Austin Bonderer on Securing Your Competitive Edge with Bulletproof Patents

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Basically, the big thing about a trademark, and it's interesting if you really think about it's there to protect the public. It's not there to protect the brand owner. Granted, the brand owner won't force the rights and do all this stuff, but at the end of the day, it is there to assist consumers to make expedited decisions on quality and source of goods. So, you know, take McDonald's for instance. I don't know if you ever saw Coming to America, but the big thing was McDowell's and it was a clearly a McDonald's knockoff.

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Austin Bonder, Your name sounds very fitting for somebody who is in patent law or law in general. So I want to really thank you for being on your brand Amplified. Today we're diving into a topic that every entrepreneur needs to understand but often finds intimidating, which is intellectual property protection. Even for podcasters, we need IP protection. You have more than two decades of experience, over 700 issued US patents. You have offices in three states, as I just learned. So I'm really excited to have you on to share, you know, and kind of demystify the process for us all.

I'm happy to be here.

What was it that prompted you to go into patent law of all things?

Well, that's actually, that's a pretty long story. I'll try to shorten it as much as possible. So growing up in Mississippi, it's hot in the summertime and my dad had this ranch style house. And when I was probably around 8 or 9, his house almost burned down. So he's like, we need to put in a fire system, a wired one. But it was Mississippi summertime and I'm the little one, so I get to crawl in the attic. That's not fun. That is horrible. I was like, there's gotta be a better way for this, right? So I always toyed with this idea that there needs to be a better way of doing that. And then when I was in engineering school at the Virginia, they make us do a thesis and this kind of stuff at the end. And I was like, can I do it on this idea of a wireless smoke detection system? And like, I guess that's somewhat, you know, associated with civil engineering to allow it. So basically what it was, I took two smoke detectors and I don't know if you remember, I mean, when wireless first came out, those wireless doorbells. So I basically wired them together so that when the smoke detector went off, it would release a wireless signal that would then activate the other one which then would release a wireless signal. And the idea was it would relay through the home. And eventually that became a very popular product. I fell into the trap that, you know, most inventors fall into. I had that idea I should have done something with it, you know, all this other kind of stuff. But I was a college student, I tried. I wrote my first patent application back then. I've read it since. It's horrible. I would. No one looks it up. But, you know, as a kid and I was trying it, so that got me interested in it. I wanted to work at the University of Virginia's Patent foundation. And they were like, no, you need to go out and get experience. And at the time the patent office was hiring, so it was either go work construction management or the patent office. And I went to the patent office. Wow.

Two very different fields.

Two very different fields.

And what a shame. I mean, I think this is something that happens so often. People either spend too much time trying to perfect a product, right? I mean, I've worked with clients on the PR side who said, no, we have to get all of these things dialed in. We have to. And they spend too much time on that. Then it was too late to really take to market or somebody else was doing something similar or there's so many different situations you can go through. In this case, you are the College student who had this idea. And now of course, we think about. Wireless systems are just commonplace.

Yes. I mean, I think software taught me one thing. Well, the people in software, it's like, if you're not working, you need to release your alpha if you're not already working on your beta, because it's never going to be perfect. You really have to start moving this stuff along if you really want to make something out of your idea. And I do have that issue with clients sometimes, like, we have to hit a stopping point because, you know, every time we keep working on it and they're like, oh, I came up with a new addition. I'm like, well, okay, so that's another two weeks of back and forth and trying to get this thing. And I'm like, this thing's never going to be exactly what you want. Let's get a stopping point. If you want to, we can start a new one after that.

And before we get into the fundamentals for entrepreneurs, I think people need to understand differences between trademarks, patents. You've worked globally. You've led U.S. nanotechnology prosecution for a Forbes World 100 company. So how did that international exposure shape your approach to intellectual property law?

Well, it made me more aware that the United States is actually pretty lenient when it comes to certain things. The United States gives you a year to basically, if you have a public disclosure, an offer for sale, and you're like, oh, I think I want to patent this. You have a year from that first disclosure or offer for sale, whatever, which one was first to apply. Most other countries do not like patents the way that the United States does. So they're kind of, they don't like it. So if you disclose, too bad, so sad, you can't apply for a patent now. And that's pretty much the way around the world. The United States did kind of change a little bit because we moved from what we used to be was a first to invent system. And they would have these fights called interferences. You would have to prove who invented first, even though they filed second and all this stuff. And eventually us, like, we're done with this all, first one to file wins. So even though you might have the first disclosure or something like that, you know, it might be a small disclosure, might not be considered public. It gets in the weeds there. But if someone beats you to the patent office, even though you invented it first, you lose. So.

