Why Protecting Your Intellectual Property Should Be A Priority

You at least want to get a plan in place. And so in other words, doing it earlier on when you're getting the business up and going, you may not be able to afford an attorney right now, or you may not be able to get everything going but understanding, hey, here are the deadlines that are going to.

Be trigger points, or here are the.

Milestones, or here's what it's going to cost me in the future and what I should be anticipating. Setting aside. Having that plan at whatever stage you're at, I think is always beneficial to the business.

Foreign.

Do you protect your intellectual property? And what is intellectual property? What kind of an asset can it be for you and your business? And how can you go about making sure that you can have a lasting impact with the property you create with this thing? Well, we are joined together today by Devin Miller, who is a patent attorney who lives in Utah. He's worked for large firms helping Fortune 100 clients with their intellectual property. But he realized that startups and small businesses needed to understand this. They needed to recognize the power of patents and trademarks and copyrights so that they could have the same advantage as the big guys. As a small business owner, Devin wanted to provide a resource for them so that they could maximize the value of their intellectual property. So we're here to learn about IP and how IP can be such a value to you and how do you go about protecting these amazing and incredible ideas that you have. Devin, we're so happy to have you on the program here and joining us with Wealth Without Bay Street.

Awesome. Well, that was an awesome introduction. Makes us. Our intellectual property sound really cool, which is. It's not the norm. So I appreciate the introduction and excited to be here.

Well, Devin, it's fun that you say it's not the norm. I'd be curious to hear how, how those conversations go when people reach out to you and they say, I've got some ip and I'm sure a lot of times it's that, it's that you actually let them know that they have IP and how they should protect it. That might be the way it shows up from time to time.

Yeah, I mean, I think that on a, on a hold it one is people have the perception that anytime you have to talk with an attorney, it's never a fun experience, which probably is true for most of the time. So that's, that's kind of the, the conception now I get to work with the fun stuff and I get to help people as they're building their business and expanding it and growing it and looking to protect it. And so I get to have that, that fun side of the job. But generally I'm just used to people saying, oh, I gotta go or go work with an attorney and this is probably going to cost me an arm and a leg and what am I going to have to show for. I just, I like the introduction just because it, it makes to sound a lot, it sound pretty cool.

It's amazing. And so when you think of, you know, the whole topic of intellectual property. So why, why would it be intellectual. To protect your intellectual property. If you, if you were to reference an example of, you know, maybe an existing business owner, an entrepreneur, and maybe an example of what would be most common in the realm of intellectual property.

Yeah, no, I would back up and to answer your question just a little bit and, or kind of look and see why is it called intellectual property in the first place? And you know, it really, if you're to think about it, it makes sense in the sense that you have real property, right? So you have a house, a car land, you know, whatever that might be. And that's all real property. And so, you know, you have ownership of that, you have a title to your house, you have title to your car, you have, you have the receipts or you know, all those things. Now what it gets in to be a little bit more difficult is when you get into kind of those intellectual things. So how do you own an idea or how do you own an invention or how do you capture the value for all that time, money and effort to create an innovation that, you know, it's kind of like the magic trick. Once you know how it's done, it's a lot, you know, the magic is gone and it's a lot easier to replicate. But yet it takes a lot of time, money and effort to make the original innovation. And so that's kind of where intellectual property steps in is it allows people to capture all of that time, money and effort going into creating the business that oftentimes isn't necessarily in physical or tangible type of products. And so for you to then take, you know, intellectual property as as opposed.

To real property is that intellectual nature. And so kind of be able to look at what intellectual property includes.

It kind of breaks down to three areas.

And so you have patents, trademarks, copyrights, right? Patents are going to go towards protecting an invention. Trademarks are going to go towards protecting a brand. And copyrights are going to go towards protecting a creative like a book, a sculpture, painting, those type of things.

And so Each business is different, you.

Know, so we'll work with some that, hey, if you were to be creating a brand and you're going to do awesome customer service or you're going to do, you know, really, you know, innovative, you know, cool branding or marketing, that's where you're going to protect, is under trademark, vice versa. We also work with a lot of fun customers that have clients that have created new innovations that are kind of unique and different, solve a problem, and then they go under patents. And so kind of unique is with each business, but it gives you kind of a way to capture that value.

