Rich is a fantastic patent attorney that works with Amazon sellers to help protect their products and brands. Rich is passionate about helping Amazon sellers to become ‘patent savvy’. This episode talks about the importance of trademarks and patents when it comes to Amazon and eCommerce brands.
Rich Goldstein is a patent attorney that works with Amazon sellers to help protect their products and brands. He has obtained more than 2000 patents for his clients and is the author of the American Bar Association’s “Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent”. Rich is passionate about helping Amazon sellers to become ‘patent savvy’, so that they make good business decisions and protect themselves while avoiding IP problems with other sellers.
Date: August 11, 2020
Episode: 8
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Rich Goldstein, a Patent Attorney that Works with Amazon Sellers to Help Protect their Products and Brands.
Subtitle: The importance of trademarks and the value of patents to your business
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/8-amazon-patents-and-trademarks-rich-
In this episode of Lunch With Norm.. Norman Farrar introduces Rich Goldstein, a patent attorney that works with Amazon sellers to help protect their products and brands.
Rich Goldstein is a speaker and the host of “Innovations and Breakthrough” podcast. He discussed the importance of trademarks and patents when it comes to Amazon and eCommerce brands.
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Norman 0:00
Podcasts or call with Norman Farrar, aka The Beard Guy, sit back and enjoy your lunch or coffee. I’m gonna enjoy my coffee. We have a very special guest today. If you don’t know him, his name is Rich Goldstein. And Rich is a fantastic patent attorney. I had the pleasure of meeting him probably about a year and a half ago. But we bumped into each other on many occasions at different events all over the world. Now it’s meeting each other through different virtual summits. But anyway, sit back, relax and if you have any questions, just type them into comments. We’re going to try to get to everyone. If we don’t get to them during the podcast, we promise we’ll make sure that the questions are answered. So Kelsey, is there anything else that I have to do?
Kelsey 0:53
Alright, just remember to follow us on social media. We’re on pretty much everything, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter. We even just got a TikTok. So we’ll be putting up some new videos there.
Norman
I didn’t know that. We got to talk.
Kelsey 1:08
Yeah, nothing’s up there yet, but
Norman
Do I have to dance?
Kelsey
You should.
Rich
Usually, Yes.
Norman 1:16
You and me Rich. We’ll do that. Okay, so without further ado, I’d like to introduce my friend Rich Goldstein. Rich, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Rich 1:29
Sure. Hey, Norm. How are you doing?
Norman
Good.
Rich
A little bit about myself? I think you, you pretty much covered it., I am a patent attorney. I’ve been working with entrepreneurs for 26 years now. I’ve obtained over 2000 patents for my clients in that time. The last few years I’ve been working heavily with e-commerce entrepreneurs, Amazon sellers and so that’s a big part of my practice these days. But yeah, that’s it and Norm, I was wondering, this is supposed to be a Lunch thing, was I supposed to bring lunch or was I supposed to bring lunch for you?
Norman 2:03
You were supposed to bring lunch for me, but it didn’t show up. I’m a little disappointed.
Rich
Okay. Yeah, I mean, I’m sorry. And I’ll know better for next time.
Norman 2:12
Alright, very good.
Rich 2:14
And hopefully, they’ll be next time. Hopefully, I’ll get another invitation after I mess that up.
Norman 2:17
Know what really sucks? Is that I couldn’t get Coke Zero. I had to get Diet Pepsi. Everybody who knows me, I am a Coke Zero a Holic?
Rich 2:28
Well, Lately, I’ve been into this bubbly stuff.
Norman
It’s, uh, oh, yeah, I’ve tried.
Rich
It’s surprisingly flavorful for seltzer. So that’s not their tagline. That’s my thought about it.
Norman 2:44
See the golden nuggets? You’re already picking up? Yep.
Rich 2:47
Exactly. And, yeah, I mean, hanging around with you. I mean, I learned all these things about how to do public relations, how to get my message out there and now I’m just doing it for things that I don’t even own someone else’s company.
Norman 3:01
Yeah, yeah, it’s called placement, right?
Rich 3:04
Yeah, exactly. I don’t have kin, I can’t leave it in the camera view for some product placement, get paid for it.
Norman
There you go.
Rich
So, next time.
