On this episode of Hello, Chaos, hosts Jennifer Oladipo and Jennifer Sutton interview Doug Lineberry, an IP attorney, who shares his unconventional journey from a farm boy with a passion for science to becoming a lawyer specializing in intellectual property. Doug's story highlights the importance of following your interests and finding a career path that truly resonates with you. Tune in to learn more about Doug's unique career trajectory and his insights into the world of intellectual property law.
Episode Overview:
In this episode of Hello Chaos, we dive into the intricate world of intellectual property (IP) with our guest, Doug Lineberry, an experienced IP attorney. The conversation covers the essentials of IP, including patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights, and their critical importance for entrepreneurs.
Key Points Discussed:
Doug's Journey to IP Law:
Understanding Intellectual Property:
Common IP Mistakes and Horror Stories:
Practical Advice for Entrepreneurs:
The Value of Trademarks and Patents:
Industry-Specific IP Knowledge:
Conclusion:
This episode provides invaluable insights into the world of intellectual property, highlighting its critical role in safeguarding the innovations and brands of entrepreneurs. Doug Lineberry's expertise offers practical advice and cautionary tales that underscore the importance of proactive IP management. Whether you're just starting out or looking to protect an established business, this episode is a must-listen for understanding the complexities and necessities of IP law.
Jen O.: Hello, world. This is Hello, Chaos, a podcast about the ups and downs, highlights and low points of entrepreneurship. And we are just here talking to all kinds of folks, usually entrepreneurs, a little different today. But anyway, it's all about lessons that we can all learn about the entrepreneurial journey and really the true stories that we have along the way. I am Jennifer Oladipo, a.k.a.
Jennifer Sutton: Jen O. And I'm Jennifer Sutton, just Jen. No nickname yet? We're going to come up with one. And we're excited to have on our podcast today our guest, Doug Lineberry, who is a IP attorney.
Doug Lineberry: You better explain IP. Listen up. I think I do some weird stuff. I know.
Jennifer Sutton: Intellectual property is IP, which is actually a question that we have addressed. People go, what is IP? I don't even understand what that means. Yeah, that's true. So as we start out, Doug, tell us about Why, like, why IP attorney? Why did you focus on that?
Doug Lineberry: I'm a farm boy that tested well. Biology, chemistry, double major. I told y'all I'd be deadly. But yeah, I'm biology, chemistry, double. I did not want to be a people mechanic, so no dentist, no doctor. I was just like, hey, you know, this isn't gonna work for me. Took a couple of poli-sci courses, realized I totally hated that. But I really like science. And so to me, it was like, all right, I went through college, got two degrees, knew I was going to law school since about third grade. As y'all can tell, I'm real shy and I don't talk much. But I was like, all right, I want to be an attorney. But I really, you know, after I took a poli-sci course or two, I'm like, I just don't see this. But you know, sciences, engineering, I get it. I know how it works, I love it. And I actually did not start off as an IP attorney. I was a litigator and did employment law for about 10 years. But took the patent bar, put it on the shelf at night and then finally when that chance came, I jumped at it. And that's one thing about entrepreneurs is I've kind of been one of the legal industry because for the longest time I was an employment labor trial guy. changed my stripes and I love it. I really do enjoy what I do and I get to meet people like y'all. I get to meet entrepreneurs, get to play with cool stuff once in a while and so it really is me. But you know you guys were asking about the horror stories. Big thing is knowing what you don't know and then being brave enough to ask. We see a lot of times that you'll have people come to us and like okay protect this name. Like, you know, Jennifer, like we did for Hello Chaos, we searched and the first thing you should do for any mark that you've got, and this is prior to branding it, prior to buying a website, prior to putting it on the t-shirt, prior to getting anything labeled. Don't laugh guys, I've literally met you on the horror story. I will protect the innocent or not so. A company came to me and said, hey, we own a food truck, we have a website, we've got menus, We want to protect X name. So I search X name and there's a pizza place out in Arizona with X name. And so we got kind of clever and we filed a trademark that we thought was kind of clever. I did it and I was like, all right, I think it might work. We got that one through. But I've had other people roll in and say, I've got a website, I've got this, I've got that. You'll search and like, look, here's a dead bang. It's like, you know, if yours, Jennifer and Jenna, hello, chaos is clear. We checked it. There's nothing like that out there. That is the ultimate home run. You know, y'all are good to go. But if somebody comes and tries to follow their own version of hello chaos or, you know, hello anarchy or whatever it might be, you guys will now act as a block to them. I know Jenna was laughing, but it's like seriously, and y'all, another bad trait is don't mimic people. I get it. We're a social animal. We love to see cool stuff and we like to follow on. We don't want Hello Anarchy. Hello Anarchy might be a crappy podcast. They'll bring me on consistently and that puts me down. But it's like what we want is our own brand. We want to be individual. It's hard.
Jen O.: So what exactly is intellectual property? Because I think there's a lot of confusion among founders about it.
Jennifer Sutton: And what's the difference between that and copyright?
Doug Lineberry: Beautiful. Think of intellectual property as a great big pie and unfortunately it's not like a delineated slice as patents. We got four types basically. Patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights. Those are the four, shall we call, children of intellectual property in the U.S. You know, there's some variations on those themes but you have to do more like a Venn diagram because a portion of a patent might have a trademark responding to it. There might be copyright involved with the trademark. trade secrets might overlap into all four areas. So you've got to view them as, hey, they're each their own critter, but sometimes they overlap. Like a big thing that gets a lot of people, and y'all talked about horror stories, are your logos. You know, like right now y'all got Hello Chaos, we've got the stylized ancient microphone from the good old days of the era of radio. That's right. It is, and I mean that sells what it is. Hello Chaos, you're getting this vibe, you guys are giving off a good feed. But what will happen is you had a third party come up with that for you, unless you, Jeno, or you, Jennifer, did this yourselves. And so herein lies the rub. A lot of these small businesses and entrepreneurs do that. They don't realize that, hey, there's a copyright involved in your trademark. And both y'all right now are like, what's this guy on?
Jen O.: So essentially the creators may own it.
