https://www.listennotes.com/e/af23bce93c1b47ca8818c21ffa537700

Protect your brand, product or invention from the hazards of consumer product launching and go from idea to product to big brand with guidance from retail product design and development experts Tracy and Tom Hazard. Get the insider secrets to put the right things in the right order with the right resources so you can out design, outsource and out profit your way to retail success.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Product Launch Hazards. I'm Tracy Hazard and I am super excited to introduce you to someone who I've gotten to know who has written a book that you are going to just love as stolen on TV. I know you're going to be really excited. So this is stealing the American dream, one invention at a time. So you inventors out there, I know who you are because you email me, you message me, you send messages through LinkedIn because you listen so carefully to the show that you know that that's the only place I'll respond to you. So I have Paula Bryson Phillips. and I'm so excited for you to talk to her. So she is an attorney and she has some amazing stories and experiences. And we met at an event, I don't know, I guess it was maybe 18 months ago, it was not too long ago. And we just hit it off because we had so much similar experiences with all of you out there and with our own personal journey and how things go. And so Paula has built her career advising startup companies and mentoring hundreds of individual inventors worldwide. help you navigate the complex processes of getting a business or product off the ground, which as you know from this podcast is very complex. She also works directly with companies and executives to help them make effective decisions on protecting their IP and meeting their business goals. Because we talk about that here all the time. If you're going to build a business around a product, you've got to make the intellectual property a part of that strategic process. And at the end, you want to leverage the value of what you've already created, right? You don't want to just patent and then keep patenting and not leverage and use what you have. We talk about this book, Rembrandt in the Attic. You don't need that. You need to use it and make money from it. For more than 20 years, Paula has successfully navigated hundreds of small businesses through the legal hurdles, and we're going to talk about some of those they face in starting and running their businesses. And she represents clients in investigative and enforcement proceedings, which is something totally new here by the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys generals, district attorneys, other federal state agencies with jurisdiction over advertising and marketing practices. which are some of what you're going to deal a whole lot more with, not just the US Patent and Trademark Office and the proceedings related to that. So I am so excited to have her here and talk with you. I'm excited to write up an article about this because it has been one of the missing links in my column. But before we start, I want to read something because I think this sets the tone for how Paula is and feels about all of you creators and inventors out there. She says, You see, inventors, like children, are vulnerable. Their products are like their babies, and they have a sense of true emotion and pride in them. They want to be told that their baby is beautiful. It just so happens that, after toiling for hours to perfect an invention, the emotions that often make the belief so heartfelt, so strong, that a particular product will be a huge success, is a primal feeling of hope. Hope, after all, is one of the strongest feelings humans have, powering us to great heights and remarkable lows as we swing like a pendulum between hope and its opposite pole, despair. Hope can also turn us into suckers. And as you know here on this show, our mantra is, if I don't say it in every episode, it would be shocking. So those of you out there, if you can point out an episode I didn't say it in, hope is not a plan. If you point out an episode where I didn't say it in, I will give you a free strategy session. So, message me. Anyway, Paula, welcome to the show. So excited to talk with you.

Thank you, Tracy. Really great to be on your show. I've watched many episodes and you're just a wonderful probing interviewer and you bring in compelling speakers that really do add value to the whole learning process for inventors. So thank you for all that you do.

Well, thank you. Product Launch Hazzards here is about those hazards and you're talking about a lot of them, right? Those pitfalls, those things that make us suckers as inventors, the things we all fall into. I've fallen into them. You know, hundreds of stories of people who have. There's many written in the book here, some brilliant stories that I had, things that I hadn't even thought about that go wrong and are so devious and I can see someone falling into so easily. Tell me what compelled you to write this book.

Working with inventors for many years and basically when they come to me with A struggle, a problem that they're facing. I quickly get to work to help them and in many instances they don't have the resources needed to protect their rights. I sometimes feel like the doctor where a patient comes and says, I have this life-saving strategy for you which is going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars or sorry I can't help you. In that way, I have this feeling of being powerless. And so I realized there's a common thread of problems that I've been dealing with for many years, and I compiled them. In some instances, it's, don't let this happen to you, and hopefully help inventors avoid, if not mitigate, some of the issues. But I also just felt like I wanted those stories to be told. I wanted the inventors and the entrepreneurs to have a voice, the ones that didn't have the resources to pursue their wrongdoers, that they would at least be able to be heard and have their story told. And I was glad that I could provide a vehicle for that.