Norman 3:16
Alright, so Rich. Let’s start off with the first question. Why should people care about trademarks and patents?
Rich 3:27
Yeah, good question. Why should they care? I mean, there’s a lot of reasons why a patent or trademark could be helpful to you. There’s a lot of perceptions of why it could be helpful to you and it kind of depends on the business. I mean, I’ll just tackle a couple of them. One is when it’s time to sell your business, owning the IP can actually multiply the value that you would get for selling your business. Because when you’re selling your business, you’re selling it based upon what you’ve been able to achieve. The little bit of market share that you’ve been able to achieve and the customers that you’ve been able to reach. The revenue level you’ve been able to reach.
Because when someone’s buying your business, and there’s no IP, they’re looking at it like, Well, okay, we can buy your business for X amount, but how much would it cost us if we wanted to just create a business like it in parallel, that had the same level of sales and etc. And so they’re always judging it against like, well, what would it cost for us to recreate this, but when you do have IP, then they can’t just create a business in parallel, just like yours. And then now they’re not just looking at the little bit of market share that you’ve achieved. They’re looking at the whole rest of the pie, the other 90% and you can call that the upside. That’s the possibility that they buy when they’re buying your business. It’s the possibility of the whole rest of the market share by owning the rights to be the one who can make this product. That’s one good reason is it can become a multiplier of the value you receive or what you get paid when you go to exit. Another good reason to care about this is that lately Amazon has been deferring to IP owners. Listings get shut down all the time, because someone owns the IP. It could be you, It could be them and I would say it pays for you to be the one that owns the IP, then is on the right side of Amazon’s favor or the one whose side Amazon takes. I think those are a couple of good reasons, especially in e-commerce to protect your products and brands. It doesn’t always make sense, though, especially on the patent side. You’re not necessarily always going to get a valuable patent. So it might not be worth doing. But trademarks almost always pay to protect your brands, relatively inexpensive to do a trademark. And when you have a registered trademark, you also can get into Brand Registry on Amazon. So protecting your brands is a no brainer, you should care about that always. Protecting your products, sometimes, depends on whether you have something that’s really new enough to get a strong patent.
Norman 6:28
I mean, if you’re serious about growing your brand on Amazon, you’ve absolutely got to get a trademark.
Rich
Absolutely.
Norman
Is there a specific, so we’re gonna go back and forth with trademarks and patents, but are there any specific or common mistakes that you see that a lot of Amazon sellers make?
Rich 6:50
Well, I think probably when it comes to the branding when it comes to the trademark, one of the most common mistakes that they make is picking a name that’s just generic or descriptive. Like if you’re selling supplements you call it a supplement store. And you just can’t protect the name like that. Something that’s directly describing what you’re doing is not protectable. If you want to call it Hercules Supplement Store, then that’s something that’s maybe it’s not directly descriptive of it. People think of Hercules, they think of a big strong guy and that might be a good name. And that’s something that could be protectable. I mean, that’s assuming that it’s not already being used. In the realm of supplements. You always want to search and find out if you are conflicting with other marks. But probably the biggest mistake that sellers make is picking something that’s just too descriptive, and there’s no hope of getting it trademarked.
Norman 7:51
Right and you’re talking to a guy that owns supplements.club.
Rich 7:57
A good domain name
Norman 8:00
It’s a great domain name, but I couldn’t get a trademark.
Rich 8:04
Right, Yeah, Exactly. Live and learn and you still can have a successful business in that. But it always helps when you can get a trademark. So if you’re starting from the beginning, then you should think in terms of something which is not directly descriptive.
Norman 8:24
You could even do, and I know I’ve talked to you about this, but I could have put normsupplement.club and that would have been probably enough, specific enough that I could get a trademark on it, correct?
Rich 8:40
Yes, exactly and then maybe there’s some hope for some supplement club too. And we can talk about that at another time. Very good.
Norman 8:51
Now, the different types of trademarks and does Amazon accept a specific trademark or can it be any word mark? Or what are the different trademarks?