Doug Lineberry: Absolutely. And what we need to do, and again, if we need to do this for Hello Chaos, let me know. But what we know is in dead serious. This is one of the tricks of the trade I use in all my presentations. It's like, who's got a logo? And you'll see hands go up. And it's like, who designed it themselves? And you'll see very few hands around.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, I was like, when you say design yourself, like I, my sister, the sister company, what we found was the marketing and advertising firm. Yep. That's who created our marks and you know, the name. So me, Jennifer did not personally get in there, design it, but it was a team that was I would say essentially owned by Brightco.
Jen O.: But that's interesting because if you ever split off, then it becomes an issue. So is it, does it, hello chaos, does OrangeWIP own it or does Brightco own it?
Doug Lineberry: Oh, Jeno's asking all the great questions. And no, it's a beautiful thing to ask because it's right. If you had an independent company own it, guess what? That company still owns it. even though their employees didn't. That's called a concept known as work made for hire. Employees creating items during the course of their employment flow to the employer. That's just it. There are limitations on it. You know, if the janitor came up with the logo, we got issues. You know, we did not hire the janitor to be a brand creator. And so, yeah, a lot of people just think, well, if I pay him, it's mine. No. it's the same thing for paying somebody for the logo itself. There has to be an actual assignment. You know, for the work made for hire, that flows up. You know, the employee's doing it for the parent company, parent company owns it.
Jennifer Sutton: And our parent company is Curiosity, and that's who all the employees kind of run through, both on Brightco and OrangeWIP. So, are we secure in that?
Doug Lineberry: Jeno asked the right question there, because what if you guys decide to sell Hello Chaos? You want your IP located within Hello Chaos. Any of its own IP. Now granted, not other IP. You know, the Hello Chaos IP needs to be with the LLC or S Corp or C Corp, whatever y'all are. But we don't want that sort of dangling chat hanging off somewhere else because you'll have another nasty attorney in the future when you guys decide to sell, come in and we'll do due diligence. Part of the due diligence is going to be telling me about your IP. And I'm like, oh, we own this very beautiful logo. Here we go. And they'll pull up the registration and be like, OK, it was filed. It belongs to this company. but we're buying Hello Chaos LLC or whatever the name may be. So we want to make certain that the marks are owned by that entity. Now sometimes you have a third entity own the IP. That depends on you sort of how you're setting it up. How do I see long term? What's my succession plan? But typically though, belt and suspender way is to have the LLC that is that entity own its own IP. But we need to make certain that we get the copyright assigned unless it's a work made for hire. But even then, if Entity 1 owns it and Entity 2 is the entity using it, we need to have it assigned to Entity 2. So there are definitely all kinds of loops. But you are asking beautiful questions because we'll be in a presentation and I'll tell folks, hey, who did this? And they'll be like, oh, it was my sister or oh, it was my friend from school. I don't remember. Or I went to Fiverr. Exactly. And be careful. Some of those online things are OK. Read the fine print. I know people hate hearing that, but read the fine print. Don't click I agree and move on. If I don't click, I agree. I don't get my death metal.
Jennifer Sutton: You know, you've got these online platforms that allow you to create like Canva. Yeah. So what if somebody uses like your, the sister uses a Canva? Yeah. How does that trickle down of the sister didn't necessarily create it. It was actually created in a, in a, in a tool. That's like a, that's a logo generator.
Jen O.: So it would depend on their terms, right?
Doug Lineberry: Absolutely. You've got to read that and figure out what it is. Cause Jennifer's raising the million dollar question of we did something that wasn't in house and we used it, but we've got to read and find out. People hate that. You know, I call it homework in our sessions. I'm like, you have to go back and figure it out and you've got to read it. And there will be an IP section in there. And if there's not, go with the broken rule of, hey, I don't own it. If you don't see something that says, hey, if you design it on this platform and you own it, here's the language that says you get it, yada yada, even then you want to make certain that that language says current tense, you know, we don't, judge, attorneys, lawyers, we're kind of picky about language. One thing that'll get you is if the assignment is worded poorly. When you have a transition or an assignment coming from these companies that it says, you Jeno own this, not will own or gonna own or might own or maybe own it. You know, it's like you own. My English is really awesome today. But it's like we want to look at that because if we don't look at those little particulars, we may end up like the folks in my meetings are like, somebody did it and I don't know who it was, I'm like, then you don't own your logo. The reason that's so important though is that the artist can actually come back and sue you. And we're talking about nightmares, Tom. Guess what? You guys get popular, Hello Chaos is nationwide, it's international, it's everywhere. All of a sudden here comes this artist saying, hey, every time you use this logo, you owe me a royalty for it. And since you guys are now bigger than Nike, I'm gonna need a really big royalty for it.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. Do you see that? Is that… Absolutely happens.
Doug Lineberry: Happening? Absolutely happens. And you got to remember too, it's kind of like a wedding photographer. Yeah, that's the ultimate, you know, it's kind of a straw man always in these things is, you know, you've got the he or she wedding photographer, they take all these beautiful wedding pictures, and if you just buy the portfolio of pictures, you only own those iterations of the picture. Oh, you don't own the edited versions? Absolutely, you do not, unless you buy the copyright. It'll cost you some more, but that's what I always tell folks. Like buy all the rights out. Exactly. If you don't buy those rights, you get that one logo. You get that one picture. Right. And y'all under copyright, right to copy belongs to the author. So you've got that one thing. And guess what? You probably can't use it to advertise a podcast. You can't use it to advertise a catering company. You can't use it to put it on a website and say, look how pretty I am. Because those rights still are inherently tied back to that author. So again, that's our Venn diagram overlap. It's like trademark and copyright absolutely overlap. And a lot of people like to think of them as very distinct slices of pie, but that's not it at all.
Jen O.: I'm thinking now of like, you know, all the, all the folks in the audience and there are probably some, if they're still with us who are like, this doesn't apply to me, you know? Um, so like what kind of folks do you have coming? Well, maybe they don't come through your doors, but folks who think, Well, I don't have, I'm not developing, you know, a bionic leg or, you know, a new type of paint thinner or, you know, something that's very technical. So I don't really need to worry about that.