And you point out so many good ways that we fall into these traps as inventors, because it's the advisors and the circles and the people were around. It's not like some of this stuff would occur to us because people are naturally good, but there's a lot of scam artists out there. and a lot of convoluted scams that are going on that go after many, many, many inventors. And we thought we were protected, right? You talk about, I think it was 1999, the act was passed that required disclosure from all these invention agencies. And when they start disclosing their numbers, it was shocking to me. So I say here on the show a lot, seven out of 10 consumer products fail. That's the numbers that we work with mostly in mass markets. So I have a very particular industry that we work on. And yet these invention groups have 0.01% success rate and 0.5% success rates by their own numbers that they post on their sites. So the odds are truly stacked against you from success if you're using what appears in front of you, what's being pushed out to you in TV commercials, the people that are sponsoring events for inventors. That's so scary. I'm so glad you're raising awareness for it. So are these numbers real? I mean, like, are they still as prevalent as they were when you started writing the book?

Well, thank you. These companies that advertise are master manipulators. I mean, if you think about the resources they put into these advertising and they're very sleek marketing kits and something's got to support that whole machine. So actually, I think the stats are worse than what has been reported simply because of two facts. One is a company is measuring their success by how many licensing agreements they got for an inventor. And those licensing agreements are some of them test agreements, which is no commitment and no understanding of whether or not royalties are ever going to result. And if these companies, these invention submission companies are considering that as part of their success record, that's misleading. Secondly, anyone pretty much can get a licensing deal, whether or not it's a good licensing deal is another thing. And that's when we talk about this primal feeling of hope.

They're tapping in that, aren't they? Yeah?

Got an offer to deal. My product's going to be in Bed Bath and Beyond. My product's going to be on Target. And it's like, well, are they giving it away? Are you actually going to make money off of this product? And yet, not just invention submission companies, but consultants are rolling them out on their website as their big success story. Fast forward, was there a success? Did that inventor ever make any money? And that's why it's like these stats, I'm fairly certain or even better, if you're talking about a point percent, are better than what actually exists.

It's so crazy. So licensing deals are something that I'd love to talk about because we get a lot of questions there. You point out so many you have a whole chapter that is brilliant on contracts, everyone buy the book just for that section because this is stuff you will not read, you will not hear anywhere else. This is not practical experience of how a licensing deal or how a contract for royalties and all of those things work about how it actually works are just not apparent out there. There's no templated language you should follow, as you know, I'm sure, Paula. But it's just not out there in some way that this it works this way. There's always all these tricks and sell off clauses and how royalties are calculated. There's so much complexity to it. This is not something that you can do without a really experienced lawyer. And I'm here to tell many, many stories. And I think I probably told them on the show already many, many stories of I thought I had great attorneys. I paid them a lot of money. And then turns out When we went to enforce contracts or go through an audit, 'cause we had audit rights built in, it's impractical and it can't be done because it was not written properly. So knowing someone who knows what it's like on the other side is so critically important in the process. And so, Paula, share some of those things that are like typical hazards, traps, right? That they fall into when they get these licensing contracts.

Right, so I'll start with the money clause, right? We're pretty much, unless we're here just to change the world in an altruistic We're hoping to make a living off of our inventions. And so when it comes to the royalty clause and vendor may be offered 3% let's say, or 5% royalty. But when you read the fine print and see all of the deductions, which is the difference between the actual royalties and the ones like, which is based on net revenues, which is revenues less costs. But if, when I see a contract that lists out costs, let's just say it's more than three lines, that's already a red flag for me. So if you don't want to-- A.

Giant, giant paragraph that's half a page, start to worry.

Blame it all over that clause. There's something wrong with it. I'll start like that.

I love that. So a lawyer who doesn't want to see a lot of language here. I love it, Paula.

You're amazing. So if a company is attempting to deduct costs for which you could never really have any insight site into or have any control over how they spend that money. For example, if a company wants to write off the website development costs but there's no budget in there for how much they're going to spend on your website, then we don't know what that number is. Even more concerning is a company that offers a licensing deal to the inventor and they say, we're going to offer you this percentage. Now we assume that licensee is savvy enough that when they offer that rate to you, they've taken the cost into consideration and they've worked in a reasonable compensation for themselves. So when I see that the other cost that will be deducted is commissions for their salespeople, that should have already been accounted for. If the is only getting 3%, it's like, I'm handing it all off to you. You're going to get the rest. I'm going to trust that you're going to negotiate good deals and make sure you're taken care of. So do not add into the deduction clauses and 8% for your overhead or commissions for your sales agent or the budget for marketing because that's already assumed when you've offered what many inventors might consider to be a pittance of a 3%. And when I say a pittance, because usually inventors, many instances are Weighing, do I make this product a business and handle the vertical myself, everything from manufacturing to getting the distribution into the big box stores, or am I going to hand it off to somebody as my partner who's got all of this infrastructure in place? So, okay, I might want to run this as a business, so I'll take 3%. 3%. And as far as I'm concerned, that 3% should be the difference between what it costs to make and what you sell it at with some reasonable deductions for maybe there's returns or faulty goods and a cost that everyone should share in.