Rich 9:03
Well, in general, there are trademarks that protect just a phrase which you can call the word mark. There are other trademarks that protect the logo that you’re using, which are often called the design mark. Sometimes there are hybrid marks which include the name and the design. Generally the best bet is to get the word mark. Amazon is so wishy washy with its policies on stuff that I can’t tell you for sure what they would do. And I’ve heard, if you asked me a year ago, I would have told you that you need the word mark to get a Brand Registry on Amazon. Then, more recently, I’ve heard from people that they were able to get Brand Registry with a combined mark with a hybrid word plus design mark. I don’t know if that’s true. It’s not really the right result. I mean, Amazon doesn’t always do things that make sense. A similar thing is when people talk about getting a Brand Registry in the US by filing a European mark, that shouldn’t be the case. I’ve heard people have been able to do that. It shouldn’t be the case because trademarks are territorial. Someone having the trademark in Europe shouldn’t give them the rights in the US. But Amazon does weird things and they make their own rules. But if you want to do it right, and in a way that’s protectable, or most protectable, first, you want to protect it in the place where you’re selling like in the United States. And then also, when it comes to word mark versus design mark, you want to protect the phrase. Because you want to protect it independently of what type of logo they use, or what type of style text is used and the way to do that is with a word more. So that’s usually your primary mode that you want to file.
Norman 11:03
Okay. And would you recommend, a lot of companies use a tagline? Would you recommend getting the tagline done separately?
Rich 11:15
Tagline, you mean like a slogan?
Norman
Yeah.
Rich
Yeah. I mean, typically you would want to do that separately. You don’t want to combine it all in one because then you have an issue with enforcement. When someone uses the tagline, but they don’t use the main mark or they use the main market, not the tagline. So yeah, I mean, if you have an effective tagline, you can get the trademark on that. So examples are things like, Just Do It for Nike or The Real Thing for Coca Cola. Like those slogans, those tag lines are trademarks.
Norman 11:47
So if I’m new to Amazon and I go and I find a name, named good, I get a logo. What are the next steps in putting together a trademark?
Rich 11:59
Well, I mean, in general, the information that we need to apply for it. I mean, of course, you need to know what the mark is. You need to know who the owner is, whether that’s you or a corporation. You also need to know what the date of first use is, what the date that you first put the product out there. And then beyond that, the most important thing is describing the type of products and services that you’re offering onto this mark. I mean, a lot of times, people say, well, I want to use Hercules for, I don’t know, lots of things. And I tell them, we need to narrow it down. The trademark office wants to know specifically what type of product that you’re selling. If it’s supplements, it’ll be in one category. If it’s shampoo, it will be in a different category. But we need to specify the goods and services that are being used. And there’s a little bit of latitude in some areas like a certain type of like hand cream and skin cream moisturizing cream, like can be in the same category. But sometimes the trademark offices are kind of strange about how they divide the category. So for example, if you’re selling chairs, wood chairs and metal chairs are different categories, totally different classes have to pay a new filing fee if you want to do metal chairs versus wood chairs. So I mean, when you go to do the trademark application, you need to find out kind of what category it fits and that’s part of what you need to have ready for filing a trademark application.
Norman 13:44
A lot of Amazon sellers that I talked to, they’ve done it on their own, they want to save a few hundred bucks. And I always tell them that it’s always best, there’s the right time and a wrong time to spend money. This is one of those times that you want to make sure you spend money. And it’s really not a lot of money to spend if you’re going to grow out this brand, but those specific things that you were talking about, making sure that it’s done properly. At the end, I mean, if you don’t fill out the application, right, and if you don’t have that skill set, it could cause you a lot of problems. So you’re just going to an attorney that specializes like you. I think it’s so important in most Amazon sellers. A lot of Amazon sellers think that, oh, I’ll just go and file this on my own. I’ll go to LegalZoom and boom. Sending the patent and they have no idea, the trademark, and they have no idea what they’re doing.