Doug Lineberry: You use one of my favorite tricks. I'll ask everybody. And I know y'all seriously, I'm a shyster. Is it the bionic leg trick? Thank you. You knew that. She used to be a punter for Clemson. Thank God they need them. The GameCop fans are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, great question, though, because I ask everybody, hey, who in here owns IP? And out in a big room, you'd be shocked how many hands just stay down. If you have a nascent company, you already own IP. And that right there is a critical wedge to know. Your trade secrets are there instantly. And by trade secrets, I mean, what's your expansion plan? How do you get your goods? You know, what's going to be your logo? You know, if it's not been filed yet, it's still a trade secret. Same concept for any of these folks who are like, hey, you know, I'm going to do a business. I'm going to go out there. Y'all, this IP is a day zero concept.
Jen O.: So you're saying even before you file, like register your business with the state? Yep. Really?
Doug Lineberry: Absolutely, because think about it. You don't file for the state until you've already done some permutations. Hey, I want to be, what's that name? Hello Anarchy? Hello Forest Fire? No. So like the business plan stage? Yeah.
Jennifer Sutton: The business plan stage or like for post-it note stage?
Doug Lineberry: Post-it note stage, really. Because you've got to remember, trademarks are being filed every day. Like the thing I did today was I went through four different marks from one examiner, dealing for different marks from a client. And when you look at them, trademarks are continuously filed. Every day there are new marks filed. And the U.S. is a popular place to file because we're the biggest market on earth. So, and I'm not telling you do it instantly. I'm not saying do it before you're ready, but if you know that you're going to be Hello Chaos, you need to look at that trademark then.
Jennifer Sutton: Before logo, like you're talking about register the name, like register the name, then you can deal with the logo.
Doug Lineberry: a beautiful thing about y'all's logo is you know we can just register the mark hello chaos just block letters no specific stylization y'all protected you know you throw a microphone on the side of it no big deal you throw a crazy man on this end of it no big deal we just did yeah see absolutely thank you but same death though is that you've now got the words protected if you do a little stylization change to it now if you make it hello anarchy we'll have to look at that one. But you do want that and a lot of people just don't get it because you know they have that same misconception of, well I'm a baby business, I don't have any IP. You have IP the second you think about being a baby business. Now whatever you think your market plan is gonna be, like you know, not everybody has a KFC secret formula or a Coca-Cola recipe, but you've got a way of doing business and that's where Trademark finds its value is. You know, you guys don't go and explain, hey, you know, how do we create the Hello Chaos podcast? What's our outlook here? What's our market expansion plan? Because those are your trade secrets. You know, whether we've labeled them that or not, it's exactly what they are. And so for a lot of companies, they just don't appreciate, you know, they think, oh, IP's this big grandiose thing that belongs to Michelin and Beamer. Not at all. It belongs to mom and pop. Because remember, in the U.S., small businesses are our lifeblood. The big businesses, while they're large and they get more attention, they're the exception, not the rule. It is the lifeblood of America, our entrepreneurs, and it's best if we know, hey, you are playing with these grandiose concepts the second you start thinking about it.
Jennifer Sutton: Because they could go, so a bigger company could go, I like this idea. Yeah. And come in and go and knock the small guy out.
Doug Lineberry: Yeah. A huge misconception, you know, going back to things that people often get wrong. People will say, oh, well, I own the website, therefore I own the trademark. Absolutely not. It can't be further from the truth. Trademark is an apple. Website domain name is an orange. Those two critters do not, they might be in a fruit basket together, but guess what? They don't hang from the same tree. You're laughing at the fruit basket. I think I've got one across from me. But seriously, a lot of people misunderstand that. They think, hey, I own hellochaos.org, therefore I own the trademark. Nope, you own an address in the internet ether that's out there someplace and if I type it in, I come to your podcast series or I come to your merch. But if you want that trademark, that branding piece, you need to go through the USPTO, the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Before filing it though, do a search, you know, see what else is out there, see what's close. Again, protecting the names of the not so innocent. We had a lady at one event, this had been about six months, And if you can hear me, Tom Ledbetter, I'm talking about one of your clients. Y'all love Tom. He's down at Midlands Tech. He teaches an entrepreneurial course. One of his clients had actually received a cease and desist letter. The person, we won't say he or she, did not tell us that they had had that letter. And so they started pitching me all these straw man questions, very specific straw man questions. And I'm like, huh? And I'm like, I'll tell you what, do I have your permission to do a trademark search? And so literally we pulled up an internet website, I put it in, lo and behold, you know, granted these guys are all centered around Columbia. Yeah. Lo and behold, Somerville, here's a trademark for that identical thing for the identical service the person's wanting. And I'm like, that's really weird. Said I've had close ones before, but never a dead on, I just sank your battleship hit. And so then all of a sudden the person's like, Can I share the screen for a minute? And I'm like, yeah. And Todd was just like, yeah, next thing you know, law firm name, cease and desist letter, that exact mark. And we're like, look, y'all, so maybe you missed the part where I said don't mimic people's stuff. There's also a, my God, you didn't even try. You took the exact name and you knew they were there, you know? And they're like, well, is this fair? I'm like, fair is not a lawyer word, so sorry. This is my deceased contract, so that's a rental Cossack right now. We'd be like, that son of a bitch listened. But it really is. Fair is not a lawyer term. It is not a lawyer word. We are reasonable and we're not reasonable. Fair is just like this little fairy puff word. It means nothing. And so she's like, that doesn't seem fair. And I'm like, fair, not fair, doesn't matter. If y'all were. Legal, not legal. It is. Covered, not covered. If you're evil dead fans, it's ash. And it's like, good, bad. I'm the one with the gun. In this case, the gun is a registered trademark at the trademark office. And so… So how do they clean that up? Yeah. You go somewhere else. You find a new mark because… So you have to start all over. You do and that's the pain really is that you know you've got this mark and you think oh I'm done all this but that's why it's a day zero concept.
Jen O.: Have you ever seen it, like, actually end a business?