Right.

It wasn't really product that was sold at the end of the day, right? It was product that was returned.

So.

And that class should not read like a pharmaceutical label.

I love that you wrote that. So I want to point it out from a practical experience. So I'm a designer. So We typically have royalty arrangements, which are a little bit different than licensing because they're earlier on. But when we structure our licensing deals, we actually have done the same thing at the end of the day. So we actually based it because we know deeply our cost of goods. We know, and that's part of what we do is we plan them in. We already know all of the details on that. So when we calculate and figure out what a reasonable royalty should be or what a reasonable rate should be, We calculate it based on the cost of goods and what the margins typically are in the retail market. So we look at that and we say, okay, so we can say it's this dollar amount. And very few people do fixed dollar amounts, but you recommend that. And I love that because now it doesn't matter where it is. The other thing we do is we tie it to shipment and not to when it gets into retail because that moves it all out of the world of, did stuff get returned? Did all these things? If the shipment, left the port, then we get paid. And that's how we shortened up terms. Like sometimes they make you wait 120 days till they actually get paid before they calculate. So there's calculation side of it is also a problem as well. So we always do net shipment. And that way we have an audit ability of being able to, because we have relationships with the factories, because we help set them up to check the factory and say how many shipments really went out. And I guarantee you, if you have a good relationship with a factory, they will tell you even if they're not supposed to.

I love that you just brought up the audit clause because that's another provision that I discuss in the book. So basically the provision usually provides that the company will agree to maybe a six-month look back and only if there's some glaring discrepancies can you look back further. And so normally there's nothing in there that says, well, what happens if I found out this company, let's just say, inadvertently cheated me to put it nicely. Is there a penalty? I think that there's nothing more than better than a financial penalty to keep people on the up and up and who's going to pay for the cost of that auditor? Because these are things that are expensive. So if you have an inventor who says, who's getting 3% who might have not seen in dime of their royalties as of yet and is questioning the audit clause and then they've got to pay for the auditor on top of that, where's that money coming from? And that's where it's like, I always say, keep it real, folks. Even starting with the idea of an inventor who is always cautious about sharing their idea. And there were many consultants that say, well, sign an NDA. Well, an NDA is only as good as the paper it's written on and your ability to enforce it.

Okay. I all want you to hear that because I did a whole entire episode that said the same thing that Paula just said. And she's an attorney. So really, this is exactly how we feel about nondisclosures. We actually While we have non-disclosures like when someone submits an idea to me, I'm accepting that automatically by them just even having a phone call, even if they haven't paid me, just to make them comfortable because we don't compete here. That's not what we do here. But the reality is, is that I.

Know and they know it's not enforceable. It's always enforceable and your ability to enforce it and that requires resources.

So, and let's face it. We point that out a lot. There's a lot of resources required. and I've heard this before, and I said this before, is that, I mean, they're up on the wall above me up here, but we have patents all over our wall. We have, I think, gosh, we're close to 42 or something right now. I don't even watch them anymore. But we have a 95% issuance rate and we have an 86% commercialization rate. And so those are real numbers there. And when I say that we have an 86% success in commercialization rate, so nine out of 10 products actually make it to market. and our patents are actually in use. That's the term that we use. And I have proof on all my numbers. So this is different. But the reason is different is because of the companies I work with, because they're not all solo entrepreneurs, right? They're not all solo inventors. They're big companies who we do multiple products with, who already have a channel, who are already selling into the marketplace. So when we bring the products, they already have a brand that has power and resources. so there's a big difference there. What you're mentioning is that those resources make a huge difference. And so we find too many of these inventors groups. It's all about the patent. Like, I can't tell you how many people I'm like, look, I have this binder. It's a binder with, like, drawings and patent and a market research study that is, could be debunked by going on a Google. So you've seen it, right?

