Protecting Your Business Through Trademarking
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Protecting your business can be an intimidating topic, yet it’s so important in today’s entrepreneurial world. Listen in as legal expert Joey Vitale leads us through why it’s so important to trademark, how to check to see if your business name has already been grabbed, and the secrets you never knew about trademarking in general.
Joey C. Vitale is a lawyer, speaker, and business coach for online entrepreneurs, coaches, and course creators. With his law firm and his programs, Joey helps online business owners call legal dibs on their brand names and signature methods so they never have to worry about losing their biggest assets overnight. Joey has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and has spoken all over the country to help business owners stay safe and thriving.
The episode:
Katrina Widener: Hi everyone and welcome back to the Badass Business Squad podcast. I am so excited to have Joey Vitale here today. We are going to talk about all things legal, which I know a lot of you are going to be really excited to learn a little bit about. So thank you so much Joey for coming on today, I'm really excited to have you.
Joey Vitale: I am so honored to be here. And I will say if you are like particularly excited about legal stuff? Congrats. I know you're in the minority. I know most of you are like "I'm tuning into this because I trust Katrina." Don't worry. We're going to make this light and fun and still have you walking away with very important, actionable nuggets. Like always.
Katrina Widener: Yes. Perfect. So I am really excited to have Joey here, particularly because he was recommended by a previous podcast guest, Elizabeth. So if you listened to her episode, I'm sure you're really excited to hear what he has to say. But really quickly before we dive in Joey, would you mind telling everybody about your company, your business and what you do?
Joey Vitale: Yeah, so I'm a business attorney. And after years of working to serve the online business community as best as I could with the team that I was building, I eventually realized that out of all of the legal things that we could do, and out of all the legal things that business owners needed help with, trademark specifically tended to be the first real expensive legal issue that growing brands started to face. And so over the past couple of years, we've pivoted my law firm to be a trademark only law firm. And now my personal brand, we have all of these DIY legal courses, products and memberships that helps you with the other stuff.
We know that you probably have concerns around things like LLCs, contracts, copyrights. We totally get it. It's our mission to make that stuff super easy for you. And really what we're trying to do is make it as easy as possible for businesses who haven't hit seven figures a year yet, to have all the legal protections that they need by either working with us one-to-one on trademarks or investing in one of our programs, which is like way cheaper than working with an attorney one-to-one.
Katrina Widener: That's super amazing and I'm really excited that you do that kind of work, because I know so many people who are listening to this podcast and so many of my clients that I've worked with now or in the past are like, "Yes this is the type of legal work and legal help that I'm looking for." Because I know that the legal world is something people get really intimidated by and can feel really overwhelmed by very quickly. So it feels like this is like a very achievable, I don't want to say easy but easier to manage way to work on your legal side.
Joey Vitale: And I love that you ended with the phrase legal side. Cause that's a phrase that we talk a lot about, you know, we're trying to get people peace of mind on the legal side. And the question then is what is the legal side of business?
Katrina Widener: Yes.
Joey Vitale: And we've found it's really helpful to think about it this way. If you really zoom back in your business, it's like you've got these four boxes that you're trying to figure out. You've got your brand. What's the thing about your business that sets you apart from your competition. That makes you stand behind you being priced higher than the rest of the market. Not just being a commodity. Right?
Katrina Widener: Uh huh.
Joey Vitale: So you've got your brand. You've got your relationships, right? All kinds of relationships with your team, the team that you're building, the customers, the clients, everything else. There's also this sense of separation that you need to have as a business owner. That's this third space. You know this as a business coach, but you are not your business. And you can't let how good or bad your businesses doing, define your sense of self-worth.
Katrina Widener: Oh 100%.
Joey Vitale: So it's the whole mindset game. And then finally we've got, and this is huge for online business owners, our content. Everything from our social media stuff to maybe courses or things that we're giving customers or clients when they buy from us to what's on our website, blogs, all of that stuff. I say all of that because when we think about those four boxes, then we start to ask ourselves, "Okay what's this legal box?" The truth is there is no legal box. There's just a legal counterpart to each one of these four boxes. So when it comes to your brand, again you being a distinctive type of business in your space. Like when people walk down a cereal aisle version of your business, what makes them choose your box of cereal and not whatever else is on the shelf. So that's trademarks.
