March 27, 2024 • 17 mins
This week Jack tackles patents and how he handles such a difficult subject. Jack takes the unpopular view that all products do not need to be patented and that all products do not need to end up on a shelf at wal-mart.
Join Jack this week as he give you his version on the patenting process.
Join Jack this week as he give you his version on the patenting process.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
So tell me if you've heard thisone before. Lawyers, so I have
to pay them to protect me,even though there is no way of telling
if my pride will even make aset and before anyone in the public can
even see it. Isn't there aneasier way? Well no, it's just
(00:36):
like death and taxes. Everyone pays, so lighting up. It's part of
the game. Hey everybody, andwelcome back to the thirty year Overnight Sensation.
I'm your host, Jack Courage,and this podcast is a conversation,
not a class. If you're anovice inventor or want to be an inventor,
(00:57):
I will take you through the stepsof designing, manufacturing, selling,
and getting your product out into themarket. This podcast is not a front
for a subscription service or some companytrying to generate money off of your ideas.
It's about the trials of inventing andit's not easy, but you can
(01:17):
do it yourself. You just haveto be smart about it. Now that
we've made it through the tough episodes, the idea, the prototyping, and
the manufacturing, I hope this episodeis a little bit lighter. This week
we'll deal with legal and how Ihandle that area. A few weeks ago,
I glossed over the legal to barrelthrough the prototyping and the manufacturing stages.
(01:42):
I didn't want to get bogged downinto legal at that time. Why
Well, to me and almost everyinventor, legal which is, there's a
lot to legal, but trademarks,copyrights, patents, design patents, utility
patents, you name it. Italmost always is painful and it is always
(02:05):
expensive. But as I've spoken aboutbefore, it is something you have to
address with each new idea. Andwhat makes it so confusing, and I've
said this before to the new inventorand even to a guy like me still
who's been doing this a while,if you had five lawyers patent lawyers,
(02:28):
you'd get five different answers. It'struly like paying taxes. You have to
pay your taxes. But the taxcode is ten thousand pages, so there
are many ways to approach paying yourtaxes, but you still have to pay
your taxes. Isn't that right,mister Snipes. For inventors, you do
(02:51):
not have to do one thing.Let me say it again, you do
not have to do one thing whenyou invent a product. But the trade
for not doing anything is that youridea is then unprotected and anyone can take
that idea and maybe you don't care, and there's nothing wrong with that.
(03:13):
I have had numerous products that Ichose not to protect. I made the
decision that I did not want tospend the money on something that even my
lawyer thought would be difficult to protect. And believe me, they want to
protect everything because that's how they maketheir money in fees. But sometimes it's
just not worth it. You're betteroff speed to market and trying to beat
(03:36):
anybody there, and if it becomespopular, you were the first one there.
So why go into this so much? It bores me to death and
I'd rather not even spend a minuteof time on it. But it always
has to be addressed. But Iwill tell you one thing. There are
tons of podcasts on patenting, licensingand protecting your ideas. As a new
(04:00):
inventor, you really need to pickone and review it. I don't pretend
to be an expert in this area. I can only offer you my view
on protecting products. So as anew inventor, I sincerely hope you check
out some of the patenting products becauseman, you're gonna get a ton of
opinions, and you just got tokind of pick out what you think is
(04:23):
best for you and then roll withit. So back to protecting. For
example, my product the hand Flag. After I had my seamstress Pam show
me a hand flag the hand Flagworking prototype, I had to make a
very expensive decision right then and there, which I alluded to a couple episodes
(04:44):
back. Was my idea the handflag, based on the sample I was
seeing right then and there, atthat exact moment, good enough to spend
money on a patent? And didI think it would sell if I truly
thought that it had the ability tobe picked up sometime in the next fifteen
(05:04):
to twenty years for sports craze abetter file for a patent. If I
didn't, I had to bear theresponsibility that if I made it a hit,
anyone could steal that idea, whichnow this is my cynicism, would
eventually happen anyway, but the patentwould give me a head start and I
(05:28):
would have ownership of creating the idea. For me. This one was an
easy decision. I did not recallever seeing anything like the hand Flag before.