I mean, I talk about that quite a bit in my book in terms of having the resource to actually enforce your patent. There are a number of stories in there, first of all, from the product Bunch of Balloons. Josh Malone, who invented this amazing water balloon filler that it fills multiple balloons at the same time. I think he has something like eight kids, so you can imagine it would take hours to start a water balloon fight if you had to fill them each individually. Right. And so there was amazing Effort on their part to they had a Kickstarter campaign. They raised money. They entered into a lucrative licensing deal. And then one day, I think a friend called them up and said, Hey, I just saw your commercial on TV.

Although, did you change the name though? Like, I think because it was a different name, right?

Right.

Now, that's just one example. And I want to point out that that's one of the reasons why the book is named as stolen on TV. because the product that's seen on TV and we all know the as seen on TV brand but very few people know that once a product is shown whether it's on TV or today's social media or funding platforms, QVC, Instagram TV.

Now we've got yeah who knows where you see it.

It's like Interim Ventures, the lamb, the lambs to the slaughter. It's like they're on TV, here's my product and this is what it's sold for. And the bad guys are like, let's order this. Let's order this. We'll change the name. Maybe we'll tweak it a little differently.

Yeah. So that's one of the things that you point out really well. And this is what we see happen. And I've never put a client through QVC or HSN. I've never done it. I advise them against it. We've just never done it that way because I know there's a high failure rate, high cost rate, and you make very little margin at the end of the day. But it never occurred to me that it was just also making them absolutely ripe. So I'm glad I never advised them to do it, but also making them ripe for stealing it because these scam companies buy the products straight from the TV show, from whatever your ad is. It could be an online ad, direct response marketing, Kickstarter, get the reward, whatever it is, they get it and then they just use it in the actual video that they create while they're making it at some factory at the same time.

When it gets even better, they will actually put a sticker or they'll eliminate. So they're using the actual product that they bought from QVC, the bootleggers, we'll just call them the bootleggers. And so the actual product that they bought is being filmed in the short spot, the infomercial, if you will, to test the market and see if there's interest. They'll test it at different price points. And that was the product. that they bought. And sometimes I've heard it three times in the last year, the inventor will say, I sent that product. They were one of my first buyers. And you can imagine that feeling that.

Just being, you know, their name when they're one of your first buyers, right? You've seen their email come through. You're paying attention to it. You know where you ship it to. Yeah, I know. I know it has to hurt even more because of that. Oh, crazy. So there's another one though. So we just recently did a test market, which is a really important thing to do. Look, I don't want to deter people from doing it, but you should put your protections in place first. And Paula talks about that in the book that you should have your copyrights, your trademarks. You should use all forms protections, not just patents. Because as we talked about, that's a high enforcement rate resources required to enforce that later. but some of the other things can allow quick takedown on sites. So they may be more viable to you. But we just did a test market on a new product to say, is this viable? Is this gonna go really well in the marketplace? But it hadn't occurred to me that the test market group might be vulnerable to that exact thing of where they're just, they don't even care about receiving the product. They're gonna copy it straight from the video, the copy, the text, the name, the brand, like every images, they're taking the images straight off that landing page. Like it never occurred to me that it could go that deep. Now this product's a little more complicated, so I'm pretty sure they'll have trouble figuring out how to make it. Seeing it took us about nine months to accomplish it. It's a technical feat. So that's a good barrier, but otherwise.

They could make a really bad replica that doesn't work, right? And there it is, your baby that you've nurtured for all these months to get to market, finally have a licensing deal. And because an inferior product may be launched at lightning speed and got to market before you, suddenly your product is destroyed at a dead on arrival before you've even gotten to sell your first unit.

There's no area of the market that's off limits. As you point out in the book, you point out people who had issues with their Amazon listings where they basically were so excited for Black Friday. It's like the big deal. and their listing is all messed up because someone hijacked it. And now Amazon's been putting a lot of things in place over the last year and then two years actually to fix some of those things. But if it happens on the wrong day, you've lost a tremendous amount of sales. And so you point that out, Kickstarter problems. I mean, you point out someone who went to Kickstarter, put their product in, and then got turned down by Kickstarter, goes to Indiegogo, and then a fake Kickstarter campaign starts for the same exact product. Like crazy information. So tell a little bit about that story because that one seems just awful. Kickstarter wouldn't remove it.

Right.

I believe that was Dawn Solé with the Pluckin' File and she created a campaign. It's just raising something like $25,000 and she was wondering why the progress was really slow. And what she did one day is actually just want to go on Google and put her name in. And by the way, I really recommend that everyone Googles themselves on a regular basis to see what is out there. Set up a Google Alert.