When it comes to all those different types of relationships, that relationships box is your contracts. So you need contractual language in place with customers, clients, team, people who are visiting your website. When it comes to separation, this is something that kind of makes our approach unique. But I think that having that mental separation is one of the main reasons why business owners need to have an LLC. Cause we can talk about mindset all day, but if you don't form an LLC or a corporation for your business, then literally and legally speaking, you are your business.
Katrina Widener: Yeah.
Joey Vitale: So actually creating a separate business entity can do wonders for your mindset. And then content is where copyrights live. So that's the main distinction between trademarks and copyrights. Trademarks protect your brand. Things like your business, name, logo, and slogan. Things on the cereal box. Whereas copyrights protect your content.
Katrina Widener: I love the way that you just described that. Cause I do think, like I was saying beforehand, people find the legal side so intimidating. Cause they're like, "There's this big bucket of things I don't know how to do."
Joey Vitale: Right!
Katrina Widener: And instead I love that you described it the way that you did, because it really makes it be like, "Oh this feels so natural and intuitive. And of course if I have relationships, I'm going to have contracts, right? If I have my brand I'm going to need to trademark it." It makes it feel like everything's going hand in hand as opposed to this huge separation.
Joey Vitale: Right. Totally. So glad that you like it. I mean yeah I went to law school and I tried really hard to pass two different state bars and it was great. But like I had to remember a ton. And I was like, "In order for me to be the best lawyer that I can be and to build a team for myself and to make sure that our clients are understanding this stuff. I have to for myself, dumb this down at like a fourth grade reading level, and then communicate it that way." And so this "four boxes", has been not only helpful to my clients, the students in my programs, but honestly helpful for me. When I'm listening to people's problems say, "Okay, this is a brand issue. Let's talk trademarks."
Katrina Widener: That makes so much sense. Okay so I know one of the things that we run to talk about today is trademarking, because that's something that you and your team put so much emphasis on within your business. So for anyone who's listening, who maybe is like, "Okay I've thought about trademarking, but I don't know what all this entails or even how do I trademark, what do I trademark?" -- how would you describe that process to someone? How would you get them started?
Joey Vitale: Well before we dive into that question, which is a great question, I want to share a quick story/do like a super quick visualization exercise.
Katrina Widener: Yeah!
Joey Vitale: So imagine that you're about to go on vacation. Whether it's your family, alone time, whatever. But you've been working really hard in your business to have this week or two week time to just really enjoy, put business to the side. You're flying somewherecool like Hawaii. The plane lands and before you totally check out, you pull up in your email, you swipe off airplane mode, you go into your email inbox. And in your email inbox, you see a new email with the subject line Cease and Desist. And you tap through it. And it's some brand that you've never heard of say that the name of your business or your podcast or your new course that you're excited to run Facebook ads to is too similar to theirs. And they're giving you 30 days to change everything. And now you have to spend your entire vacation coming up with the new name. Changing all of your stuff behind the scenes and communicating with this other person and letting them know that you're not going to give them any money because you're going to meet their demands.
I can't tell you how many versions of that story we've heard from people. And that's the pain point that we're solving by taking care of this. Because there are really two parts. There are two things that we need to think about when it comes to trademarks. Number one is what can we do to make sure that we are protecting our brands. But before we get there, there's another pain point of how can I make sure that I'm not accidentally infringing on somebody else right now?
Katrina Widener: I love that you described it the way that you did because in a previous life I worked with a company that had a lot of artists, right? Two thirds of the staff were artists. It was a machine embroidery company, so creating in-house designs. And we were the ones sending the cease and desist letters. Right? I was the person who was like, "Alright, I have this copy and paste email form that I have to contact people and say, 'Hey. What you're selling on Etsy is really similar to what we do.'" And so it makes so much sense as a business owner to both be like, "Hey I want to make sure I'm not infringing on someone else, but also I want to make sure that I'm claiming my property on the web basically, or within the business world. I am saying, 'This is mine.'"
