filing um okay okay so um let’s talk about your product okay so you have developed something special for hair conditioning right yes so i have a deep conditioning heat cap and it’s battery powered it’s rechargeable and how you use it for people if they’re doing their hair at home they’re washing their hair and they want to make their deep conditioning treatment more impactful really penetrate their hair strands and maximize all of those nutrients actually going to nourish your hair they’ll often apply in direct heat the current applications they have some microwavable heat caps where you just put it in a microwave and it has some sort of filling that will contain heat and then it’ll heat up then the heat of course naturally dissipates over time and depending on the filling it can end up being kind of centered in one part of your head and then there are some others that you have to plug in so you have to stay kind of tied down to an electrical outlet and then in my case it’s completely portable it’s efficient with heating it has over an hour of heating time and i say it’s ultra ultimate convenience without compromising quality i love it that was quick quick now for someone who is not in this industry um why might you i guess what is the state of the art what is the current solution for this you know if they did if this wasn’t out there what would you use in sort of the standard run-of-the-mill you know uh beauty parlor what would you see how would you get your hair dry or connected if you went to a beauty parlor they would put a shower cap on you and they put you under a big hair dryer it’s like a big dome over your head actually that’s right okay and you’re stuck you’re sitting there for how long uh 30 minutes to an hour to pay the best sometimes depending on how many clients they have if you’re in the salon okay and you’re saying that yeah some people okay they have realized like you like okay i got other things to do i wouldn’t mind walking around uh but you’re saying those other solutions um you mentioned microwavable but they’re not really it’s not like an ongoing heat and then uh it’s just nothing like what you’ve got right there’s no other way to keep it dry cool very cool well congrats on that and could you show me again that that power button and maybe some of the functionality yeah so it’s um one power button for all controls you can hold it i just realized the battery isn’t actually in it right now because okay i give my customers a little a little pack to keep everything um so you hold the power button down yes of course uh it turns it on and then you press it you can press it for three different adjustable heats and then you hold the power button again to turn it off guys see that that is easy so no like you know you don’t need a whole keyboard programming knowledge it’s straightforward nope the um battery just goes right here in this little pocket and then they can plug it in or disconnect it and then they are all good to go and of course brandon very nice and you did this all by yourself yeah yeah i actually even coded my first website by myself so this is very bootstrap all right all right and speaking of that website let me show you let me show your site um briefly here okay so we are on uh allnaturalglow.com this is the right one right okay and so can i take us through kind of where you’d like to see customers that they’re the first time coming to your page what would you want them to see yeah first they come of course they see the glow heat cap featured as soon as they scroll down our model haircare engineered better and the glow heat cap we have a video demonstrating how to use it and then you can go straight to the listing and it shows all of its features and what makes it different from what’s currently out there there you go excellent and you do have an instagram page as well let me put this website down in the comments so people have that here oops there we yeah whoa all right and instagram there you are okay modeling it perfect yes and that once again bootstrap no problem just putting your face in front of the company i appreciate that good very good all right um so there’s that there’s the handle right there if anyone wants to follow inventor of the first rechargeable heat cap yes love that okay perfect well um lots of stuff we could talk about if we do have time at the end i will want to check in with you on a few other things if we have time but for now i want to thank you for being brave enough to come on um and we have uh we have a few questions to get to so we’ll put you backstage so thank you daniel
okay susan thank you for hanging in you’ve got a couple good questions i love it um so you say i have a micro entity and a utility patent with patent pending uh but they said i was not protected in uh china i believe it says china north korea and mexico uh uspto said i would have to go to these countries to follow publications that is correct right okay so if you followed with the us which i assume that’s where you’re pending at you do have to file into other countries to get protection so having a filing in the u.s only provides you protection in the u.s so they are correct and there is a 12-month deadline okay this is kind of one of the issues that can come up if for example you’re filing on your own or if it’s you know maybe you’re working with someone you may not be quite an experienced you’ve got to make sure you hit that 12-month deadline so today’s august 11th so if august 11th 2020 was when you filed your non-provisional for your first priority application you must file a foreign filing by august 11th 2021 okay so that’s today now there is another option instead of filing direct in those other countries you can file what’s called the patent cooperation treaty the pct patent and that’s basically the acronym for a treaty where almost every country you’ve ever heard of including china