Doug Lineberry: I'm sure. I mean, I've seen it end an iteration of a business and said, hey, you know, look, I've got a cease and desist letter. You've got somebody saying you can't do this. So this iteration of the business under this trademark name, it just has to cease. It's got to go. It's got to stop.
Jennifer Sutton: What happens when a besides like the trademark and stuff under intellectual property of, of data or design, like patents of, um, cause we've worked with, you know, I've, I've known companies and, and founders and entrepreneurs that have, have created these like great designs, have them protected. And then they notice there's competition, like people that are coming and trying to copy them on the design and they have to go through the headache of the cease and desist. How, What is that process like? Is that an easy win? Or is it because, well, it's, you know, to compete with somebody, do they just have to have like a slight
Doug Lineberry: chain like I'm just yeah I had a similar question related was you know if it's not the same thing so it's um you know um hello chaos cups versus hello chaos um barbecue I don't know you know does that good example yeah absolutely if you want to be hello chaos air conditioners I think probably do you know it's going to be kind of tough for somebody to say well a podcast would leap over in the air conditioning industry probably not yeah you know and I make those arguments a lot of times for clients because trademark examiners kind of do a What's the easy thing? They look for the easy answer. And they'll say, hey, here's your mark. Here's a mark very similar to it. And they may be very disparate goods. Or they might be in an area where there are a lot of marks. And that's the thing I try to shy clients away from. It's like, look, if you're known as chaos bus lines, and there's another chaos bus lines in Arizona, and they've not filed for their marks, they've not protected themselves. You need to think long and hard whether you want to be the same name as somebody else in your business. Because you are one misstep away from all consumers. And y'all know this. In the entrepreneur world, U.S. attention world, world attention world, people will not try to discern was it Hello Chaos bus line in Arizona that had a crash or Hello Chaos bus line in South Carolina that had a crash. Nobody will buy tickets for Hello Chaos bus lines. They just stop in Toto. So that's a big thing too for clients is to realize, hey, yeah, this mimicry, you think it may make it easy, it might make it a lot worse. You know, maybe you don't get a cease and desist letter and I'll circle back to those, but you might just have a consumer hate and be like, look, you know, I'm not using this company. Just the confusion. Absolutely. And that's why the trademark world, it focuses on confusion. Are consumers likely to be confused? Now for your cease and desist letter, same parameters, you know, there's times when we'll get a cease and desist letter from somebody and be like, come on, You know, you're asking us to stop and you're being silly. You know, there's a such thing as overreach. You know, your trademarks are only good in the areas that you register them in or you're currently using them in. You can't say, hey, I own Hello Chaos and you can't be an air conditioner company. You can't make satellites. You can't make missiles, whatever you want to make. If it's that distanced from y'all, we don't have that type of reach out. But there are, and especially the larger companies who consider it to be all theirs, That's one of my favorite games, actually, is you will get an overreach letter from one of the big monster companies and you get to kind of go back and be on the head a little bit and say, hey, you know, this is all consigned about consumers. It's all consigned about a particular good or service. And just because you own the word X doesn't mean that you can block anybody in the universe from using X. Now, can they style it like you guys and look like you and use an orange motif and then start doing a podcast? Absolutely not. But if it's an air conditioner company and they call it Hello Chaos because their chief engineer is a madman, Entirely different. Yeah, you are getting familiar with that concept. But that's what we're looking at. But that cease and desist letter thing itself, you know, a lot of that can be avoided just with a good search. Hey, am I away from other marks? Is there anybody similar to me? Do a Google search, do a Bing search. Yeah. Go through and see what's out there. And again, I would caution you that if you see another Hello Chaos for podcasts, we wouldn't have gone that way. Right. You know, but I do love the fact that y'all had a fresh and novel one. And people get very frustrated with me because I will tell them, hey, do your homework. You know, go back like you guys will be talking to Dionne Sandiford here in a little bit. Dionne got so mad at me when I told her, hey, you've got to go back and do homework. She's like, I'm coming to you attorney. I'm like, hey, I'm just telling you, we have to go back and make certain that we have a clear playing field. Because if we don't, you know, there's some arguments to be made and ways you can try to work around a mark. But if there was another chaos bus lines out there, we do not want to be chaos bus lines. You know, there's just certain parameters that are always a big no-no. And back to the cease and desist letters, that's how you get one. You know, if you're like the lady at that event, Tom, I know you're listening, but if you're like at that event and you get that cease and desist letter, move on. You know, that iteration of that company's dead. Now, can you do the same thing under another name? Possibly. And you probably won't do because you've invested infrastructure in it, but anything you've done that is branded under that name or the websites you bought or the t-shirts that you're using, you just need to get rid of those.
Jennifer Sutton: You've built this business and then you go, I want to go and sell it. You're saying that's like the first step of somebody trying to do the valuation of what do you own? What are the assets? So if they come up and go, you are not protected at all, then you've kind of shot yourself in the foot of nobody's going to buy your business.
Doug Lineberry: That's right. Well, they might buy it, Jennifer. But if Jeno's smart, Jeno's going to come in and go, eh, you don't have any trademarks filed. I don't know that you've got trade secret policies in place. You don't have a good handbook. I sell a sale. It's like she does. Jeno's like, can you say fire sale? I can say fire sale. And it's like, but no, seriously, that's good handbook. That's a discount. Absolutely brilliant. Because she's going to be like, where's your trademark? Yeah, think of it, too. There's a concept called, I call it being fishbowl. There's a more technical word, but fishbowls work. Because if you're using your mark, say you guys are just using it in Greenville, and it's all you're going to do. We never filed federal mark. If there's a Hello Anarchy podcast out there someplace, and if they come into South Carolina, we run the chance of them fishbowling us, saying, hey, you guys are in the Greenville market, the Anderson market, the Spartanburg market. That's where you advertise. That's where you're paying for it. And the internet does not count. A lot of people are like, oh, I'm using my trade name on the internet. I'm everywhere. I'm like, you're not season top, you're not bad, you're not nationwide. You might be bad, but you ain't nationwide. And so what we've got to tell them is, Hey, no, you know, this common law stuff is kind of like kissing your sister IP. It's not that fun and probably illegal, but it's not illegal, but the kissing your sister thing's weird. But you do have to have people think, look, you know, am I protecting this? Because y'all are saying the right thing. If you've got a third party that comes in, there's going to be a nasty female or male version of me going, Hey, You don't have anything protected. I don't think you're worth $20,000. You're worth $10,000. You're worth $4,000. All right, we're going to buy this, but I think your goodwill's been dinged because you don't have the ability to fend off third parties. Worse yet, if there is a competitor in the market with you and you're fishbowled, yeah I mean Jenna's gonna come in and just start like laughing. She's like I've got you. You know that or you know it could be the painful realization of I can buy the infrastructure but I'm not gonna be able to use the branding. Yeah. And boy are you really looking at a fire cell then. Yeah. So yeah you know there are ramifications.