This is a great tip. Thank you, Paula, for saying it. A Google Alert for your name, your product's name, and just set it up so it comes to you every week.

Right.

I mean, it's no different than we check our bank statements to see if there are any fraud charges because if we wait nine months, go back to the bank, they're going to say, Sorry, you waited too long. So we have to be diligent. The bad guys are using social media and the internet to infiltrate some wrongdoings. We need to use those same resources to monitor what's going on. There's no excuse, folks. It's been around a long time now. We all pretty much know how to use these tools. And so where Dawn is concerned, when she Googled herself, she saw another campaign that mirrored hers. And that that campaign had actually raised more money than she did. and when she reported this, the platform wouldn't take it down. In fact, what they did instead was just suspend the account and say that it was subject to an intellectual property dispute. Now, naturally, anytime somebody googles the plug-in file, Dawn is concerned that because it's not properly explained that it might shed a negative light on her and her product. And so again, this is a situation where she feels powerless over what to do, does she have the resources to pursue an action, to use legal strategies like subpoenaing the platform to find out who created this campaign and then go after that campaign provider and perhaps file an action against them for intellectual property theft? These things cost money. If you're an inventor on one of these platforms to raise money, you're already saying, Hey, I need some cash. I need some cash to develop my product and probably not a lot of cash left over to divert to enforcing nondisclosure agreements or going after these bootleggers.

Right, right, absolutely. Oh, there's so much craziness going on. I want to touch back on a little bit of some of the other contract things. So Tom and I have always talked about on the show here, That there are usually three key components that mean things to the inventor. So getting a minimum guarantee, getting upfront money if you can, and obviously the percentage or dollar amount, so whatever that is. But there are also so many other things. But out of those things, what are you seeing now out of minimum guarantee upfront money and percentages or fixed dollar amounts? Are you seeing trends going on where It's getting harder and harder to get upfront money. Percentages are getting smaller. What are you seeing ongoing in some of the contracts that you've been reviewing?

For the most part, when an inventor goes directly to negotiate a distribution deal, the contract that they get back does not include a minimum commitment. If they ask for it, they probably will be turned down simply because they see the inventor as someone who is desperate, who wants to get a deal, and the company feels that they can lean on them and not compromise or negotiate in the same way that they would negotiate with an advisor, an attorney, or an inventor who has had repeat success products. Because these companies want to maintain relationships, they want to maintain their steady flow of supply with the partners that they work with. And so if you're an inventor going in there to represent yourself, you might as well go into a courtroom without a lawyer because you're pretty much dealing legal concepts that make the difference again, whether or not you see a dime of your royalties. So the upfront, the advance is not always offered. Now, naturally, I would say if you're a brand new inventor, if it's a product that a company just wants to test, they're not sure about the success, my advice would be once you test it and we hit a certain score, and I talk about this too, the concepts of how a company determines whether or not they're going to take your product is based on a test score, which has to do with the amount of sales that this company was able to make.

So in our marketing terms here, we call that like conversions. It's going to check leads, conversions and all, and then dollar actions that will be taken. So there also sometimes will test price flexibility because that tests profitability. So Those are some of the factors that go into the numbers Paula's referring to.

Right.

So if a company's legitimate, I don't know how well your product's going to do. Okay, great. How about if I get a test score of 2.1 and you take my product, then you give me an advance? So there are ways you might not get an advance in the beginning, but negotiate it based on meeting milestones.

Yeah.

And so there's always a way to show that you're a little more savvy in the negotiation process and always be willing to walk away from a deal if you're not satisfied with it. Because I've seen time and time again that while it's difficult to walk away from the first deal, there might be another licensee right around the corner waiting to work with you. And then you'll say later, thank God I didn't sign that first deal. Right.

Absolutely. I love that kind of attitude you have when you're writing some of the stories that because despite the fact that you're not espousing hope here. The reality is, is that you do have hope, that they have a good product, that there is future for them. And you tell one of the stories, it's my absolute favorite in the book, because I know you, so I know you're kind of how you are with people, that I love that you just walked up to a couple who was running a booth in a trade show event and said, pack up your stuff and go home because you can't patent this. And if you don't make it to, if you don't go fast and get to market, you'll never make money from this. 'cause everyone's just gonna steal your idea right now. And I love that attitude because it shows really that you have their best interests at heart. Like there are a hundred different ways to get to market and the unscrupulous are using some really savvy ways that we wish the inventors would.