i don’t know about north korea but mexico have signed on to these treaties and they had they say yep we will acknowledge the one search done by the u.s examiner and we’re going to let an additional 18 months go by before you have to select which countries you want to file into so i know that’s a lot so susan what i’ll do is i’ll provide my contact info if you want to follow up with a specific question maybe you’re still within that one year and you’d like some help getting started i’ll include my email address and a text only phone number if that is helpful for you he also got under the wire with a second question so i’ll i’ll pop that one up here as well okay i have an llc for my business and it drops tomorrow on social media i’ll use amazon in my case my product is the sex belt all right i went under lift two inches so i would not be in the sex toys section okay my belt was the method over the need for men and women to have more pleasurable sex it lifts your fupa okay well there it is thank you for sharing that uh congrats on your invention um you know if you would provide a link you know i’m i’m not afraid to let you uh put that here in the comments i want to you know encourage your participation here and we do not discriminate inventions are come in all different sorts uh sex industry and it is a huge uh industry so we can’t ignore it and we have definitely served inventors in that field so congrats on that all right so let’s see i’ve got a couple avo.com questions thank you for those who have been waiting they’re all in the area of trademark okay so no patent questions came up this week this one is out of los angeles california let’s see if we could jump to that i’ll put that in the comments here
all right here we go okay so the question is um who do i consult about having a mobile application made available outside of the united states i want to make sure that we’re in compliance and handling each element of the business appropriately in this regard um well it was from the close of the window here some construction going on next door all those civil engineers you know okay um well so when you’re when you’re having a mobile app made outside the us there’s a major red flag okay and that you’re contracting and doing business with um someone who you know who is going to be more challenging you know if there’s a breach of contract let’s just say that would be more challenging to try to bring them to uh to justice right you’ll be end up having to fight in a foreign jurisdiction uh you’re under the laws of a different country and it’s just more risky and there’s less control in terms of you know the us government is not going to have a whole lot of authority over that other country or the individuals that reside in that country so at least for property standpoint it worries me for sure when our inventors hire and work for excuse me contract out any work including a mobile application development outside the us but i get that it can be more affordable so certainly it’s an option and it’s a good one for those who are bootstrapping and need to just make it more affordable so um i would say that you know the uh the best thing to do is to have a good contract and and just to be very careful with what is um disclosed okay and you have to just be careful you know with the scope of work being done uh limit it and test out that contractor make sure they do what they’re saying that you know they’re gonna do and slowly build up the trust like any other business relationship and eventually allow them more and more um information and authority and hopefully they’ll reciprocate with with continued uh performance so and that’s kind of general uh that’s the uh it’s the best i can do with that question
um i should also mention with that you know with a mobile application you should before starting before hiring and talking with the third party you should explore that uh whether it is patentable okay but what you’ve developed uh in a software computer implemented version if that method or process is novel and you think it’s actually the first of its kind and it’s performing some some benefit or have some functionality that you like i said i haven’t seen before um do your own diligence and confirm that it’s new and then uh if you still think so hire a patent attorney patent law firm to help conduct and confirm that as well and if if so then you should file a patent application to protect the what it does okay before you go speak with a third party certainly someone oversees uh because that that party may just run with that idea and if you haven’t protected it um filed at first you could lose an opportunity to lock down that specific area niche okay let’s take one more question and we’ll jump back to our our guest here
all right so this question is a trademark application question
who comes out of phoenix arizona
a long one here on cover it lost my face uh okay trademarking a property name i developed some land into a campsite rental property now marketing it under a brand name currently dba under my real estate llc i wanted to start pushing more marketing out to get the attraction of campers or renters and eventually potentially selling other things under the name like merchandise um let’s just say marshmallows okay or like i don’t know would uh but i’m curious how to trademark a property name and what goods and services it would fall under i tried looking at different options the uspto but