Yeah. And this just makes me think about things like the light bulb, right? There were multiple people, two in particular, who are racing to be the first to market, the first ones to be able to say, yes, I've solved this issue of how do we get this thing called electricity into our homes? And I mean, that's a huge example because we all, of course, have all this nice, you know, lighting and wiring systems and all the things to bring this technology into our homes, but even for smaller things. So can you talk to us for the entrepreneurs who are listening, what do they need a patent on? Are there specific thing times when they should go, oh, this is triggering.

Yes. Okay, so that's the question. How do I know if I have something bad? And I, you know, basically what I explain is call your attorney when you've solved a problem, because that's generally what inventions are. They're just solutions to problems that people have. Some people might not even know that there was a problem existed and you solved it already, and then you can hit the market. But generally, if you're like, hey, I was working on something and I solved this problem, call the attorney and see if it's something that you might want to get a patent on, because chances are other people are facing that problem, and that's where the solution is equal to income. Hmm.

Okay. And what is the difference between getting a trademark and getting a patent? And what are the different reasons we need each one?

Right. So basically, the big thing about a trademark, and it's interesting if you really think about it's there to protect the public. It's not there to protect the brand owner. Granted, the brand owner won't force the rights and do all this stuff, but at the end of the day, it is there to assist consumers to make expedited decisions on quality and source of goods. So, you know, take McDonald's, for instance. I don't know if you ever saw Coming to America, but the big thing was McDowell's, and it was a clearly a McDonald's knockoff. McDowell's kept on trying to harass the guy, saying, you got to close this. But anyway, because when you walk into a restaurant that looks like a McDonald's, you expect that hamburger to taste like McDonald's. And then if it doesn't, who do you hold accountable? You hold McDonald's accountable. That's why the big thing about trademarks. So the idea is to, when you have a commercial society and decisions are made on the fly, are quick brand names. Brand recognition is very important to the consumer. So that's why we have trademarks, is to assist the consumer in making these decisions in a very timely manner. And then, of course, A patent is, hey, you have an invention or design, there's design patents. But mainly when people think about patents, they think about utility patents. And that's the, hey, I invented a new mousetrap and now I'm going to make a million dollars off of.

Okay, that's such a great way to distinguish the two. And what's interesting is, I mean, I've had conversations with lawyers, I've had them come speak to my podcast class. I've gone to seminars to talk about trademarks, but I've never heard anybody describe it the way that you just did, that it's really not about necessarily protecting our property, but it's really about protecting the public. So they know what the standard is that they should be looking for and how to distinguish between one company and another.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is. It's valuable to the company and they spend a lot of money protecting it. But the original purpose was to protect the consumer. And here's a little thing about trademarks that some people don't quite get. Like, I want to get a trademark. And I'm like, well, if you've ever sold anything with a name or logo, you already have a trademark. What people approached me to do is try to get a federally registered trademark, which provides a lot more legal protection and enforcing it and providing protection all across the US because if you just go with, and I'm sure you've seen it, the little tm, that means you're claiming a common law trademark. That's like, this is my trademark, don't use it. But you can get limited in geographic scope. So, I mean, the Internet makes it a little different now, but say you just got a small burger chain, let's say 20 years ago, in and out. It's only in California and maybe Arizona. Right. So, you know, unless they had a federally registered trademark, say that somebody started in and out in New York and they just didn't know about each other, their consumers would not be confused. Right. So, but if you file a federally registered trademark and you have to have some interstate commerce, you need to be present in two states or selling out of your home state in order to satisfy that requirement. Once you have it, that name is protected all over the US So you will never have that issue of, hey, we're geographically located over here and you are over here, and then we have to meet in the middle.