After looking into it more closely andresearching my lawyer, and I couldn't
find anything directly related in the publicrecords. That doesn't mean a patent examiner
(05:50):
might not find something from the yeareighteen twenty or nineteen ten. But once
again, since we couldn't find anythingdirectly related that we could look up that
if an examiner were to find somethingway in the past, chances are you
(06:10):
know, it might limit my scopeof invention and I would just have a
smaller protecting patent, but I wouldit would still protect me for a while,
and for me in that case,probably worth the cost for what I
was trying to do. So putaway another three thousand or five thousand,
(06:30):
and man, that hurts. AsI stated last season, some people treat
patents as a status symbol, butthey are really just there to protect you.
And if you're not using them toprotect you, why spend the money?
Jack, I want people to knowI'm smart. Yeah, Yeah,
(06:53):
there are people out there that justget patents to get patents, But really,
I personally think it, Oh wereforwards and backwards before I file for
every patent. And remember there's ahuge cost to even starting out, no
less than fifteen hundred to start adesign patent, and nowadays, probably four
(07:16):
to five thousand to really get goingon a utility patent, and if you
start with a patent search, whichis never a bad idea, it's another
thousand bucks and that is before youeven file. So let's take another look
at the hand flag idea as anexample. Say you had no plans to
start a sports graze. You justwoke up one day and thought, I
(07:42):
think this is a good idea,and I want to sell it at parades
in my town and around town andkeep it small. Once again, I
do think this is great. Tocreate something doesn't mean it has to end
up on a shelf at Walmart.Part of what America was founded on was
the freedom to make our own decisionsand do what makes us happy personally,
(08:03):
and I do believe this. Ithink people would be happier if they could
create things that they needed or sawa need for, but it was just
for themselves. I do it allthe time, and I may never sell
that idea. I make it justfor me, for products just for you,
or just to keep local. Tryingto get a patent probably isn't on
(08:26):
your radar, and with the goalof just selling for fun or a novelty
it probably shouldn't be. And remember, once you sell it publicly, you
can't go back then and file fora patent because you've disclosed it to the
public. That is where the decidingmust happen before you sell or expose it
(08:46):
to the public. And I can'tgo into it enough about how important this
is. So I will tell youone common thing I do to protect myself
on my products that I choose topret If I think it's whimsical and I
don't see the need for much protection, I'll start with a design patent.
(09:09):
If I think the product has functionalaspects to it, and then I think
it's gonna really need protection, I'llfile for utility pattern. But two things
are very important about this decision.First thing, nothing with the government is
fast. And number two, whichshocks a lot of people, I will
(09:31):
not, I repeat not, hesitateto abandon a patent. Jack, You're
crazy. All that hard work andmoney and you walk away. Yes,
I will walk away from the patentprocess. Now why would I do that
after all the thousands of dollars Imay have put in. The reason is
(09:52):
simple, if I am not ableto make the product, the success through
sales in a given timeframe walk andthere are many reasons for a failure.
And I even hate to use thatword failure because it still stings and I've
had it happen. So here ismy example. So what if you develop
(10:13):
a certain style of carrying case fora very popular phone style. Great,
you file, you're protected, you'remaking sales, it's going good. Then
somebody else comes along with a newphone style and everyone adapts to it.
My carrying case will now go extinct. Good morning iPods and Blackberries. So
(10:37):
you can see the writing on thewall. Maybe one or two more seasons
of sale, and that's it.That's all that's left. That's tops.
And since the patenting process from theUnited States government is so slow, even
slower now since COVID nineteen, yourproduct could be extinct way before even the
(11:00):
first judgment for the government is rendered. Why continue to pay on something that
has no value? I can't sayit enough. A patent is only there
to protect someone from stealing your idea. And if your idea just went extinct,
why would you continue to put moneyin it? I mean, I
(11:20):
just don't now. People will sayit could always come back in style,
yes, but your protection is notgood forever, which I believe. Now
the greatest you can get in thepatent area is twenty years. My then
protected designs from the mid two thousandcarrying cases. Had I continued to protect
(11:41):
them, would be expired by now. And none of those carrying case designs
have come back. So when Ilet them go, I actually won.