Jennifer Sutton: So you're saying there's value in brand? Always. Always.
Doug Lineberry: I love how the marketer's asking for the easy softballs on this. But it's like, you know, anything guys, you know, look, it's brands matter. And when you've got them protected and you've got a good portfolio protecting you in the avenues you're in, man, that's so good. One thing I'll tell folks, and this is another kind of like the marketer promoting the marketer, this is an attorney saying to use an attorney. Notice I slowed down. I know, they're like, it must be serious if he's not mumbling. But one thing too to realize too is that trademarks can last for infinity. There are trademarks that are hundreds of years old. And the reason they happen is because you have an attorney with a docketing system. And the docketing system says, man, typically in the US, it's between the fifth and sixth year, you have to do your first renewal. You know, we will ping you, Jennifer and Jeno, saying, hey guys, are we still Hello Chaos? If so, direct me to where I can pull a specimen. At year five and six, you file that. A specimen? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. We'll come back to that. I'm not that bad. That wouldn't be funny though. But what we want though is the ability to have a shepherd for the trademarks. We want somebody to say, hey, you know, at this year you need to provide me with this. And then every decade, and y'all I'm sorry, I don't remember what I had for lunch yesterday. There's no way I'm going to remember in 10 years that I need to protect my trademark. Right. So a lot of folks love going to these places like when I was presenting the other night. That legal Zoom. I love it. They love LegalZoom. And I'm like, look, LegalZoom's fire and forget. As soon as they get you out there, they're going to kick you out the door. They do not want the liability and the risk of being beholden.
Jennifer Sutton: They're just that one time. Absolutely.
Doug Lineberry: They're a quick fix. You know, we notice a huge thing, like you guys are familiar with entrepreneurs, you know, the valley of death. All the big grids. The funding goes away. Funding goes away. Oh my gosh, we're going to die. The exact same thing happens for trademarks at the fifth year. You will go and look and you will notice all these marks that may still be being used in commerce, mind you, still an active brand, still used on the goods or services, but they go abandoned because guess what? There wasn't an attorney poking you with a stick going, hey, we need to file our 8 and 15. 8 to signify we're still using it. 15 does something really cool called making it incontestable. So like Jennifer and Jenna, if y'all had a Hello Chaos and it becomes incontestable between years five and six, you can't have somebody else come and say, oh no, no, no, I'm Hello Chaos. I've always been Hello Chaos. That ship has sailed. Y'all are Hello Chaos for the areas you're using it in. Nobody else can challenge. But unless you file that documentation, you might abandon the application or I've had clients, God bless them, will do this on their own. They'll file the eight but not the 15. I mean, they're like, hey, I'm still using it. But the 15 is like just an easy tack on form that says, oh, by the way, nobody else can challenge my use of it. But you've got to file it. If you want incontestability status, you have to do it. You use LegalZoom, it's not going to happen. You're going to file this thing. You're going to go out and that will give you some great price. The problem is you're not paying for the docketing system. And you know, it's kind of eerie. I've got trademarks now that are approaching like they're 10 year out. And you're like pinging somebody that you might not have talked to for a year or two. And they're like, And it's kind of like, you know, it's Christmas to them. Oh man, you were thinking of me. I'm like, yeah. It's kind of why I don't want sued for malpractice is I am taking care of your trademarks. But y'all, they go for a long time. Patents are the same way. You've got to pay a fee at three and a half, seven and a half, and eleven and a half years. You don't pay that fee, you lose your patent.
Jennifer Sutton: What can you patent? I mean obviously design patents but I've also heard processes, data, like data collection. Is that correct?
Doug Lineberry: It really depends. We've got a concept called 101 and that's the sort of the quintessential question of is something patentable. There's been some pushback on that with regard to like software and computer industries. But y'all anything under the sun made by man is essentially the overambit of it it's narrowed down some but methods devices you know the ways to use the device hey maybe like you know ivermectin y'all remember all the hubbub with covid about you know what's ivermectin you know if you find a new use for ivermectin that cures male pattern hair loss You can patent that, even though ivermectin's known. You know, to my knowledge, nobody has said, hey, put ivermectin on Joe Rogan's head and all of a sudden he's got a mohawk. You know, nobody's gone there yet. Joe Rogan, I'm so sorry if you don't want a mohawk. But it's one of those things to where you're like, hey, you know, if there's a new use for something, even if it's known and old, boom, patentable. If you come up with a new widget, boom, patentable. Plants, you can patent plants, believe it or not.
Jen O.: Oh, yeah, that's right. I've reported about that.
Doug Lineberry: Agricultural.
Jen O.: Yeah, it's been reported for several years. And the ag industry, they've got all these patents and it's like a serious thing. Absolutely. You got plant, little plant. Like all like the Like Succulent A or whatever that's from this like Dutch company, you know, different from Succulent B12.
Doug Lineberry: Roses, tulips, whatever it may be, or genetically modified organisms. Absolutely. And so y'all, it really patent stretches far and wide. I mean, at our firm, they're like 13 of us that do various forms of different patents. And I'm talking everything from like a simple mechanical, Hey, I made a new jack in the box to a highly complex, Hey, here's a new small molecule that's going to be able to prevent cancer. You know, so really you've got that ambit to run from. And a great thing about it though is that you're not really limited in what you can seek to patent. That not, you know, there's no thing that says, Oh, you know, these areas are verboten, you know, you can't patent like natural laws and things like that. But for the most part, if you can come up with and create or to come up with a new design, boom, patent patentability is something you ought to think about.