You mentioned the Internet kind of changing things a little bit for all of us. And with your experience working internationally with patents, I'm wondering, because I know that you can have a registered trademark in the US but that doesn't carry over to a lot of other countries necessarily. So can you talk to us a little bit about that? How do patents work? Is it country specific? Is it just IP specific? And then on the patent side and then on the trademark side. I know one thing that you've done is work on the enforcement of trademarks on Amazon, Alibaba, major shopping sites that we all use. So I'd love to get into that story. But we'll start with the international versus US patents and then go into those trademark.

Right. So with the trademark they actually come up with a pretty good system now such that, you know, when you apply in the United States, you can go under what's called the Madrid protocol and your U.S. attorney can actually apply in many jurisdictions that you believe you're going to go into. So it makes it a lot easier to administratively do this. But you know, trademarks are local. You either use it or lose it. So you can't just apply for these places and then never sell there. You need to have a presence so you can apply and then make sure you are getting your product over there. Because that's generally how you're going to maintain your trademark. Because they don't want to pull names out of the lexicon that aren't being used because that's what a trademark reg, you know, trademark does is that hey, you cannot use this word when discussing airlines. Take, take American Airlines for instance. They do not have a registered trademark and the reason is, is that they are descriptive because they are an American airline. Granted, I can't open up airline company called American Airlines, but if I was Delta, I could clearly say we are an American airline. So that is part of the, you know, when you're trying to determine your brand name, make sure one of the big ones that the office you know, kicks back against is it's merely descriptive of what's there. And they don't want you to be able to pull those words out of lexicon. Like you wouldn't be able to pull airline out and you wouldn't be able to pull American out. So that's why American Airlines has doesn't have an R with a circle behind it.

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Yeah, that's interesting. And it's also that you can get a registered trademark in specific categories. Right. If you have a name that's similar, but then you may not be able to use it in another category that the same name might be used in.

Correct. So if you had an American Airlines that was actually an oil company, then they could probably get a registration there. So yes, all they break it down into classes. So what products and what goods or services are you selling? And then we have to tell the office that they look inside those classes and then they see if there's a likelihood of confusion inside that class. Now that's not to say that hey, I'm class 35 and they're class 34. There is some bleed over. And if there's argument that, you know, hey, likelihood of confusion, that is the number one test for a trademark. Will these marks cause confusion among each other? And if so, the first one in use wins.

Okay, interesting. So I think most of us are probably on the IP side of registered trademarks. Versus patents. But I have also, I have interviewed people who have over 95 worldwide patents. So can you walk us through that system a little bit? We say, I invent a new way of doing something. I'm going to register for a patent. What does that process look like from start to finish? And again, does it only cover the US or is that a global patent?

Okay, so when they say global patent, generally what they're referring to is what's called the PCT applications, the Patent Cooperation Treaty. So basically what happened was when you filed for a patent, you had a year to file in a foreign country. But to file in that foreign country, you got to find the attorneys, you got to do, you know, figure out exactly where you want to do it. This took a lot of time. So eventually a bunch of countries got together and said, hey, what about 30 months from the date of original filing? So you can either start off by filing the PCT and then you get 30 months from then to nationalize, basically file in all these countries that you want. Or, you know, a lot of times what happens is they file in the United States, they have a United States patent application, provisional or non provisional, within that year. You have to make a decision. If you're going to file overseas, you can file directly. You know, say you only have two countries you really want. It's cheaper generally just to go directly to those countries and within a year. But if you're, hey, I don't know where I want, I need some more time. Then we file with the PCT application because it gives you a full extra 18 months from that one year deadline to make that decision. And the way the PCT works is that you file this application and it's treated like a placeholder in every country that it works in. But what you have to do is basically come up later and say, I nationalize this application. So when you nationalize that application, say you nationalize in China or Vietnam or India or something like this, it's treated as if it has the exact same filing date as the priority application or the date you filed the pct, whatever's earlier. So there's really not such thing as a worldwide patent. Probably the closest thing you're going to get to that is the EU patent. It's the unified patent. I think they've already started doing it. Basically they were trying to make it where all the EU just had one patent office. Because it used to be like you would get EU approval and then you would have to nationalize it. In other words, pay all those other low Countries fees to have a patent in those countries.

So when does it make sense to go ahead and get the patent approvals in these other countries? Because that's a long process. I'm sure it's very expensive.