Well, and the significance of doing that, especially if you're dealing with a business that gradually, over a period of time, moves through those stages of, you know, startup to being durable, to being scalable, that intellectual property has value, it has appraisal value and, and that can be leveraged in favor of continuing to grow the company to, you know, in favor of growing the value of the business so that at some point down the road, if you decide to, to exit or you have some, you know, plan to do that, that intellectual property is a whole basket of value that can either come along with the sale of the business or be sold separately, altogether, or even licensed. There's so many great ways that you can utilize it, but you have to claim it. You have to go through a process.

Yeah, exactly. And so, and, and that's kind of what it, it's there for is, you know, I, it would, there's a train line of thought which I obviously would disagree with that, hey, you can't own an idea. You can't, and it should be free for all and just go and compete in the marketplace. The problem is, is it disincentivizes a lot of investment businesses. Right? If you thought, hey, if I'm going to go, I could go and create the next, whether it's the next iPhone or the next Facebook or the next, you know, whatever innovation, pick it. But it's going to cost me $100 million to go and to create that brand, create the innovation, get it into the marketplace, you know, and I'm making up the numbers and you're going to say, but as soon as it's out there, somebody can come along, they can create the knockoff business with the same brand. They can come and copy all of our technology and all our innovations are going to say, it's not worth it. And so it really gives you kind of that ability to say, hey, if I'm going to invest all of my time, money and effort into building a business. I want to capture that. And so one, that I can protect it, but two, also that if I ever sell it, I, I can license it, I can get acquired or anything else, then I actually can capture that value hands down.

What would, what would you say is one of the, you know, biggest misconceptions? So for, you know, especially again, your focus being more on startup and the small business owner, you know, they're, they're probably, especially in the startup phase, I mean, they're just focused on getting up, getting off the ground, you know, getting up and running. Small business owner, Maybe they've got five to 10 years under their belt. They, they, they've got some great systems in place. They're trying to hit their, they're starting to hit their stride. What would you say is keeping them away from engaging or, or connecting with an IP lawyer to, to look at harnessing that value? What are some of the misconceptions that you hear, why they haven't initiated earlier or, you know, some of the things they just don't understand about the process?

Yeah, I'd say a couple, and I'm sure there's plenty, but at least a.

Couple come to mind.

One is that it's going to be.

Expensive and anytime you deal with a professional, whether it's doctor, lawyer, mechanic, a.

You know, any services, it's, you know.

You'Re paying for their expertise. And so there's, there is, you know, there is that conception or misconception that, well, I'm not going to get the.

Value for what I'm paying for.

You know, maybe I can do it myself.

And that's kind of the, the other.

Thing that, you know, the Internet has made everybody an expert on everything. Especially now chat GPT just made everybody an expert on everything. And so people think, one is, you know, what am I paying for? And two, I could probably just do this myself.

And the, and I understand that you're.

A startup, you're a small business, you have limited budgets, you have limited funds, you're bootstrapping, you're trying to cover as much basis as possible. But I think people start to get into there where they think that, hey, if I do this diy, do it myself, I can do it just as good and I can spend 10 minutes on the Internet. And it's going to replace years of experience and going to law school and all those things. And that DIY culture, I think is led sometimes people down the wrong path to where they do it, but they don't really have the Value, they're not capturing it. So I file a trademark myself, but now it's all done improperly and I didn't really cover my brand the way I need and it leaves a lot of holes open. Or I file a patent application myself and I prepare it and I have ChatGPT write it and then I file it and lo and behold, it doesn't really give me the coverage or the extent I run into problems. And it's usually more expensive if you can fix those down the road and just to fix that. So I think that's kind of one of the, the DIY culture, the Internet and all those things that come into it, which I certainly get where it comes from. But you know, there is a trade off when, when you're doing it yourself, it'd be kind of like, you know, the analogy always uses, you could, if you wanted to have shelter over, over your head, you have a few options. One is you can just go and try and build or build something yourself with no resources whatsoever. You'll build something that's better than absolutely nothing, but you know, it's not that great. You can go buy a DIY book or watch a YouTube video, probably a little bit better, and it's going to be better than nothing at all. But it's not going to replace going in, hiring someone that has the experience of background, that's been a builder that can build you the, you know, do all the electricity, do all the plumbing, make sure it's structurally sound and has all of the amenities that you're looking for and you're just going to have to look at with your business, what does your budget allow and what, you know, how valuable is it to you. And then based on that, you got it, you know, you accept it accordingly. So that's probably one of the, the misconceptions that seems that to be popping up more and more and as, as the Internet and technology progresses well.