But yeah, I have a fewless patents in my name, So what
it doesn't If it doesn't protect youand you're not making money. The only
reason to keep them then is forvanity, and personally I have too many
(12:05):
ideas and not enough time to worryabout vanity. As for copyrights and trademarks,
they do have different steps and youcan protect yourself longer in their areas,
but you do have to consult withyour lawyer on how it applies to
you and your product. So nowthis is where the money comes in.
Remember I said the hand flag asan example. I figure the prototype and
(12:30):
the manufacturing line sample plus testing wouldbe about three thousand dollars. Well,
that turned out to be pretty close. But now you have to add legal.
Let's say this is your first timeand your lawyer advises you that the
hand flag is a simple design patentabout fifteen hundred dollars plus thousand dollars for
(12:50):
research. That's twenty five hundred rightthere. In Jackmath, what I showed
you before better put away five fivethousand for legal. Now we add the
last episodes in where we ordered threethousand units, which is fifteen hundred pairs.
I was guessing that you'd probably getthe unit costs down to about five
(13:13):
dollars a pair, which I didat fifteen hundred pairs. Now, so
now it's seventy five hundred dollars justfor the product. You know, to
get yourself rolling with Jack Math,you're looking at three thousand for the prototype,
five thousand for legal, plus seventyfive hundred for manufacturing. That's fifteen
(13:33):
thousand, five hundred dollars. Jack. I could get a great down payment
on a new car with that money. And the answer is you could.
But if you think like that,you're probably not an inventor. I don't
bring up the legal and the costas a deterrent. I bring it up
(13:54):
so that you are aware and whatyou might need to know. In my
case, I told my self andmy investors this was going to be a
fifteen thousand dollars gambit, which isnothing to sneeze at. So to go
this route, if you're just startingout in the lifetime of this idea,
will you sell three thousand pairs neededjust to break even, which now includes
(14:20):
protype manufacturing and legal. Once again, if you're sitting there and you think,
hmm, I think five hundred pairsis a lot, and I doubt
I'll ever sell three thousand pairs.Ever, that adding the legal is probably
not the way you want to gothis time. But let's say you like
(14:41):
the idea the hand flag, andyou want to make it a go,
and you know you need approximately fifteensixteen thousand dollars to make it happen.
I'm hoping you don't stop and yougo to get that much. I'm hoping
you say, as I did afew years ago when I was starting out,
HM fifteen thousand dollars. I thinkI can raise five thousand a party.
(15:07):
So I'd need three big parties tocome up with that amount. Or
I'd take a second job, whichis when I used to do quite a
lot. Or I'd get some investors, or i'd just sell stuff that I
had, or I did it alltogether all above. It always comes down
to just how far you want togo to make it happen. And if
(15:31):
my older self could tell my youngerself anything, it would be you know,
stay away from fair skin brunettes andmost importantly, stirs up your product
ideas acceleration so that if you domake a mistake, you can pull back
(15:52):
and it's less painful to recover.And if you have to recover, you
know, just go at it anotherway later, pull back, figure it
out, go at it again.You will also see that this never can
be done overnight. It takes time, and that is where your security of
your idea is so crucial. Legallyspeaking. Can you imagine if you came
(16:18):
up with a good idea and whileyou were testing it, someone grabbed it,
photoed it, and now it's outon the web. You're finished.
All your hard work just went outthe window right there. Now. Of
course you can still make it andproduce it and sell it, but you
wouldn't be able to protect it,and that does give you give up an
(16:40):
edge at some point, so youhave to be crafty on how you test
it. And it's exposure. It'sone of the few things that keeps me
up at night when you have veryexcited investors that want input from other people.
If you don't control the exposure,it can easily slip and you'll regret
it if you wanted at protection.But once you have made the decision to
(17:03):
file, and you do file,and in the future a look or an
image does squeak out, at leastyou'll be protected. So until next time,
when you're thinking of ideas, neversettle. And when you're stuck,
i mean really struggling, just staythe course. Keep in mind when it
(17:26):
gets tough, that's when most peoplegive up and quit. There's always another
way. I'm your host, JackCourage the thirty year Overnight Sensation. Stay
at it.