It is. Especially eu. EU is very difficult. They're very anti patents because just the way their rules are, they're trying to make it as difficult as possible for you to get a patent and expensive. And Japan's very expensive as well. One thing with Japan is the translation cost. It greatly adds to it. But then you take like China or Vietnam or these other, you know, India, they're not nearly as expensive as filing. So the US Is kind of. It can be expensive. Europe, very expensive. Japan, very expensive. And then you have some other countries that are inexpensive. So when does that make sense? I mean, you got to know your product. So, you know, I tell people, look, if you don't have the huge patent budget, then let's just go with the he who controls the spice, controls the universe method. And that's basically like control the manufacturer. So if you can't afford a patent in the EU or you don't even want to mess with that, get your patent in the manufacturing centers like Vietnam, China, India. So when someone is trying to sell it in the EU and you're trying to sell in the eu, you still beat them on an economic standpoint, then, hey, you can't sell it at all because we're in here. So it's a way to exploit the manufacturing protection centers, and then you have somewhat of a worldwide advantage. Wow.

So you've given us a lot of good advice. So I'd love to hear some of the other things that you've seen as common mistakes. When clients come to you who need a patent or a trademark or maybe both, depending on which part of their business they're looking at.

Right. So the biggest thing with patents is, you know, when people invent things, they are like, wow, look what the cool thing I did. And they just want to tell people they want to show it, like, leave it off Facebook. It's not your baby. Don't show people your baby. Just don't do it. So keep it under wraps. If you feel the incessant need to tell someone about how great of an idea is, call patent attorney. That's protected. It's not considered disclosure. But don't go tell your friends, don't go do all this stuff, because then you may have ruined the, you know, application process in these foreign countries. You may have even ruined inside the United States another One that I give is that people have a very bad understanding of what an NDA is. At the end of the day, it's a contract. So, you know, they're like, oh, it's okay. I had my buddy sign NDA. And I'm like, well, it's a contract, and in order to have an effective contract, you have to have quid pro quantities quote. You gave him a secret, and he's agreed to keep it secret. What have you given him in exchange for that? And they're like, nothing. He's my buddy. And I was like, well, that's a promise. It's unenforceable. I don't know how that works. In every foreign country, they might say, hey, and, you know, generally this would come up if there was litigation. It's not like the patent offices are going to come after you and say, what did you tell your buddy? But a patent is only as good as the ability to enforce it. So if you have a weakness there, and they're going to come in and ask, hey, did you tell people about me? Like, yes. Well, let's see. Those NDAs, I didn't sign one. It's. My buddy would never tell anybody. Well, and then, you know, they're like, here's an NDA. And I'm like, well, did you read all the stuff that it said? You had to mark everything confidential that you gave to them. So generally what I tell people is like, look, if you really want to tell somebody, make sure it's someone you want to get the advice from and then pay them 10 bucks in the contract here for your consulting services. I agree to pay you $10. All the ideas that you come up with are now belong to me, Stuff like that.

So have you had those situations where somebody shared a patent and then maybe they were thought they were telling a friend, but then that person went and tried to do the same thing?

I haven't really seen that. The biggest issue for me is more you made a public disclosure. There's a statutory bar to disclosing your idea and then going out there and talking, like, then filing for the patent application. It's one year, so. And then public disclosure is not as clearly defined as you would think. Like, you know, there are cases, like I told my mom, yeah, you know, is that really a public disclosure? Is that really something out there? But clearly, if you tell a room full of investors, that's public disclosure, 100%. So, you know, those are the things that we're dealing with. You know, I've had clients that come in and like, hey, you know, I just, you know, we had this kind of like mini shark tank thing going on. Did they sign non disclosure agreements? She's like, no. And I'm like, well then that's public disclosure.

Okay, Amazing. Yeah, lots of tricky situations we can get into depending on what our product or service is. So when this has happened, when somebody's discovered that their product or their brand is being copied, infringed upon, what are their first steps to mitigating this and taking action?