And that's why we would definitely recommend that anyone who's viewing, watching, and you want to go down that path of identifying what intellectual property may already be, may have already been created, that you should be protecting or looking ahead at your business planning and the initiatives that you're building and how you can be very proactive in protecting it and working with a subject matter expert who lives and breathes this day in and day out. And so we're going to make sure, as we do with all of our guests, that we have all of the appropriate contact info, how people can get to learn more about you and how people can connect with you and your team to go down that path?

Yeah, no, I think so.

And I said it sounds like a little bit of a self serving answer.

Which is an attorney telling you should.

Probably go to an attorney in order to, you know, to be able to get something done. But it wouldn't be any or much different than if you were to go to a doctor and say, hey I'm, I'm not feeling well. What can you do to help me out? You can also read online. So it's one of those where I think it's, you know, the, you get what you pay for and to the ability and extent that you are able to have, you know, have a professional do the things that you don't have the experience in the background and is always beneficial to the business all day long.

What would be some examples Devin, of you know, I guess an IP gone wrong scenario. So maybe it's not, not starting the process at all, not having the protections in place or an example like you identified where hey, someone went the DIY route and they, maybe they got a trademark, let's say, but they didn't. They did a poor job of actually protecting it and knowing how to do that. So, so what's some of the pitfalls and examples maybe of you know, without naming names perhaps of an example of a business that, that tried to do something like that might be in your purview?

Yeah, I'll give you maybe a couple examples. You know, maybe one on the patent front, another one on the trademark front. You know, if I were to stay on the patent front, one of the things and without naming names and making sure I maintain confidentiality that's come up is you'll get, you know, it's. But it usually hits more on startups and small businesses just because they're less experienced in a lot of the intellectual property realm. But you'll get businesses that will come into my office and they'll say, hey, I've got a great product, a great innovation.

We've been into, been in the market.

For about three years now and we.

Didn'T have the budget or the time or the ability to get a patent on it. But now we're starting to see some knockoffs and we're wanting to make sure we get that protection in place.

And then I get the less than.

Fun conversation which is within patent law there is a rule that any time from the first instance you put anything out in the public. So that could be on a website offering it for sale, you could be doing presentations Trade shows, putting it out in the public. You have one year within which you can file a patent application on. If you miss that one year window, you've now just donated your invention to the public. So anybody can create or create and copy that product. And so, you know, when they come in and they say it's been out for two or three years and you know, the flags automatically go up and you say, well, you know, it's awesome, the business is doing well. I'm glad that it's, you know, it is going well for me. You're able to make some revenue. Unfortunately, you miss a window on patents.

And so you're not able to at least protect your current iteration or your current invention.

Now. The conversation usually evolves into now as you continue to iterate make new, you know, innovations, you, you get generation two.

Or three of the products, you can.

Protect those future innovations and I would recommend that you do. But there's been people that are, you.

Know, were unaware of those deadlines, missed.

The window, and now what they're getting.

Or what they have out in the.

Marketplace, they don't really have any protection. And they're trying to figure out how to protect against, you know, people that are copying it or knocking it off. The other one that a lot of times will come up is on now, I'll give you a trademark example, which.

Is, you know, a lot of times as a startup or a small business, you're getting out there and you know, when you're creating a brand, you're just trying to get any traction, any attention or anything you can. And so with most of, or pretty much all of intellectual property, the person that files on a trade or on any intellectual property, whether it's a patent or trademark, first is in the best situation. And so sometimes we'll have clients that will come into the office and they'll say, hey, we've been in, you know, business for a few years. We built up a brand, we've got some really good following. And now we're starting to see again, competitors that are either copying the brand out, right, and they're confusing our customers, or we're seeing people that are using.

Something similar to what we're doing.

And maybe it's not exact. What, what are our options and what can we do? You know, sometimes it'll come back, we'll say, one is come to find out you weren't the original person that actually started using that and one of your competitors were, and now you've got an issue with, you're probably infringing their trademark that they filed on. And so now you either have to try and go negotiate a license with that competitor, or you have to go through the time, money and expense to rebrand or do something of that nature, which can typically be a lot more time, money and effort than if you just done it right the first time. And so that a lot of times of, you know, you have to balance when you're bootstrapping where your budget goes, it can't, you know, as a small business, you always have more things to spend money on than money to spend. And so you always have to balance that. But you also have to look at if you are going to put in that investment to build a business, what are the critical things that you need to protect and how are you going to do that and what kind of order and milestones and when do you approach that? So those would be a couple examples.