Absolutely. Let's talk about another clause that I see frequently and the reality is that, well, there are wonderful attorneys smarter than me In many ways, but I have been in the trenches of the product launch and development business for over 12 years. So I have seen it all. I have seen everyone's contract. I know where there's the pressure points. I know where there's negotiations or I know to say, don't work with those guys. So let's turn to a clause that is so often overlooked and attorneys that are, if you do work with an attorney, Don't really understand the nuances of the sell off clause.

This is so important, guys. I want you to listen up because when a contract goes bad, and I can tell you that they do, things don't happen on schedule. The product doesn't do as well as anyone thinks they're going to. A good contract prepares you for what's the worst thing that's going to happen. And a sell off clause is absolutely critical. And I do also want to say a sunset clause is also really important for any time you sign some letter of intent. I can tell you I didn't, my lawyer forgot to put one in. One of the very first contracts I had when we were reviewing a product and I almost got completely screwed out of it. Prepare for the worst.

So sell off clauses. We had the conversation that day about a sunset clause and I received a term sheet and I looked the first thing it was like on the, it was on the top of my head. The first thing I look for is the sunset clause and the sunset clause basically is, let's just explain what the provision is which basically has a you need to do something in a certain amount of time as part of this term sheet or we walk away.

Right.

So in other words, if you were doing that for this test license is they have six months to do this test in and if they don't, then they lose all rights and this contract does null, right? Like that might be a way to do it. So in case there are many, many inventors who are afraid of having their patents shelved and a sunset clause works to make sure that that can't happen, that they have to take action in a reasonable time frame. So, but let's talk self clauses because this is really important. What happens if you got your product, it's been selling, maybe it's not lighting the world on fire, and part of the problem is your distributor, they're having issues. And so you say, hey, you didn't meet the guarantee, you didn't meet the commitment. Now we want to end our relationship. What happens there?

Right.

So now imagine this is going on where the licensee has maybe 100,000 units of your product. and they say, Thanks, Tracy, we're no longer going to be able to carry a product. We're going to exercise our right to terminate. And so that's when the sell-off clause kicks in. What happens to those 100,000 units? Frequently, those contracts do not provide a provision that lets the inventor buy those units back, buy those units back at cost, or buy those units back at cost plus some small percentage. So that needs to be in there. Right. But here's what happens though. So the sell of clause basically says, okay, I get to sell off my, the inventory I have, but it doesn't include at what price they are able to sell it off at. So folks, when you walk into a big lot store and a dollar store and you see products, most being sold at like 9.99 where that product might have been on sale for 29.99 the month before, Those products are generally the product of a bad sell off clause. Right.

It happens all the time. I'm on the other side of that. They discontinued products in this way very typically. They don't think anything of it. It's very common practice for them to move that inventory off their books and they don't care how it happens. They do not care about your brand at the end of the day.

I had one client actually when they came to us, their contract did not have a good sell off clause. we actually called around to some auction houses in the area of where the distributor was based. My client showed up for the auction and was able to buy his own product back at 10 cents on the dollar. Somebody else would have gotten those items at 10 cents on the dollar.

Thank good they were savvy enough. You guys managed to do that. I love that. So because you know how the system works, you can really help them figure out where it's going to go next.

I love that.

So anyway, that's important because if you do want to take your product back, fine, it might not have worked out with that particular distributor, but if you want get that product back, give it to another distributor who might be more aligned in terms of their product mix to sell your product, but your product has been sold off in liquidation at such a low price, your product will never be able to be revived again if you don't have a strong sell-off clauses that one, give you the right of first refusal to buy it back, and two, make sure that if the company is going to sell it, that they're not undercutting it to where your product is never viable to sell again.

Yeah.

So, Paula, I want to talk a little bit about the Inventors Right Resolution and Randy Cooper Foundation. So all the proceeds of the profits from the book are going to Randy Cooper. Is that right? The Randy Cooper Foundation. And I love that.

Tell me how you formed that. When Fred and Natasha Ruckle, the inventors.

Of the Ripple Rug, which is a cat toy mat. I'm going to have them on the.

Show, guys, so we'll get a deep dive into their story. I look forward to having them.

While they're not lawyers, they are quite the investigators, and they They astounded me in the book.

They uncovered an entire, I would say, ring of bad actors and understood the nuances of how they worked together to all, you know, come together as all these pieces of a puzzle to take your product to market under a different name. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Exactly, right.