Well, first thing you do is you contact an attorney. So it depends on the platform too. Like Amazon has really good intellectual, maybe too good. You know, I think there are some people who abuse this system, but they'll approach Amazon be like, hey, I have a patent on this product. They're infringing it, I want you to take it off. And I always get these calls around September. Well, think about it. You're knocking off your competitor over the Christmas thing and then nothing comes of it come January. So I don't know if someone's looking into that. I think someone should, but it's just anecdotally I've seen that. But I've also used the Amazon process and it's a much cheaper way to go about enforcing your patent. These called the Amazon Neutral process. I forgot the exact name that they give it now. But basically they hire a. You put up five grand, they put up five grand, it might be more than that. Now the winner gets their money back, but they get to argue before a qualified patent attorney under very specific rules of like, here's my patent, they're infringing it. Should Amazon take it down or not? That's much cheaper than going court because court's very expensive. So you know, in Alibaba, basically, you know, with that was more just shotgun method, you found people using your trademark to advertise their products or calling their products that. And generally you just send a letter saying, hey, here's our registered trademark, blah, blah, blah, here you go. And then they also now have systems where you can register your trademark with Alibaba. And I think they do some policing on their own. And you know, I believe Amazon does the same.

Well, that was what I was going to ask because there are a lot of times when I'll go on and I'll be looking at a certain category and I'll see, I'll put in whatever my what I'm searching for and then I'll see so many different companies that have pretty much the same exact. I'm like, I Wonder if this is all coming from the same factory, because I'm seeing the exact same pictures on three different companies pages.

That's kind of my understanding. I mean, I don't know 100%, but that's the only deduction I have is that, you know, there is businesses out there where you just contact suppliers of Alibaba, say, slap my name on it, and then just go straight to Amazon. And I think it's drop ship is one of the things that they used to call it and stuff like that. Like, they just send it to Amazon. You never have to do anything except, you know, if it doesn't sell, you got to pay the storage cost and all this other stuff. But that's kind of my understanding too, is that, you know, when you do that search and you're like, man, all these look the same and they vary in price greatly. You're like, I don't know, is it any different? So, yeah,

you have three offices, California, Florida, and Alabama.

Yes.

Do you see different kinds of cases and clients come through each of those offices, or is it pretty similar?

Well, I mean, you. You get the gambit pretty much everywhere but Florida. Definitely a lot of boat stuff.

Oh, interesting boat stuff.

So again, what is invention? It's you solving a problem. So what are your problems in these areas? Obviously, Southern California is just full of industry design and just massive amounts of people doing all kinds of niche things. You're like, I can't believe someone's actually making a living like that. You know, but you, you know, you've probably seen it a million times. Like, how'd you ever find that? Nich. But, you know, that's what happens with a huge population density.

Okay, interesting. Whether or not you can name names, I'd love to hear about one or two cases that stand out to you because it's just this is such an interesting field, and I think for many of us, without having an attorney, of course, we would be completely lost.

Right. Well, one of the things I really enjoyed, I mean, this trademarks, you kind of either get them or you don't. The likelihood of confusion, you can argue, and this kind of stuff. But I did have a client one time, it was a very nice man. He'd probably been in business for, I think he said 60 years at this point. So he came in, he's like, I want to register my trademark. I'm like, we can do it for you. So that's the interesting about trademarks is that again, the government doesn't give you a trademark. You establish your trademark. By putting it in commerce or making it out there well known or just known. And after 63 years we got his trademark registered before the office. So that was actually a really cool thing. I thought. This is the Chase Sapphire lounge at Boston Logan. You got clam chowder in New York, dirty martini over 1300 airport lounges and one card that gets you in Chase Sapphire Reserve now even more rewarding. Learn more@chase.com Sapphire Reserve cards issued by JPMorgan Chase bank and a member FDIC subject to credit approval.

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Yeah, that's an uplifting story. Have you ever had any stories that went completely haywire and you just kind of had to scratch your head?