And is it typically, you know, in a situation where whatever your enforcement approach is, does it become, you know, a tennis match where it's like you're violating? No, I'm not. Yes, you are. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. No, I'm not. Or is it, you know, are there different forms of enforcement strategies that make it very crystal clear and you're not, you know, dragging the process out for several months or years only to arrive at, maybe we should settle this. Well, why didn't we talk about that 18 months ago when we got started to begin with? And why should the onus be on the property owner to settle?

Yeah, I mean, I'll give you the, the standard lawyer answer, which seems like it's always a go to answer for a lawyer, which is it depends. But I'll give you a little bit more context. I mean, where it depends sometimes is on the size of the business and, you know, where they're at. You know, there is a difference. If you're a startup and the, this infringing you as a startup, neither of you get, you know, a lot of times neither of you really have the funds or the ability to go back and forth for years in the court system and going and doing that. So you're more inclined to figure it out or to otherwise resolve the issue without having to go down that longer, more protracted, more expensive, you know, court. On the other hand, you're two big businesses, or if you're a small business and the other one's a big business, the big business may say, hey, you're probably in the right, but we can outspend you and we can drag this out. So now you're going to have to deal with that. Now there's strategies to deal with that as well in the sense that yeah, you may be a small startup, but every large business always has a competitor. Apple has Samsung, Nike has Adidas, you know, all of those, you know, or Pepsi has Coca Cola and they always have their competitor. So while you may not have the funds or the ability to go out and enforce it right off, you can go to the number two or number three competitor and say, hey, we've got this great brand or great trademark or great patent, we can't enforce it. But you're in a position where it should be valuable to you. Would you like to license it, acquire it or otherwise look to enforce it. And so those are kind of the options. And so it can honestly depend. The other one it varies on is how strong your case is. So it's not always clear cut. You always watch it on TV and there's always a person that's absolutely in the wrong and always a person that's absolutely in the right. And yet most of the time when somebody comes into my office, I usually.

Figure what they're telling me is about.

Half true and what the other side is telling me is about half true. And then the actual answer lies somewhere in the middle. Now that varies. But you know, if you're in a very strong position, typically it goes away quicker because the other side is going to say, hey, we don't want to go down this road only to lose and get damages against us and all that.

Upon the other hand, you're in a.

Weak position and yeah, you're mad and.

You'Re, you know, unhappy that they're doing.

It, but what they're doing is legal.

You're probably going to again, not want to expend the funds if you're talking hopefully at least with a good attorney. And to say your odds are pretty, are pretty bad here. You'd probably better to look to resolve this some other way.

So it's kind of an equation, but there's a lot of different avenues that.

You can take depending on size of.

The business, the strength of your position.

And what your end goal is.

Very, very interesting. And what does that process look like for a prospective client when they engage with yourself and your team?

Yeah, I mean, now it depends. Again, no, but it varies a bit. Just, you know, when we have someone come in the office, every, every situation is going to be different. In other words, you're going to look and say how old is a business, how much Funds do you have? How strong of case do you have? What is the case? Have you reached out to the other side? Are they amenable to settle all of those things? And so every time we have someone come in, it's usually, hey, let's sit down, let's hear what's going on, what is the backstory kind of where. What is the position? And then let's craft a strategy that actually works for that situation. And sometimes it's, hey, you don't really want an attorney, or it wouldn't make sense to pay us. Now. I'd love to get paid, but I always want to give them the, you know, the best answer. And other times it'd be, hey, here's what I would do in your shoes, and this is going to be longer, more expensive. But if your end goal is they're eroding into your bottom line and they're causing a lot of issues with your business is probably the investment, while you would rather spend it other places that you need to make in order to protect the business. And so each time you kind of sit down, you understand the situation, and then you go through and say, the other thing I usually like to do is, here are your options. And I'll usually say, here are one options, 1, 2, and 3. And, you know, I'll lay out the options first and say kind of, here's what you could consider. Although we, you know, typically, so what do you recommend? And I'll say, well, I'll give you the pros and cons of each of the options, or that's what I already done. Here's what I would do in your situation. But I, you know, I'm not making the decision. I'm not the one that's expending the funds. I'm not the one that's, you know, it's impactful to. And so I can give you what I would do, and here are the pros and cons. And then you're going to. Whatever decision you want to make based on that knowledge, we're happy to assist with.

Do you find that you. You're having people come in to see you more at the beginning stages of, hey, I think I have some IP I'd like to protect. Or is it more of we've gotten ourselves into maybe a little bit of hot water and we need to figure out how do we. How do we go from here? Like, they're. They're maybe running up against a competitor, the knockoff situation, and they're trying to say, okay, do we need to protect what we've got? Or is it, hey, I think I've got something that needs protecting. Can you, can you get us started on the right path so that we can, you know, we can tackle this thing on a go forward basis.