So tell me if you've heard thisone before. Lawyers, so I have
to pay them to protect me,even though there is no way of telling
if my pride will even make aset and before anyone in the public can
even see it. Isn't there aneasier way? Well no, it's just
(00:36):
like death and taxes. Everyone pays, so lighting up. It's part of
the game. Hey everybody, andwelcome back to the thirty year Overnight Sensation.
I'm your host, Jack Courage,and this podcast is a conversation,
not a class. If you're anovice inventor or want to be an inventor,
(00:57):
I will take you through the stepsof designing, manufacturing, selling,
and getting your product out into themarket. This podcast is not a front
for a subscription service or some companytrying to generate money off of your ideas.
It's about the trials of inventing andit's not easy, but you can
(01:17):
do it yourself. You just haveto be smart about it. Now that
we've made it through the tough episodes, the idea, the prototyping, and
the manufacturing, I hope this episodeis a little bit lighter. This week
we'll deal with legal and how Ihandle that area. A few weeks ago,
I glossed over the legal to barrelthrough the prototyping and the manufacturing stages.
(01:42):
I didn't want to get bogged downinto legal at that time. Why
Well, to me and almost everyinventor, legal which is, there's a
lot to legal, but trademarks,copyrights, patents, design patents, utility
patents, you name it. Italmost always is painful and it is always
(02:05):
expensive. But as I've spoken aboutbefore, it is something you have to
address with each new idea. Andwhat makes it so confusing, and I've
said this before to the new inventorand even to a guy like me still
who's been doing this a while,if you had five lawyers patent lawyers,
(02:28):
you'd get five different answers. It'struly like paying taxes. You have to
pay your taxes. But the taxcode is ten thousand pages, so there
are many ways to approach paying yourtaxes, but you still have to pay
your taxes. Isn't that right,mister Snipes. For inventors, you do
(02:51):
not have to do one thing.Let me say it again, you do
not have to do one thing whenyou invent a product. But the trade
for not doing anything is that youridea is then unprotected and anyone can take
that idea and maybe you don't care, and there's nothing wrong with that.
(03:13):
I have had numerous products that Ichose not to protect. I made the
decision that I did not want tospend the money on something that even my
lawyer thought would be difficult to protect. And believe me, they want to
protect everything because that's how they maketheir money in fees. But sometimes it's
just not worth it. You're betteroff speed to market and trying to beat
(03:36):
anybody there, and if it becomespopular, you were the first one there.
So why go into this so much? It bores me to death and
I'd rather not even spend a minuteof time on it. But it always
has to be addressed. But Iwill tell you one thing. There are
tons of podcasts on patenting, licensingand protecting your ideas. As a new
(04:00):
inventor, you really need to pickone and review it. I don't pretend
to be an expert in this area. I can only offer you my view
on protecting products. So as anew inventor, I sincerely hope you check
out some of the patenting products becauseman, you're gonna get a ton of
opinions, and you just got tokind of pick out what you think is
(04:23):
best for you and then roll withit. So back to protecting. For
example, my product the hand Flag. After I had my seamstress Pam show
me a hand flag the hand Flagworking prototype, I had to make a
very expensive decision right then and there, which I alluded to a couple episodes
(04:44):
back. Was my idea the handflag, based on the sample I was
seeing right then and there, atthat exact moment, good enough to spend
money on a patent? And didI think it would sell if I truly
thought that it had the ability tobe picked up sometime in the next fifteen
(05:04):
to twenty years for sports craze abetter file for a patent. If I
didn't, I had to bear theresponsibility that if I made it a hit,
anyone could steal that idea, whichnow this is my cynicism, would
eventually happen anyway, but the patentwould give me a head start and I
(05:28):
would have ownership of creating the idea. For me. This one was an
easy decision. I did not recallever seeing anything like the hand Flag before.