Yeah, people give, you know, government employees sometimes a bad rap. And I will say 95% of the time because you know, while there's one USPTO, there's 80, like actually like 8,500 patent offices. I say because each patent examiner makes their own decisions. They have their own paradigm. Yeah, there's a general guide in there. But the biggest argument we have is obviousness. What's obvious to you is not obvious to me. And this kind of stuff. There's some legal things that we can do within that, you know, terminology. But at the end of the day you got to get the examiner thinking this is allowable, I mean, that's the biggest hurdle. You got to change their paradigm. This is allowable subject matter. But sometimes you can get a hold of an examiner who's just, nope, I don't care what you do. I'm never going to allow this. There are actually examiners at the office that have been working. I. You know, you can find it on patent statistics that have probably allowed maybe five things in their entire career. And to me, that's just a point of pride. That's not very good for anybody. That's. That's just something where you're. You're just trying your best. And in reality, it's not that the item wasn't patentable. You just exhausted that person's resources. Because every time they go back to the office, every time they have to argue with The examiner, that's 2,500 bucks down the train. Three grand if you have to go into appeal, maybe five grand. And even if you go to appeal and when they just change their argument and then you have to go through the whole process again, and then basically they're just sometimes bleeding these inventors dry. And I hate it for people. I don't want them ever to. I come across that kind of stuff. I do everything I can to make sure that we can work with the examiner. But some examiners just have a 5% passage rate. And I don't believe that only 5% of the things that come across their desk are patent.

And so you have to go down that road with whoever was assigned to you versus being able to request somebody else to look at it.

Yes. I mean, that's. That's kind of is. Once you get stuck with that examiner, you're with that exam, it's always a risk. This whole process is always a risk. You know, it may look good to us. We may have done the prior art search. We may have not found anything. But again, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. So anything that's ever been disclosed before you file for a patent application is considered priority anyway. So when we do our searches, generally we're just searching the United States because we're limited by time scope. We're not going to spend $100,000 searching for this. Same thing with the patent office. They're only going to spend, you know, x amount of time searching it, too. So there's always a possibility that you have a patent. And if it starts to make a lot of money, first thing, someone's going to do is spend a lot of money on a prior art search that may span the globe in hopes that they can find something that invalidates your patent. So even if you have a patent, it's still not 100% that you have a patent.

And are there people who do that? I mean, it sounds like it would be really costly to look and to try to be that person who's going to say, hey, actually your patent is illegal, or you know, whatever the right language might be around that.

Well, the only litigation. Well, I've worked on some litigations, but the biggest litigation I ever worked on was Blockbuster versus Netflix.

Okay, that's a pretty big one.

Yeah, well, that was the mailing one, right. I don't know if there's a Blockbuster anymore, but it's when they started, you know, mailing everything and that case just went on, you know, never went to court. I mean, I think eventually they decide just to call it quits because everything eventually is going to move to streaming. But they spent a lot of money searching, trying to find something that would invalidate the Netflix patent.

Yeah, so I am old enough to remember VHS tapes at Blockbuster and then the move to DVDs and then, oh, what's this thing? We can now have it mail ordered and then wait, now it's streaming so.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It was so easy to lose the mail order DVDs though. It was like, what? What do you mean? And the vhs be kind and rewind. I think.

Yes, I was just going to say you have to rewind every single one every time. Obviously, we've entered a new era with AI, so I'd love to hear a little bit about how that has changed landscape. Has it made it more difficult to actually be able to file? Has it made it easier?

Well, there are things that it can help with. I'll tell you that. My concern of it is, and until the Supreme Court comes out and says something about it, I'm very wary about it. Because, you know, they say when you put something into a learning language model, you can cut it off where it doesn't accept your information. Somehow I don't understand how that is true. It literally has to put it out there in order to get something back. Did you just publicly disclose your information to an LLM? And I'm like, you know, and then too you, I mean, just outside of patent stuff, you're a lawyer, you have confidential information. You're not supposed to put it out there. So this is kind of the, you know, back and forth that we have is like, how Much is too much. Where are we on this? And God forbid you stick your neck out and it's, nope, you shouldn't have used AI. You use too much AI. So, you know, I've had people call me up and be like, hey, I've had AI write my patent application. Can you file it for me? I'm like, nope, I'm sorry. One, it's not ethical. Because, I mean, I guess I could review it and then accept it, but I'll end up spending more time reviewing it, changing things to the way I will put my name on it than if I just wrote it myself. So that's kind of where we are. I don't know where my profession is going to go in terms of AI. I get asked all the time by young students. They're like, hey, I'm going to engineering school. I want to be a patent. And you know, when I was coming into it, becoming a patent attorney was kind of something you fell into. It wasn't like a goal that most people had. But now you got these people like, hey, I want to do this, I want to do this. I hear it's a great job, a great job. And I'm like, I don't know what AI is going to do to this. And I think I may be lucky in the fact that, you know, I've been doing this for so long that I call it shepherds. Like, AI is just going to go do its thing. You need someone to be able to check it. But how are you going to have a younger generation of people to check it if they don't have the experience of doing it all themselves to begin with? So this is where I think AI is going to get in trouble.