You.

Know, probably where we're positioned. So I tend to work more so on the what is called prosecution. So which means nothing to anybody unless you're in a lawyer that's in the IP, but there's 10 it kind of splits into generally when you're an attorney, either do prosecution, which is that's going out and getting the patents, the trademarks, the copyrights and going through that process to acquire them. And litigation is more of now you've got that problem that you've got that issue. And so the firm is set up to do both. Where I tend to love and enjoy and probably not intentionally push the firm more just in that area to expand or to grow, but just because I have the personal enjoyment of it is more on helping on the front end of getting those patents, those trademarks that copyrights. And so that's generally when somebody comes into our office, they're more, they're excited, hey, we've got a business. We're started, we've got an idea. Can we get a patent? Or hey, we've been, we're starting a business, we've created this awesome thing, here's a prototype. What do we do next? Or hey, we've got a cool brand that we're building, we're going to be investing in it, launching it soon. Or we just launched it now. How do we protect that as we invest in it? Those are usually the conversations now. Doesn't mean that we don't have either current clients or people come in our door that say, hey, we've got a problem, somebody else is now infringing our trademark. Or hey, we got this nasty cease and desist letter. Do we need to do or worry about this? That happens. But it's usually on the smaller amount, probably more just because passion of where we enjoy working tends to drive where the business heads and it tends to be on the what I consider the more fun side of things.

That's great. I'd be curious, you know, what are some of the, you know, a lot of technology advances in the last number of years, you know, AI. You mentioned Chat GPT earlier in our conversation. As we see more and more of those things coming to the forefront and we live, I think, in an increasingly more technological world, what do you find? Like, do you, do you find that that's creating and also just there's probably more information also available to people around IP process, etc. Do you, do you find that it's causing more people to come up with ideas and, and fresh ideas on how they, what they might protect even considering, you know, I mean before, I mean I've heard of intellectual property before a lot, but it's only in the recently, in the last say two years that I'm getting a lot more exposure to it, I would say, and understanding of it than knowing that it existed and it was something that you could protect 20 years ago to like, oh, in the last two years like I starting to see areas that need protecting and becoming more aware of other people doing it that I guess it's rising to the forefront just from my own personal perspective. So I'm just kind of curious, with technology and technological advances, are you seeing any change or increase in the questions and the ideas even that are protectable that are coming into your office?

I wouldn't say it's an increase, it's probably a shift in direction. And so the ironic thing, and I can't remember who said it was like 150 years ago somebody came out and said, well I think basically everything that could be patented has already been patented and there's really no need for the patent office. And it's some famous person that I'm sure the name will come to at some point or you can go Google it and it will tell you, but you know, so, and yet think 150 years ago versus today. We didn't have cars, we didn't have airplanes, we didn't have the Internet, we didn't have smartphones, we didn't have TVs or even flat screen TVs we didn't.

Have computer, we didn't have any of.

Those innovations and yet those have continued to come out. And so I don't know that it's a increase, but it's a shift. And so now it's, hey, this is the area of technology that people are currently focused on, that there's a lot of market potential. Here's kind of what is, you know, going to be the next kind of phase of where people are headed or kind of what, where people can incorporate. So I'd say that there's been a.

Shift where at least for a portion.

Of it, of people looking at how do you leverage AI, how do you.

Incorporate it, what do you do in.

Those areas, how can it improve my business, how do I, or keep myself.

From being put out of a job and Kind of those type of things. And so it's push innovation into that direction, at least currently.

But I don't know that it's accelerated or decelerated that on its own.

It's just caused that shift in where people tend to focus.

Well, I can definitely say though there's a lot more awareness being generated around the importance of protecting intellectual property.

It's, and it's probably to do, you know, probably to some degree there has.

Been, you know, a lot of, you know, shows like Shark Tank as just.

As an example, you hear that pop.

Up a lot more.

Hey, how do you have this protected? Do you have a patent on it? So people now that they've heard these.

Things or if you go to an investor, especially if you go into something that's software technology driven, they're going to say what is proprietary and how's it protected? And so I do think that there has been an increase in maybe awareness as it shifted into more of the technological area that hey, this is now something that I'm going to go spend a whole bunch of money. It's not physical, it's not tangible. And so it makes it a lot easier to copy or to knock off just because there isn't that, hey, I.

Don'T have to go set up a.

Five million dollar business with manufacturing, with pro or tools, with all of these things.