Joey Vitale: Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people think about trademarks like getting a domain name or getting an LLC or whatever. I encourage people to instead think about trademarks like an audition.
Katrina Widener: Yeah.
Joey Vitale: And then until you like get the part, you don't have the part. And so in other words until you secure your trademarks, you are at risk of being accused of infringing on someone else. That being said, one of the first things that we recommend people do, and you can do this right now for free, is run a free trademark office search. And see if your name or anything similar to it has been taken.
Katrina Widener: That's a really, really smart idea. And so now of course, everyone's like, how do I do this?
Joey Vitale: Yeah and this is a little bit harder to talk through just totally over audio. Cause it's not particularly easy, but the US trademark office has a free database where you can find all trademarks that are registered or that are pending. And to get there you go to uspto.gov. which is short for United States Patent and Trademark Office. There's a menu at the top.
You click trademarks, then searching trademarks, then search the trademark database, then basic word mark search. That takes you to a trademark version of Google that looked like it's like from the 1990s. Unfortunately you can't just go there and then like bookmark the link. So you have to click all of those buttons to get there each time. Once you're there though, you can search for your business name, your course, your podcast. Ideally think about these things before you commit to the names and it'll give you a list of any results that pop-up.
Katrina Widener: And also as a reminder for everyone listening, there is a full description in the show notes.
Joey Vitale: Good!
Katrina Widener: So like full transcription in the show notes. So everyone can go and read that there in addition to listening to this. So if you're like, "Oh my gosh, I cannot possibly remember all those steps," we got you covered. Don't worry.
Joey Vitale: Oh yeah.
Katrina Widener: But I can imagine so many people right now being like, "Oh my gosh, how similar am I to someone else? How close am I to someone else?" And I have a question just to clarify, so everything that's coming up, those are all of the already trademarked names. Correct?
Joey Vitale: Yeah so I'm going to get a little bit legal on you just because it really helps clarify what's actually happening here.
Katrina Widener: Yeah!
Joey Vitale: Trademarks are really weird. We talk about trademarks as if you don't have a trademark until the trademark office gives you a registration. That's not actually how this works.
Okay!
So according to trademark laws, you technically have trademark rights just by being the first person to use a distinctive word or phrase our logo for your brand. Now, if you don't secure that at the national level, your exclusive rights are only limited to your geographic area. So bigger than a city, smaller than a state. You do have some rights, they're just pretty weak. And so these days with online business owners, we're not brick and mortar shops you're just selling to people in our corner of our neighborhood anymore. So it's really important and necessary to be claiming our brands at a national level. And so when we apply for a US registered trademark, we get nationwide protections, not just to our brand, but to anything that's confusingly similar. So I say that because we talk about getting trademarked, but it's not about getting trademarked. It's about claiming trademark rights that you already have. It's like getting a birth certificate for your trademark.
Katrina Widener: That makes a lot of sense. And I feel like that's a very important clarification, so I'm glad that you included that.
Joey Vitale: Yeah and one of the amazing things about that nuance is that, you know those little trademark symbols, like the TM and the circle R? A lot of people think that you can't use those symbols until you've filed some paperwork. And it's true that you can't use the circle R until you get a registered trademark, but this is another free thing you can do right now is just slap that TM symbol on all of your brand names, podcasts, whatever. You don't need to file any paperwork to use that. That just shows that you have common law trademark rights, and it can be a really strong deterrent so that other businesses who don't understand this nuance will see that TM symbol and just take you more seriously.
Katrina Widener: That makes a lot of sense. These are the types of things that I'm sure everyone listening is like, "I have never thought about that beforehand." Or exactly what you were saying, "I never thought that I could use that." It's almost one of those things where it's like, "Well once you know, you know, right?"
Joey Vitale: This is why I think trademarks are so interesting because I think we all have a working understanding of what trademarks mean, just because we see it out there in the world. But then once we wear our business owner hats and we start taking steps around trademarks, we have to kind of unlearn a lot of what we thought we knew about all of this stuff.