Jen O.: So, okay, y'all don't judge me where my line has been going, but like every time you keep talking about like, oh, you know, people didn't file something and maybe something's expired. I'm like, this has got to be a money-making opportunity to like sweep in and get, what is it? Orphan patents or trademarks and that kind of thing.
Jennifer Sutton: So it's like if I'm a competitor, I'm just like, I'm waiting.
Jen O.: Not a competitor. I'm talking like, this is what I do for my business.
Doug Lineberry: Is that a real thing? No, no, Jenna, it's beautiful. She wanted to haggle about not having a good will. Now she says, hey, you goofed up your time deadlines and I'm here.
Jen O.: I mean, it seems like it'd be easy to do.
Doug Lineberry: Well, think on it too, is when you let that, use Patton as an example, you don't pay the seven and a half year maintenance fee. It goes abandoned. They don't try to revive it. Hey, if you're a competitor in that area, they gave up. Hold still, you're making me do math on a Tuesday afternoon. Yeah, it was 12 and a half. It took me a little bit. But they had 12 and a half years of patent term that they could have used to create a monopoly. Like, you know, they could have kept you out of the market if they don't pay it. you can do whatever you want to with the info and that patent. And so, yes, it is kind of there hanging. Trademarks, I've kind of played that game myself. You will have clients come in and say, hey, I want to mark. You know, if we find a similar and one thing we do and the trademark office will show you this, you can look to see what its maintenance deadlines are. So, hey, do you owe a fee? Like sometimes you'll say, oh, it's 10 years out. I'm like, yeah, we can't wait on that one. But I've had clients lucky enough to be like, we will see that there's been a mark that the fees are owed on. They haven't been paid yet. There is a finite date. Yeah.
Jennifer Sutton: And they'll come in.
Doug Lineberry: And we will sit there and just kind of bide our time or we'll time filing the application so that we're like, hey, at some point during our prosecution history, if they don't pay this fee, you're good. If they do pay it, then here we are thinking, you know, do we reach out these guys for a co-ex? You know, do we just hold this mark kind of with an asterisk thinking, hey, we're trying to get it and we'll see what happens. But yeah, if that mark dies and it's not quickly revived, you can use it for whatever those goods were. You know, so now granted, you've got that same worry of, hey, is there an existing company that's going to hit me at the C&D letter?
Jennifer Sutton: So you kind of have to always like look behind your back.
Jen O.: Oh, of course. Yeah. I was actually thinking something even more nefarious, like sort of like, like a random… I love the word.
Doug Lineberry: It's one of my favorites. Keep going.
Jen O.: I was thinking like ransom. I mean, if you were just, if you could just casually keep track of those things and hold them for ransom after they expire, is that almost like how people do with domains of, they wait for domains, the trolls, and then they buy it and they're like, you want your name back?
Doug Lineberry: Hey, and in this case, remember the trademark office is a free-for-all. You can file whatever you want to file. Now granted, you know, are they going to come at you? Say you file a Toyota goose up. They let the Toyota brand name for cars fail. You know, they used LegalZoom. LegalZoom didn't contact them. And so Toyota's like, I don't think we'd ever use LegalZoom. Now they're calling somebody to make sure we're not using them right. But they lost it. So Jenna's like, hey, you know what? I've got an intent to make a car line. I'm going to call it Toyota. And lo and behold, this trademark that would have blocked me is now gone. So, yeah, can you try that? You can. But is Toyota really gonna put up with that? Probably not. And then you might bring down the wrath of an angry Titan on you if you do do that. But if you're a small entrepreneurial and somebody does it, do you really want to rank up somebody else's legal department on this? And pay the bills and all that? Yeah, assuming they have one. Because, you know, a lot of the times that our entrepreneur friends go out and do this is it's on the cheap and nobody's warned them that, hey, you know, Hello, chaos. It's coming.
Jennifer Sutton: Or they're, or they're using like the fivers or the canvas, like to do some of their logos and the marks and not necessarily doing the proper work for hire.
Jen O.: So we had, um, Cynthia Jenkins and Tina's skills gap. Um, I don't know, they're running together, but we recently had them on the podcast. And one of the things that they talked about was making sure your IP people, your attorneys, know your industry. So do you have specialty areas that you focus on?
Doug Lineberry: Oh sure, sure. Bio, chemical, mechanical, that's it. Somebody sends me in software, I punch you. One of my best friends, not punch, punt, not punch, sorry, got a little busy. Got a lot of frustration pent up. But one of my best friends, and don't you dare tell him I said anything nice about him, is Nate Quirk. He works in our Charlotte office. He was in-house and does computer software stuff. You send me computer software, my eyes glaze. And I'll be like, Nate, I got a client. You need to talk to them. Computer or something, something, something, something. And I get it off my plate. The person you want to be worried about probably like the marketing company that says we can do all things for all people. If you find the attorney that says I can do all things for all people. and run fast.
Jen O.: So why is that?
Doug Lineberry: Help people understand. Think about it because all of us have, like if you go to a doctor, you know, do you go to a heart surgeon when you have a foot issue? You don't. You know, do you come to a mechanical IP attorney when you've got a computer issue? You don't. Do you take a genetics code and a patent application to go to somebody who works on, say, the designs of car fenders? You don't. And so we've got that innate understanding of an industry. If you don't understand the nicks and ticks of that industry, you're not going to be able to draft a very good patent if you're in that route. If you're doing a trademark form, you know, you don't want to file in the wrong area. You know, you can't amend them once you file them. You've got to file a new one. So if you're working with the company and they're, I don't know, I keep using it all, but Hello Chaos as we're podcast, but you guys are also like a, you're a farrier. You guys make horseshoes at night. You know, and you're like, okay. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You guys got claw trails right in the back. And so, but if I don't know what y'all do, or if I don't understand what a farrier is, I might just be now a farrier thinking, Hey, you're like Chiron the boatman and here's my coin, you know, versions of farrier that could be confused. And so it is important to go to somebody and ask, hey, you know, what do you know about my industry? What do you know about what I do? Because I love getting in new clients, but y'all, I would rather not get in trouble. And if I don't understand what I've done for you, you're going to be called to task. You'll have a patent examiner come back at some point and be like, hey, I've read your patent and this is murky, you know? Or, I mean, if you do it poorly and you just don't understand the tech or you just kind of fake it, it could come back to be a bad thing.