And I can have somebody that's programming.

It or I can make a rudimentary version myself. And so I think it may be on that sense you're probably right that it has shifted people to think about it more just because, hey, this is now something that's less tangible.

Exactly. And what advice would you give to entrepreneurs regardless of the stage? If we're, if we're talking about business owners here for a second, what advice would you give to them regardless of what stage their business is at? Would it be advisable to, you know, sit down with a team like yours to say let's do an inventory of what may be property worth protecting and is that a worthwhile exercise?

Yeah, I mean, I'll caveat it, it's a biased answer. Right. So you're asking an attorney, should you go or should you go talk with an attorney when you're doing or things related to intellectual property? But I would say, you know, as a, trying to give as unbiased of an opinion as I can, I would say you at least want to get a plan in place. And so in other words, doing it earlier on when you're getting the business up and going you may not be able to afford an attorney right now, or you may not be able to get everything going but understanding, hey, here are the deadlines that are going to.

Be trigger points, or here are the.

Milestones, or here's what it's going to cost me in the future and what I should be anticipating, setting aside, having that plan at whatever stage you're at, I think is always beneficial to the business. And you'll have a lot of attorneys, our firm and myself included, as well as others. I'm not the only one. They'll offer a free consultation, which I think is valuable if you get a good attorney to give you the consultation. But you know that we'll sit down, you know, the 15, 20 minutes. And it's not going to be a long extended plan of every possible thing you could think of, but it gives you at least some direction of. Here's probably what you can consider first steps. Here's the dates that you should probably consider it. Here's about what it's going to cost you, and it gives you that direction. So that's probably what I would recommend for any business, whatever stage, if you haven't gone through that, is to go through that initial exercise.

Perfect. On that note, Rich, Yeah, it sounds like the idea of a property protection plan, intellectual property, I mean, in, in. In physical property, like a home, you've got home insurance and it protects you if the house burns down. So having a retainer, let's say with a. With a lawyer who's very knowledgeable in this space, to protect some of your future assets and your ideas, to me, seems like it makes a lot of sense. And now on that logical. If it's logical. On that note, Devin, you know, you showed up to our incredible interview here today, and, you know, I noticed that when you came on camera, you weren't wearing a cape. Now, you may not recognize yourself as a superhero, but when you help people protect their incredible ideas so that the power of the human brain and the ingenuity and the innovation that they come up with, which really drives many of the things you identified that we enjoy on a daily basis, all stem from someone's brain, you're in the business of protecting things that come out of those. Those brains for their benefit and the benefit that they provide to the world. So my question for you is, although you didn't show up as a superhero here today, you are actively being a superhero out in the marketplace with what you do. Who would you most want to be a hero to?

I'll probably go with the easy answer, which would be my wife and kids in the sense that, you know, I don't, I, you know, first of all, I'm probably reasonably antisocial as far as I'm not a big people person. I don't have to be, you know, have a lot of people know my name or be in the crowds or have anything of that nature. And at the end of the day when I look and say who are the people that I want to be impactful in their lives? It's my wife and my kids. And so if I can be a superhero to them or if I can set a good example or I can do that, that's probably the number one focus for me. If I were to take it now in a business contact to say, okay, that's a, that's a cheat in order to say wife and kids, because that's always a go to for everybody. It'd be those startups and those small businesses that we tend to work with in the sense that, so I've, you know, in addition to doing intellectual property and patents and trademarks and that myself, I've also done several startups and small businesses and I've done everything from a wearables business that I started in college, is still, still going today and is now an eight figure business that I don't have a, I'm pretty passive on it. Done a food truck, I've done a lead generation software platform as well as intellectual property. And so I always look and say, how do I help them if I was in their shoes? And what would I want to know given that I've been on the other side and if I can kind of be that hero or at least help them to protect and to avoid a lot of the pitfalls, then that would be the other one that I focus on.

That's amazing. And Devin, this was a real pleasure, thank you. And we would encourage all of our listeners and viewers take some time to get to know Devin and his team. Especially if you're an entrepreneur and you're just really either a, you've been exposed to the advantages of intellectual property and the protection of that, or you really want to go through a consultative process because you believe that you may have some IP that's worth protecting. And so Devin, this was great. And to all our viewers and listeners, you've seen a playlist that has shown up thanks to our, our incredible team. Continue your journey of learning. The very next video that we've recommended you watch is to help you do that and so make the rest of your week. Outstanding, gentlemen. This was a lot of fun. Have an awesome rest of your day.