Katrina Widener: And I think this is like a perfect example of why people get intimidated by the legal side of stuff. Is they're just like, "I thought I knew what trademarks were, but maybe I didn't fully understand it." and I know that when it comes to something that we're not as comfortable with people just maybe they're like "I'm going to shut that door and not look at it and pretend that side doesn't exist." Instead of being like, "No I'm actually going to explore this and see what I can do and maybe take these steps to move forward within that area, because now I actually understand it."
Joey Vitale: Yeah.
Katrina Widener: So I have another question about trademarking, because I know that a lot of times the other thing that holds people back when it comes to the legal side of their business is this fear that everything's going to cost an exorbitante amount of money. And so I was wondering if you would be willing to kind of enlighten our listeners on if they chose to actually go through and get that quote unquote "birth certificate" for their assets. What that actually would look like? How much that would actually cost? I'm assuming working with someone like you and actually hiring someone who knows what they're doing is probably the biggest cost, but I wanted to make sure that was perfectly clear for everyone who's listening.
Joey Vitale: Yeah. So again, assuming that people want to take some steps on this, Indie Law focuses on trademarks, cause we see trademarks as like when you get in a car, the buckling up is trademarks. There might be other airbags around the car or whatever, but this is the main thing that we want to help business owners with. So knowing that this is really the main risk that we want to avoid and be aware of. You have options for moving forward. If you feel like you have the time to figure this out, we actually have a course that you can walk through. It will only take you about three hours and you can do it all yourself.
We've got a Facebook group there to support you. We've had hundreds of people go through the course, that's around $500. If you try and do it totally by yourself without investing in any type of guidance, you're still going to have to pay government filing fees of $250 to $350 or more dollars. And then working with my firm is an investment of about $2000. And really it's in terms of whether I invest in some type of a resource that helps me do this on my own, or I just "hail mary" it off to someone to do it all for me.
The reason why indie law does only trademarks is because we've tried adding other types of services before to what we do. Because people are asking us all the time, "Can you also help with this or whatever?" whenever we have said yes to that it's come at the cost of helping all of our other trademark clients just serve them as well as we can. So earlier this year we filed our 500th trademark application.
Katrina Widener: Wow. That's exciting.
I really appreciate you opening the door and showing the behind the scenes of what that would look like for people, because I oftentimes find that when someone listens to a podcast episode, they're like, "Oh my gosh this is so awesome. I want to do this right now. I'm like feeling lit up. I'm really inspired. I want to go take action in this moment." And then there is that like, "Ooh but I don't know, is it going to be really expensive? Is it going to be something I can't feel like I can get done on my own?" and so having those two options of the kind of done for you and then like the DIY, really one, provides options for people, but also it's just like, "No let's take the mystery out of it. Let's make it as easy to enter as possible because it doesn't have to be this big one day I'll feel like I know enough about this in order to tackle it. And instead it's let's demystify it and just make it feel achievable." Right?
Joey Vitale: Yeah. Yeah. And if I can add one more great action step around this, is now that you've listened to this podcast episode, if you still find yourself wondering, "Why trademarks? Do I really need this?" We do have a great free training that goes into that topic in way more detail. So I know you've got that link ready and it'll be in the show notes. But if now that you've listened to this, or maybe even before you were like, "Yes I know I need trademarks. I just don't know who to help me or whether to get a course or to work with the firm or whatever." I would encourage you to book a free consultation call with our team. We'll learn more about where you are, kind of lay these options for you so you can better take that right next step. Whether its with our firm, with our courses or with some other options.
Katrina Widener: Yes. And for everyone listening what he's referring to is the legal masterclass, that link that I'm going to have in the show notes. So if you want to take that masterclass, you can find it super, super easily. But anyway, thank you so much joy for coming and like I said, demystifying trademarking. Explaining a little bit in a way that feels easier to manage. My last question is just where can everyone find you after the episode?
Joey Vitale: Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram at @joeycvitale, or on Facebook at just Joey Vitale that's where I'm hanging out the most these days. And in addition to that masterclass, if you go to www.indielaw.com/video, you'll see a short video from me and learn a lot more about what our law firm does as well and you can connect with us from there.
Katrina Widener: Perfect. And I will include all of those links in the show notes as well. Thank you so much Joey, for coming. I really, really appreciate it.
Joey Vitale: Thank you so much for having me. This has been a blast!
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