And that's what happened with Randy Cooper. He was the inventor of the Noodlehead Sprinkler. and I talk about it's a wonderful story of how that product was masterminded and brought it to market. And then before the lawn was soaked with water from their brand new sprinkler, there was the Thunderhead Sprinkler on the market and several others. It's always the case where it's most often an inferior product and it's always the case where it's being sold at a lower cost or with, Hey folks, if you act now, you'll not only get this, but you'll get something else.

And wait, there's more.

So it's really hard for a new inventor to come up against that. And Randy Cooper began going pursuing the bad guys. Then the response was threatening. We're gonna sue you. Sadly, Randy died in his pursuit from his illness that he kind of lost the battle with. His wife, Marlene Dumas, is convinced that the fight against the bad guys weakened his resolve in many ways or his resistancy because of the stress. Anyhow, when I began to work with Fred and Natasha Ruckel to help them stand up for their rights against the bad guys in the case of the Ripple Rug, where they bad guys or the bootleggers launched a product called Pur and Play, and they uncovered information where they found out other inventors have been scammed in the same way. I list a number of other products, some of them are...

Right, it was astounding. They did some deep investigative work, they really, and they had other inventors in mind the whole time, which is really wonderful.

So you have the idea that inventors don't have any resources. Where can they go and say, hey, can you help me out here? We know that law firms in many instances will take on a case on a contingency basis. but they have to have kind of an assurance that this is going to be a slam dunk. And if the company who bootlegged your product changed the name, then we don't have a trademark infringement claim. If, and in most instances, the inventor didn't file a copyright for their images, which by the way is such a low cost protection.

Please do that.

Website, even take a picture of your own product and copyright it. So if there's no copyright protection, no statutory damages. So let's say what we're left with is a patent claim. Okay, well this was my patented product. I have a patent that was issued. And so that's fine. I'm going to rely on my patent claim. Oh, now, because we have a little division of the USPTO called the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. And this patent trial and appeal board, I would say, is a Mickey Mouse Puppet organization that has been designed by big companies to give the death now to patents.

They have a 90% patent denial or patent reversal rate. In other words, you lose your patent, which is crazy numbers. Like either the patent and trademark office is completely inept or this is corrupt. That's where we're at.

You got the one side of the house that's Reviewing a rigorous review of a patent and these are- It takes.

So long, it should be rigorous, right?

Specialized people that award the patent. And so here you are, I have this patent and I'm going to go out and I might raise money off of that patent and bring in investors. I might invest in facilities and a lot of resources to bring this product to market that might change things, make things better, whatever it is. and a big company says, kind of cool. We're going to make the same thing. And so the little company thinks, well, I have the patent. I'm going to go and enforce my rights. Big companies say, oh yeah, you don't have any rights. You should have never been given this patent. So they file what's called an invalidation proceeding at the PTAB. Who is, wait for it, folks, comprised of heads of large companies are the ones to stand to gain from the invalidation of that path. System rigged against inventors right now, you better believe it, folks. And so this petition... You're talking about.

The Inventors Rights Resolution.

Resolution. We're looking for signatures from as many inventors as possible. Go to your local representative and tell them that the PTAB either needs to be eliminated, which would be the best case scenario, but if not, to work in certain protections to ensure that once you were given a patent, you can rely on that patent. It's just like once you buy a house and you get a deed, you want to be able to rely that that's your house, that land that you built your house on is yours, not that somebody can come around and go, you know, you should have never been given that deed. Put that in question as to whether or not you own that property that you've invested and built the house on. It's not just similar.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh. Paula, this has been such a fascinating conversation and everyone, there's so much more depth. There's lots of tips and lots of advice in here. This is a book you were going to read cover to cover. You're going to highlight. I've already like bookmarked my pages because I didn't want to mar it. So I'm like, I'm going to come back and highlight it later after I share it with everyone. People don't know because I didn't mention yet. I wrote a guest article for you. I wrote a guest chapter for you because we didn't really talk about Shark Tank. So as many of you know, I've interviewed some of the people who have been through Shark Tank on here. I've had quite a few of them as my clients, and they're very honest on the podcast, wonderfully honest here. But when I write my articles, I can't talk about all those details. So you gave me an opportunity to be able to talk about that, and I appreciate that, Paula. So thank you for that. So there's a secret chapter in here. that was written by me that's all about Shark Tank. And so thank you for that. That we really appreciate that. Cause we do talk about Shark Tank frequently here. And, but I think that the biggest message, which is that same message that's in that chapter there, is that there are so many things conspiring against you, things that you don't understand of how it works. And particularly in Shark Tank, we're pointing out that the show is about publicity for the sharks. It's about them. It's not about you. The inventors are in and out, right? The sharks are there again and again. It's the same thing. These big companies, the invent helps, the davison's, the resources like that, they're there and they're running business place, business plans and business plays and practices and things that they're running, and you're falling victim to them because you don't know how it works. So I really appreciate you. We all appreciate you pulling back the curtains and sharing the pieces that you've picked up and the stories that you've heard and. You've helped through. So thank you so much for being that champion, Paula.