Jennifer Sutton: Or if you're not protecting, putting all the primers in place.
Doug Lineberry: You might miss the concept.
Jennifer Sutton: Because like Cynthia and Tina were talking about, that was one of their aha moments of they're a gaming system, but they're collecting a ton of data in the back end of how people are using their tech. And that's part of their That's part of their asset. So they were like, we needed to go to an IP that understood how to protect data and gaming specifically. And also dealing with like, because they're working a lot in schools and children, they need to make sure that their processes… Already because of the privacy with kids.
Jen O.: So there was that
Jennifer Sutton: That extra layer of like, they had to get that advice from the attorney of, well, you've got extra stuff that you've got to build in your infrastructure that they wouldn't have known about had they not consulted an IP attorney within the gaming software space. And that was like news to me because I was like, oh gosh, I was like, you know.
Jen O.: Yeah, you would think it might be any one of those things. Just an IP, you know.
Doug Lineberry: And you know, it's just like, and I will tell you one thing, attorneys have ethics, believe it or not. And two, we're not all… everybody thinks all attorneys do all things. God, no. I mean, it's like you go down to the Burr office downtown and just kind of working around my head, we've got two IP attorneys, we circle around to a corporate attorney, we go over to two bond guys, we then jump over to a tax attorney, tax and probate. I mean, y'all, these are very disparate species of law. You know, I don't do tax and probate. I don't do municipal bonds. I stay away from those. We've got real estate attorneys. You know, I don't do real estate. You know, if you don't surf, don't start in those areas because if you don't know what you're doing, it is going to be hello chaos and in a bad, bad way.
Jen O.: Well, this is awesome. I feel like there's so much more. We have to wrap it up though, but what would be sort of the, um, kind of like top three things that, um, you know, cause our, so our audience is, we've got some people who are now, I know should be thinking about IP because they're thinking about a business and, you know, um, the audience is obviously going to have some people who are, you know, further into their business and, you know, maybe even pretty well established. So, so to cover that gamut, you know, what are kind of the top three most important things to think about when it comes to your IP?
Doug Lineberry: Absolutely. Timing. It started at day zero. It doesn't start when you're making money and everything's good because if you have a patented product and you sell it for more than a year in the U.S., you've waived your rights to protect it. That's a critical thing. Whoa. It happens. I will have people come in. Say that again. I will go slow. If you have like a design for a device or if you have the device itself, and it's been on sale or offered to sell, you don't have to be successful. Or you went down to Clemson or USC and presented it. So you've popped your website up and it's like you're selling this little widget. And you waited a year, then to go to a patent attorney who goes, lo and behold, you now have money. It doesn't matter how much money you have, because you have now waived the ability to protect it. A second iteration of that point is people get happy about their inventions, they go and talk about them. You have to be very careful, because if you want to protect your rights in a foreign country, most countries on earth, not the US, but most of the other industrialized 1st, 2nd world countries, are countries that demand… that demand that you must file a patent application with them first. So if you want to file a patent in India or Canada or Mexico, you need to disclose it to that patent office before you disclose it to anyone else. If you don't do that, you can't file a patent in that country.
Jennifer Sutton: When you say anybody else, like who in that, that as in friends and family, but you can't go out and make a pitch to venture like a
Doug Lineberry: If you did it under certain very tight prescriptions, like non-disclosure agreements, very hush-hush, very limited, but if you stand up and go to like a thousand cups and start talking about what your invention is, trying to get a pitch solicitation, guys, you've spoiled your foreign rights. You know, they require that they be first disclosed absolute novelty to them. You know, if you did not have an application on file when you stood up at a thousand cups anywhere in town or anywhere else in the state or in the nation and talked about it, you've shot your foreign rights. You can't go to China, you can't go to Europe, you can't go to Canada. They're gone. Don't worry about it. Finished. You then triggered a year deadline in the U.S. And so if you're like the three of us and you get busy and you turn around and the months are flipping on the calendar like there's a fan behind it, you might miss that year. And it's like, whoa. That's a massive thing that happens. Again, failure to check those trademarks. You go out and you start using it. You haven't looked to see if it's clear. That's a huge number two. Number three is your trade secrets. You know, a lot of people like to go and explain what they've done that makes them novel. Don't do that. Trade secrets. First word should be shh. The second word is shh. And the third word is always shh. Because if you go out and explain it, if you go out and explain what it is and say, you know, Jenna, if you go to a competitor, Jennifer, and explain what you're doing to her and you're like, hey, you won't believe how I'm making money. cut all the other competitors out, Jennifer's completely fine to take and run with that. You know, whether she would or wouldn't, ethical issue. But if she's like cutthroat and you just goofed up and told her something you shouldn't have, hey, you just voided your trade secret. So those are the main things, right? They're the three biggie bigs, but there's some others too. But be very cognizant about what you're doing with your IP. That's sort of the golden rule. And before you go out and make a presentation or go out and make a pitch to somebody, you need to sit down and do the calculus of, hey, have I looked at my trademarks? Am I damaging a patent? Am I saying too much and possibly damaging a trade secret?
Jen O.: Yeah. Which is, which is- You're the one who's been telling Jennifer to stop talking about- Shut up!
Doug Lineberry: Hey, remember when I said shh? I'm looking at you again, Jennifer. See that?
SPEAKER_01: So I already knew of you.
Jen O.: Yeah, that's right.
Jennifer Sutton: Because I was out there talking, you're like, we're not filed yet.