um let’s see what the next part of the question is and what goods and services followers are showing up um but could not find what seemed to be correct any help is appreciated okay yeah so this is a pretty specific question and so backing up a little bit so when you file for treatment protection with the uspto you do have to designate what class okay and there are international classifications an important thing to know uh with respect to registering a mark is that you have to have a distinct has to be a unique right name in your class and you can’t have the same or similar or confusingly similar name as someone as another company or another brand that already has a registration in that same class so let’s say it’s musical instruments or let’s say it’s you know property management services if the name is you know barking coyote campsite okay barking coyote and um you know there if there’s a you know a howling coyote um already registered that might be confusingly similar you know coming with kind of a random example um and uh and so this person is asking about their classifications and so maybe there’s a howling coyote uh bar right you know about alcoholic beverages or restaurant classification very different from property management or even more specifically campsite you know property management and i don’t know if there’s a specific classification that goes all the way down to that level of specifying campsite investing it’s probably just more like property or property services property management services so if there’s no you know how in coyote or whatever the name is you’re looking for in that class then that’s what you should go for i would make sure that it’s the only one in that area but you’re looking for more of an answer on what exactly we recommend for your name um and for what kind of business you’re in and before i get a recommendation here on live uh i would probably want to have a discussion about what your company is and what you’re going for it looks like you’re trying to do both goods and services so it could very well be that you have to file two separate classes along with what you’re trying to sell and that’s typical right if you if you’ve got a goods and services mixed type of offering you have to pay the patent off a trademark office rather to conduct two separate searches in two different classes you know maybe it’s you know property management and it’s also um our outdoor equipment outdoor goods supplier to make sure there’s no confusingly similar name in both of those classes if you want to use the same name which is what i would imagine you’d want to do in that case so again i scroll up i did provide my email and contact information to to kind of go further on that on that question so i know when we got the two trademark questions today but i want to bring uh danielle back um back on to ask a few more questions so if you have any if you’re still on live and see about three people live um ask away we have a couple more minutes and we’ll try to get to your questions and otherwise we’ll we’ll chat more with danielle hey there how was it backstage it was good i actually put the battery in the cap hey all right well turn it on let’s see what you got what does it do oh you have different colors okay yes for low medium and high that’s high
very good hanging right now i like it okay thank you for showing us that um so i want to ask this question you know that’s why i came back so you’ve got the product obviously in hand and is it true you’re starting to sell yes so we just launched on july 19th actually and um on our website and it’s also available on our instagram shop and i just kind of started pubbing you know i’m still growing my website still growing my social media presence and everything and i’ve already been making sales so it’s been really positive yeah very good and so talk me about what you’re planning to do on the marketing and you know the fulfillment side and what that what you’re hoping that’s going to look like yeah so right now i use amazon multi-channel fulfillment for to fulfill my website products as well that way i can have my inventory streamlined because i do still currently sell on amazon not my heat cap but my other products
yeah and so i’ve been kind of promoting some of one of my videos on instagram and so that’s what’s really led to some of my sales as well as google ads and this is pretty much with no knowledge or experience i mean this is kind of just like well let’s see how this goes and they’re already converting so um maybe it makes me feel very promising once i actually get you know some knowledge and experience and marketing and facebook ads and all of that or hire someone to do it that it’ll be really good to grow well cool my wife uh mai is watching she says danielle you’re such an inspiration our daughter is watching in all girl box oh yay you love the woman yes woman supporting woman for sure okay um well we could talk for a while you know um so promoting yourself you’re doing on your own uh marketing i guess just to wrap things up um you’ve got the non-provisional ready um what is next for your company what would you love to see things go in the next year where do you see your yourself and your company go well i’d love to grow a little empire with all natural glow i have no intention of quitting my job anytime soon i think i’m going to pursue the dual career for a while it’s been too long in school to just let it go now but um right now it’s been really easy well not easy it’s been manageable to do both and um that’s my plan just keep growing it until the wheels fell off all right all right very good well we’ll have to have you back on when and if the wheels do fall off and you decide to go on your own uh if that happens it doesn’t have to but thank you for sharing your journey with us so we’ll have you on again later again thanks for coming on and we’ll uh we’ll talk to you soon thanks thanks for having me all right everybody well thanks for tuning in i’m gonna wrap this show up so uh again we’re we’re at boldip.com and we’re bold patents we’re here every wednesday with you doing a live q a bringing on guests if we have them and talking about patent law so hopefully you hope to see you soon uh next week wednesday 9am pacific at noon on the east coast i’m your host jd hoover at bold patent go big go bold