Yeah, what a great point that is, because talking to somebody else a couple hours ago about the fact that those of us who are of a certain vintage, right, we didn't have AI, we didn't have computers, or if we had computers, they were very rudimentary. They weren't laptops. They're these huge things. We didn't have phone, you know, we didn't have phones that you could use outside of your home. And so we had to learn how to do everything ourselves. And it's much easier. And it's. I teach university as well. And part of that I'm always trying to still instill critical thinking of use this AI tool to test this. And this. Did the results come out the way that you thought? Do you have to fine tune your ask or was the information completely useless? Like, how did it help Because I want them to still. It has to still be our ideas. Like you said, we can use AI to get us part of the way there. But I think this is part of what we're going to be seeing a lot of, right? Music, infringement images, graphics, so many different things. How are we going to know what's original thought and what's not anymore?

Oh, it's. I mean, there's things I've seen, I'm like. And I was like. Then I had to go check and see it was AI like formulated video, they're getting a lot better. You know, like sometimes the graphics are really bad with fingers. That's the one thing that I always, you know, look at. But, you know, it's interesting in that we've always kind of had this issue of how much technologies too much. I know the bars are pushing us to use more AI in our practice because they think it will drop down legal hours, it will reduce, you know, these kind of things. But there was an attorney in a big case in New York. I forgot what it was like a big, well known case with somebody used AI. AI made up case law, literally just made it up out of whole cloth to support this guy's argument. And good enough on the judge for actually looking for it and having a clerk go through it and check these references. And they were just no references to be had. These cases never happen. These quotes from judges never happened. For me, just too many times I've asked it something like a patent question and it's wrong. And I'm like, well, what about this? Oh, you're absolutely right. I'm sorry, I was wrong. It's like, well, I mean, so it's just a weird search engine at this point, I think, I guess there is AI that's a lot more advanced than what we're doing able to get. But I'm sure you've probably played with it and like, no, I know that that's wrong.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've played with a lot of things. I've built some tools. But for those people who are really worried about it taking over our jobs, for most of us that's not even really a consideration because you still have to have human oversight. Like you said, you can't just rely on, you know, regurgitation of whatever good or bad information is out on the Internet.

Yeah, I was listening to a conference one time and this guy, best thing, he says, so you take pictures of plumbing, right? But say one of the pictures that AI uses is totally wrong. Now you have a poison pill inside that model and it will just pop up randomly and you can cause damage and stuff like that. And I think that's kind of if you don't have a shepherd, People like us, who know our business enough to catch it. But that's my concern. What happens in 20 years when someone else is trying to do this? They've never written a response from the beginning. They've never read the MPP from scratch because the AI will just find it. Those kind of things.

Yeah, well, and there are, of course, different people, different states share different price points for finding the right attorney for yourself. What are some questions somebody should ask if they're looking for somebody with your expertise?

Great question. So, you know, basically kind of get to where their estimates of their actual end product are. You know, you could say something by hour, but you know what, like our hourly rates typically go up just because we get better. You know, we kind of have still make the same amount of money. We just get better at our job. We can't, you know. But you've paid for that experience. That's what it is. You know, when the arguments come in, that's really where our experience comes in. But one of the things is if you go with a large firm, I'm a solo practitioner, it's just me. So if you work in my, with me, I'm the only attorney that you're going to deal with. Your work will not be passed. But if you go to a large firm, they have the three person model, senior partner, junior partner, associate. So you're basically paying for the associate to learn, but then you're also paying for the part, junior partner to teach the associate. And then you're paying for the senior partner to manage this project. So I always call it the super meeting. When they all three get together, it's like a $5,000 meeting because they're talking about yourself. You got to pay all three attorneys for the same amount of time.

That's a really good point that I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't consider because you hear, oh, this law firm has this level of experience and they've done all these different things and. But I could pay somebody like yourself, who's a solopreneur but has the same amount of experience and isn't. I'm not paying to train somebody else to get that experience.

Correct. Yeah. And the other thing I always tell them is like, you know, look, you know, when you go into that office and you see those real pretty paintings, you better enjoy it because you're paying for It.