Doug Lineberry: Yeah. And I mean, that's it. It is. That's really it. Stop talking. But you know, it's that sort of situation. We get happy and you'll see it all the time. Like I won't tell their names. But there were a couple very cool, I guess my youngest inventors ever were actually sophomores at Wofford. They stood up at a million cups with their device that they had wanted us to get a patent on. We did, but y'all, they disclosed it before we had anything on file. We can only get it in the U.S. and this is something that wouldn't be in, I mean, it's issued now. It's a charger that can go against a wall in like a dorm room. And I like their dorm rooms every on earth, but because they stood up and violated the sacrosanct, hey, there wasn't a patent on file before you told the public about it, problem. And then we call it an intellectual property rules called a publication. And it can be a YouTube video, it can be a paper, it can be a thesis, it can just be get up and do it.
Jennifer Sutton: So when people, you know, the trend of doing these like crowdfunding and doing, you know, the GoFundMe and a lot of them were popping, like we saw things of like these, you know, unique pillows and all this stuff were popping up and I would come in and go, have you guys filed your trademark? And they're like, why? Why? We got to get money first. And I'm like,
Doug Lineberry: But y'all, that's the cart before the horse. And I get it, it is expensive and it's slow. I'm telling you that front out. You know, you don't follow trademark and get it back the next day, it doesn't happen. But y'all, if you don't take that time and you don't invest that, it hurts so much worse.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, I felt good that we went to the… I was getting the right advice even though I always told Jen, I'm like, I feel like we're running so slow.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't know what happened. There were a couple of weeks there where she was like, I can't, we can't just hold on. Cause I was waiting for paperwork. And I'm like, she's like, I can't, I can't.
Jennifer Sutton: But I will say, you know, even before, even when I was just like concept and the idea of just to even talk to you, I made her sign an NDA. She made me sign an NDA.
Doug Lineberry: And y'all for the audience, NDA is a non-disclosure agreement. We're all talking acronyms right now, but y'all that is a critical thing to use. And so many entrepreneurs are almost embarrassed to use it. You know, they're like, oh gosh, I don't want to be shady. You said we've known each other for years.
Jen O.: I already worked with her in the past. I mean, I can see how that would be uncomfortable. It is.
Jennifer Sutton: And now I want to have a conversation. I want to talk to you about a position. But before I reveal, like sign this.
Doug Lineberry: I need to tell you this.
Jennifer Sutton: And we made a lot of our team members sign, um, that were, that were, we have a lot of contractors that are under, the NDA for clients like but this was something that was we were producing so we we modified it for any of the team members that were contractors that were working on this specifically and we made them sign a second NDA. as we were kind of formulating the idea.
Doug Lineberry: And a critical thing about that too, and this is sort of a housekeeping measure, keep those signed NDAs. You know, you will keep Jeno's. You just will keep it. And, you know, if there's a time limit in it, then once you're done with that time limit, it's okay to get rid of it. But during that time limit, or if you anticipate somebody has violated it, you absolutely positively don't want to not be able to find that later. Because that happens. You know, you will see people go, I know I've gotten a sum at some place, and you hear them sheafing through documents. But I mean, it can have negative impacts. Like if you file a patent application that lists a bunch of people singly instead of being owned by Hello Chaos LLC, all of those single inventors have an equal and opposite ownership right. They don't have to account to each other. If they want to go sell it to two of your worst enemies, they have that ability to do that. And so that's a critical thing is a lot of entrepreneurs, and let's say this really slow, set up a corporate entity. That needs to be another day zero task. You know, go get this thing set up. If you don't know what you're doing, talk to an attorney who does, but you need that corporate entity out there because not only is it a shield against liability, but it's also kind of like a nest that holds your IP and you can have your contracts by holding back to it. You can have an inventor assigned to that company so they're the owner of it and you don't have a dangling chat of John Smith being on a patent. You can't contact John anymore. He or she doesn't like you anymore and they won't communicate and might be listed as an owner of your patent. So yeah, there's tons of things we could cover y'all, but the main things you just think, you know, before you leap, hesitate a little bit and say, Hey, how does this, how does this impact my IP? Have I actually looked at it? I mean, there's some great free resources too, like the small business development centers in the state and SCORE. Awesome organizations y'all. State funded, they're free and manned by people who deal with entrepreneurs day in, day out. It's what they do.
Jennifer Sutton: So if they go into an SBDC, which is the Small Business Development Center, which almost every city has one, will they give the advice of, you need to go see an attorney, this is the stuff you need to be protected of and send them your way.
Doug Lineberry: And that echo chamber will help because when you hear a second person say it, you're going Crap, maybe this is real. You know, because you can just hear it on the podcast. Like, yeah, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. But when you hear somebody whose job is to help an entrepreneur build a business go, hey, this IP stuff needs to happen like day zero. It really becomes real at that point. You know, it's kind of like the professor at the class going, hey, this is going to be on the test. And if you ignore it, it's at your peril. That's right.
Jen O.: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Oh my gosh. Educational.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, beyond. We might have a follow up conversation. I know. We could have a spinoff podcast. But I love it. But thank you. And for our listeners and our viewers, you can catch this podcast on any of the podcast platforms, your favorite ones. So from anywhere and everywhere, Spotify, Pandora, wherever.
Jen O.: Podbod? I don't think that's really one, but what's… And then if you have Podbod, I was like… The Weightlifters Podbod.
Jennifer Sutton: What? And if you want to watch it, because we're so animated and fun, you can find that on our zines, the digital zines that are coming to cities near you, launching in the three South Carolina markets first, in Greenville, Charleston, and Columbia. and that is GVLinnovates.com, ChazInnovates.com, ColaInnovates.com that you can watch and or listen to this podcast. So we hope you do and subscribe, share, comment, tell us what you wanna know.
Jen O.: Yeah. And if you have questions, um, can we, can we float questions back to you and maybe bring you back? That'd be great if we just, um, ask people about their questions.
Doug Lineberry: And y'all, I tell this to folks all the time. The only dumb question is the one you don't ask.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. That's right. No question is a bad, like there, there are no bad questions. Um, but thank you so much. And thank you.
Doug Lineberry: Thank you, Doug.