After looking into it more closely andresearching my lawyer, and I couldn't
find anything directly related in the publicrecords. That doesn't mean a patent examiner
(05:50):
might not find something from the yeareighteen twenty or nineteen ten. But once
again, since we couldn't find anythingdirectly related that we could look up that
if an examiner were to find somethingway in the past, chances are you
(06:10):
know, it might limit my scopeof invention and I would just have a
smaller protecting patent, but I wouldit would still protect me for a while,
and for me in that case,probably worth the cost for what I
was trying to do. So putaway another three thousand or five thousand,
(06:30):
and man, that hurts. AsI stated last season, some people treat
patents as a status symbol, butthey are really just there to protect you.
And if you're not using them toprotect you, why spend the money?
Jack, I want people to knowI'm smart. Yeah, Yeah,
(06:53):
there are people out there that justget patents to get patents, But really,
I personally think it, Oh wereforwards and backwards before I file for
every patent. And remember there's ahuge cost to even starting out, no
less than fifteen hundred to start adesign patent, and nowadays, probably four
(07:16):
to five thousand to really get goingon a utility patent, and if you
start with a patent search, whichis never a bad idea, it's another
thousand bucks and that is before youeven file. So let's take another look
at the hand flag idea as anexample. Say you had no plans to
start a sports graze. You justwoke up one day and thought, I
(07:42):
think this is a good idea,and I want to sell it at parades
in my town and around town andkeep it small. Once again, I
do think this is great. Tocreate something doesn't mean it has to end
up on a shelf at Walmart.Part of what America was founded on was
the freedom to make our own decisionsand do what makes us happy personally,
(08:03):
and I do believe this. Ithink people would be happier if they could
create things that they needed or sawa need for, but it was just
for themselves. I do it allthe time, and I may never sell
that idea. I make it justfor me, for products just for you,
or just to keep local. Tryingto get a patent probably isn't on
(08:26):
your radar, and with the goalof just selling for fun or a novelty
it probably shouldn't be. And remember, once you sell it publicly, you
can't go back then and file fora patent because you've disclosed it to the
public. That is where the decidingmust happen before you sell or expose it
(08:46):
to the public. And I can'tgo into it enough about how important this
is. So I will tell youone common thing I do to protect myself
on my products that I choose topret If I think it's whimsical and I
don't see the need for much protection, I'll start with a design patent.
(09:09):
If I think the product has functionalaspects to it, and then I think
it's gonna really need protection, I'llfile for utility pattern. But two things
are very important about this decision.First thing, nothing with the government is
fast. And number two, whichshocks a lot of people, I will
(09:31):
not, I repeat not, hesitateto abandon a patent. Jack, You're
crazy. All that hard work andmoney and you walk away. Yes,
I will walk away from the patentprocess. Now why would I do that
after all the thousands of dollars Imay have put in. The reason is
(09:52):
simple, if I am not ableto make the product, the success through
sales in a given timeframe walk andthere are many reasons for a failure.
And I even hate to use thatword failure because it still stings and I've
had it happen. So here ismy example. So what if you develop
(10:13):
a certain style of carrying case fora very popular phone style. Great,
you file, you're protected, you'remaking sales, it's going good. Then
somebody else comes along with a newphone style and everyone adapts to it.
My carrying case will now go extinct. Good morning iPods and Blackberries. So
(10:37):
you can see the writing on thewall. Maybe one or two more seasons
of sale, and that's it.That's all that's left. That's tops.
And since the patenting process from theUnited States government is so slow, even
slower now since COVID nineteen, yourproduct could be extinct way before even the
(11:00):
first judgment for the government is rendered. Why continue to pay on something that
has no value? I can't sayit enough. A patent is only there
to protect someone from stealing your idea. And if your idea just went extinct,
why would you continue to put moneyin it? I mean, I
(11:20):
just don't now. People will sayit could always come back in style,
yes, but your protection is notgood forever, which I believe. Now
the greatest you can get in thepatent area is twenty years. My then
protected designs from the mid two thousandcarrying cases. Had I continued to protect
(11:41):
them, would be expired by now. And none of those carrying case designs
have come back. So when Ilet them go, I actually won.