Yes. All right, so, Austin, what are three actions anybody who's listening right now could take to protect their ip?

Well, I mean, the biggest thing would be is talk to an attorney. But an IP attorney should be. Is try to get them integrated in your business, that they see things that you might not have brought to them. You know, I've had clients where I've come behind maybe some others and said, hey, you should have applied for this, this over here years ago. And they missed out, and it was because their attorneys just took what they gave them. You really kind of want to see, hey, we're. We're looking at selling these products, we're looking at moving into these industries. You really want them ingrained or at least have their ear to everything you're doing. And, you know, try to find an attorney that's not, you know, not every phone call has to be built that's, you know, supposed to be a good relationship. Like, hey, you know, we're looking at this. Maybe we should try and do this. And then you bill them when you do the work. But, you know, if you have an attorney to charge you for, a quick little question might not be your turn or, you know, that's for you to decide. I. I hate to call it, but that is, you're never going to get that person ingrained in your business or integrated in your business that they can see the holes that you may have.

Yeah, that's such great advice. Making sure somebody is asking the right questions when you're interviewing them or talking to them, where they will get to know your entire business. Because I think that's easy for us to just focus on one thing, and then who knows what we're missing out on? And maybe we're missing out on the thing. That's really gold.

Right? Because you never know. I mean, you know, how many times has someone started business and it's the side one that gained all the fruit? So, yeah, it's really good if you have someone who is kind of your partner. And when you interview your attorneys, you should call multiple and you should find out the one that you actually jive with. But, you know, ask the question, who's going to do my work? Who's going to take my calls? Are you going to pass my work on? Because many times you get that partner and he talks to you, and everything's a great game, and then you'll never hear from them again.

Yikes. So really great things for us to think about. And I think about that not just in terms of lawyers, but in Terms of building any business, you have to be really intentional with how you build your team so that if you are having clients, because I'm just thinking about myself, I have been building a team so that my clients can feel comfortable going to them for their specific areas of expertise. So that I can take myself out of the picture and not be that bottleneck in my business that's having to relay and go back and forth and. Yeah, but do the same thing when it comes to who you're going to hire to protect your IP with you. Make sure that.

And I didn't want to make it sound like that can't work. It's just you want people on top of it. You want well trained associates that are working with you. You don't want a first year writing your patent application. I mean, let's just be honest. And there was one more thing I probably should have said to be wary about. There are corporations that you see advertising, especially trying to help inventors, be very cautious. I have had many, many, many calls, you know, concerning these companies. I'm not going to mention them by name, but when you feel like you're the product, chances are you are the product.

What is the best way for people to reach you.

Good thing my last name is pretty. Just look up Bonderer, B O N D E R E R and patents or patent and you should be able to find me. I believe I'm the only one who has that combination on the Internet, so.

Fantastic. And do you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, poem, family motto, words that continue to inspire you in life and in business every day?

Just keep chugging. Just keep chugging. Ours is swimming. Just keep swimming. Is that the one? Yeah, exactly.

So chugging has a different connotation, but yeah, yeah, exactly.

I was thinking the Little Engine that Could, and then the dory popped in the.

Oh, yeah, no, I'll just keep chugging. That would be Thomas the Tank Engine or the Little Engine that Could.

Yeah, I think that's way before Dory, so.

Yeah.

Okay. There's probably a copyright infringement in there somewhere.

Quite possibly.

No, not

fantastic. Well, this has been a really fun conversation. I think that you've shared information in a way that nobody else has before. So I really appreciate that because I think it's really important for us to really understand what the use cases are when we really need to be pursuing patents or registered trademarks. Right. We can all use the tm, as you said, and making sure that we're working with the right person who really understand our needs, who will see and assess the needs that we don't even know we have and be able to help us get to the next level in our businesses. So thank you Austin.

Well, you're welcome. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you to everybody who is watching this episode, listening to it. Hope that this has been very valuable for you as it has been for me. A great reminder to look over my different areas of business, see where I may need to tighten up with some of these trademarks and I'll bring another guest on in a couple days who will also share their amazing journey story and some information that can be helpful for you and your business. So until then, have a great couple days.

Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of youf Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast list listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out@yourbrandamplified.com.