Thank you, Tracy.

The other thing I just want to mention about Paula that you guys should really know and understand is like she bootstrapped and pulled herself up and has an amazing story, which she shares in the book as well, about how she's built herself into the attorney that she is and into the champion that she is. And that in and of itself is really a sign that she understands you. She gets what you're going through. She has a deep abiding love of people building businesses and developing them. I mean, you're building your own business this way, too. So you know exactly how hard it is to be a business builder.

Absolutely. And if there's one last parting advice I can say is just surround yourself by the right people and don't be too trusting and get recommendations word of mouth of who you work with. Because I think, you know, good people assume that other people are good people. We make mistakes in our personal relationships, as we do in our business relationships. Learn from the mistakes of others, and that's pretty much what I tried to do in this book, is to say, here are some mistakes. Here are also some great stories, because it's not all doom and gloom. I want to give examples of where there was a very successful entrepreneur who achieved their goals, in spite of the odds, because there are the odds. So the idea is that let's succeed in spite of the odds, and in some instances because of the odds, because I know what happened to others and I'm going to be aware of these things. And we don't have to do this alone. And that's the beauty of it. So I say find an inventors organization, meet up, meet with other inventors, see what works for them, but don't be so willing to overshare as stolen on TV.

Paula Bryson Phillips, you guys make sure buy one, go to Amazon right now. It's available. Buy one, bring it to your inventors group. I'll talk about it, get other people interested in it. Make sure that they know about the inventors rights resolution. Make sure you're talking about that. We have a really local, I'm going to call it small business congresswoman champion here in my town. So I have Katie Porter, who you may have heard on TV. So she's a big champion and I've been working really hard to get her to comment on this. So I'm hoping I'll be able to get her to comment on it for the article because she is a big champion of small business rights and the entrepreneurs and consumers in general. So I can't imagine she has a negative reaction to this resolution, but I'd like to hear it from her. One of the things that I really recommend is bringing in these kinds of outside information, things that you haven't heard before, resources like invite Paula to your group, right? these are things she speaks all over the place. She might be in your area. So reach out and ask, because I can tell you right now, I rarely get asked to speak to an inventors group. And yet I have hundreds of stories that I could be sharing, and I share them on the show all the time. I find it's the same way that they're very closed off. And so being open to and inviting in and understanding these pitfalls. So removing the hope for a little bit and say, let's Take us listen to what else is out there and the things that we can expose ourselves to and the people that might be out there that we don't know about yet would be so wonderful. And I think we'll create a higher success rate in your groups because we do hear a lot about the inventors groups not usually have someone who's successful and then they leave the group and they leave it because the group's not listening to how hard it was. I mean, we know that that happens out there. So invite some new ideas in because this is information you all need to be armed with because they know exactly how you were. So, Paula, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you being on the show. As stolen on TV, stealing the American dream, one invention at a time is on a bookshelf. Well, on Amazon, right?

It's not on bookshelves. As well as directly from the randycooperfoundation.org website.

Perfect. Perfect. So great. So you will be able to find it wherever you are looking for. So if you guys have some stories, please reach out to us. We'd love to hear your stories. Reach out on social. @hasdesign has with two Z's and I'll be sure to tag Paula and let her know about your stories as we're going through that. You can also find Paula on LinkedIn and other places. We'll have links for everything and how to connect with her and links to the book and all of that in the blog post for this episode@productlaunchhazards.com and as always, I'm available to you and you can reach out to me. I prefer LinkedIn as you guys know, but you can also reach out to me straight through the website productlaunchhazards.com and share your stories with us as well. So I look forward to hearing your feedback on this episode. Paula, thank you for coming on and product launchers, keep going. Don't lose hope. Just expand it to include a plan with your hope. Thank you all for listening. I'm Tracy Hazard. Thank you, Tracy.

Thank you for joining us on this.

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