But yeah, I have a fewless patents in my name, So what
it doesn't If it doesn't protect youand you're not making money. The only
reason to keep them then is forvanity, and personally I have too many
(12:05):
ideas and not enough time to worryabout vanity. As for copyrights and trademarks,
they do have different steps and youcan protect yourself longer in their areas,
but you do have to consult withyour lawyer on how it applies to
you and your product. So nowthis is where the money comes in.
Remember I said the hand flag asan example. I figure the prototype and
(12:30):
the manufacturing line sample plus testing wouldbe about three thousand dollars. Well,
that turned out to be pretty close. But now you have to add legal.
Let's say this is your first timeand your lawyer advises you that the
hand flag is a simple design patentabout fifteen hundred dollars plus thousand dollars for
(12:50):
research. That's twenty five hundred rightthere. In Jackmath, what I showed
you before better put away five fivethousand for legal. Now we add the
last episodes in where we ordered threethousand units, which is fifteen hundred pairs.
I was guessing that you'd probably getthe unit costs down to about five
(13:13):
dollars a pair, which I didat fifteen hundred pairs. Now, so
now it's seventy five hundred dollars justfor the product. You know, to
get yourself rolling with Jack Math,you're looking at three thousand for the prototype,
five thousand for legal, plus seventyfive hundred for manufacturing. That's fifteen
(13:33):
thousand, five hundred dollars. Jack. I could get a great down payment
on a new car with that money. And the answer is you could.
But if you think like that,you're probably not an inventor. I don't
bring up the legal and the costas a deterrent. I bring it up
(13:54):
so that you are aware and whatyou might need to know. In my
case, I told my self andmy investors this was going to be a
fifteen thousand dollars gambit, which isnothing to sneeze at. So to go
this route, if you're just startingout in the lifetime of this idea,
will you sell three thousand pairs neededjust to break even, which now includes
(14:20):
protype manufacturing and legal. Once again, if you're sitting there and you think,
hmm, I think five hundred pairsis a lot, and I doubt
I'll ever sell three thousand pairs.Ever, that adding the legal is probably
not the way you want to gothis time. But let's say you like
(14:41):
the idea the hand flag, andyou want to make it a go,
and you know you need approximately fifteensixteen thousand dollars to make it happen.
I'm hoping you don't stop and yougo to get that much. I'm hoping
you say, as I did afew years ago when I was starting out,
HM fifteen thousand dollars. I thinkI can raise five thousand a party.
(15:07):
So I'd need three big parties tocome up with that amount. Or
I'd take a second job, whichis when I used to do quite a
lot. Or I'd get some investors, or i'd just sell stuff that I
had, or I did it alltogether all above. It always comes down
to just how far you want togo to make it happen. And if
(15:31):
my older self could tell my youngerself anything, it would be you know,
stay away from fair skin brunettes andmost importantly, stirs up your product
ideas acceleration so that if you domake a mistake, you can pull back
(15:52):
and it's less painful to recover.And if you have to recover, you
know, just go at it anotherway later, pull back, figure it
out, go at it again.You will also see that this never can
be done overnight. It takes time, and that is where your security of
your idea is so crucial. Legallyspeaking. Can you imagine if you came
(16:18):
up with a good idea and whileyou were testing it, someone grabbed it,
photoed it, and now it's outon the web. You're finished.
All your hard work just went outthe window right there. Now. Of
course you can still make it andproduce it and sell it, but you
wouldn't be able to protect it,and that does give you give up an
(16:40):
edge at some point, so youhave to be crafty on how you test
it. And it's exposure. It'sone of the few things that keeps me
up at night when you have veryexcited investors that want input from other people.
If you don't control the exposure,it can easily slip and you'll regret
it if you wanted at protection.But once you have made the decision to
(17:03):
file, and you do file,and in the future a look or an
image does squeak out, at leastyou'll be protected. So until next time,
when you're thinking of ideas, neversettle. And when you're stuck,
i mean really struggling, just staythe course. Keep in mind when it
(17:26):
gets tough, that's when most peoplegive up and quit. There's always another
way. I'm your host, JackCourage the thirty year Overnight Sensation. Stay
at it.
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New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!