Rich 14:42
Yeah, I mean, the thing with trademarks, and I think maybe what has people kind of want to do it on their own is that they see, okay, the application. I mean, it’s not the simplest in the world, but it’s, if you’ve done it a few times, and you’re familiar with it, it looks pretty simple. I mean, it literally takes about 15 minutes to do a trademark application. But the thing with trademark law is that it’s highly nuanced where it could look like you should do it a certain way. But if you have experience with other applications in similar situations that have been rejected, then you know that you should steer the ship just a few degrees to the right and that could make all the difference. Trademark is something that really seems simple on the surface. But a lot of times what you gain by working with someone who has the experience of having done lots of trademark applications can make the difference between whether it’s successful or not just a little nuanced change. And also, a lot of times, those nuances will tell you whether you are going to be able to get it through or whether you’re going to have a problem. And if you’re launching a product, I think it always pays to know that you’re going to have a problem now rather than six, eight months from now, when the trademark gets rejected and you realize, I’m gonna have to rebrand, I’m gonna have to relabel, repackage all my products and change everything around because I can’t use this brand name. Considering what you’re investing in your product, I agree that with you, Norm. It makes sense to do it the right way. And I mean, when I do Trademark, we charge 1000 bucks plus the government fee.
Norman 16:38
That’s pennies. That’s really an insurance policy to make sure that you’re covered.
Rich 16:46
Yeah, and I’ll just tell you that there are attorneys that charge more. Go to LegalZoom, I think they charge a few hundred bucks. Is it worth saving the money, I mean, I like to think of it as, like I said, steering a little bit one way or another. It’s like when you’re at Port, and you’re about to leave port one or two degrees, steering the ship doesn’t seem like much of a difference. But once you get 100 miles out to sea, it could be a big difference. I like the opportunity to really steer the ship in the beginning. Sometimes it doesn’t take too much effort to make a big difference later on.
Norman 17:24
And once get your trademark, it’s up to you to police it, right? Nobody’s going to protect it. You’ve got to actually go out there and if you see somebody using your trademark or using something similar, what do you do?
Rich 17:41
Yeah, well, you’re absolutely right, that you have to police it. There is no trademark police. I mean, if it was actually counterfeit goods like the level of Gucci bag being copied, then the FBI can get involved but just like pirated videos. But in general, as a practical matter, you’ve got to be the one to police your mark. And it’s important to police you mark because if you don’t you run the risk of losing it. So there are countless cases of people who had a mark, and then a competitor opened up with a very similar name. And the company did nothing about it then another competitor opened up, and another one did. Basically, what happened is you allowed your trademark to get diluted where people aren’t thinking of the trademark as coming from you. They don’t think of that name as you. They think like, Oh, yeah, there’s another Reese pizza over there. And, so you lose the right to enforce it because you can’t show that this one person is confusing the public. If there are three others also, with a similar name. It’s very important to maintain that distinctiveness for your trademark. You do that by policing it by making sure that if someone is legitimately infringing, you have to go after them and get them to stop.
Norm 19:12
Right. And it’s got to be, again, it just depends on your description. But if somebody’s got a trademark, and it’s about making gnomes and then they come out with making fertilizer, you’ve got to open up, you’ve got to re register a different class, correct?
Rich 19:34
Yeah, exactly, and that happens all the time. I mean for example Harley Davidson has tons of trademarks, of course, I’m sure that first trademark was for motorcycles, and then probably for clothing. Then someone says, hey, let’s let’s sell Harley Davidson toothbrushes. So they file a trademark application in the toothbrush class for Harley Davidson and same thing with Coca Cola and all the other famous brands. They typically have hundreds of trademarks and they often pertain to whatever the latest product is that they’re selling now.
Norman 20:13
So if there’s any one thing that you can tell people about trademarks, Is there something that you can let them know? We’re going to switch over to patents now.
Rich 20:27
Yeah, I would say let’s see. Anything else about trademarks? Yeah, no, I think we mostly covered it. And it’s all based on likelihood of confusion. So it’s all based upon whether you would be confusingly similar to another person’s mark. If it’s not, then you can possibly register your mark. If you are confusing someone, then you’re not going to get the trademark registered, and you could be liable for trademark infringement. So the main thing to think about when you think Trademarks is the likelihood of confusion. That’s really the governing principle of all of it.
Norman 21:07
Fantastic. Now the fun part.
Rich 21:11
Fun for you or fun for me?
Norman 21:12
Oh, I think it’s fun for you , Patents.
Rich 21:16
Yes, patents, is my jam.
Norman 21:20
So tell us in 15 minutes or so, everything about patents.
Rich 21:26
Right. Okay. So first of all, let’s dispel some myths. So one of the biggest myths, and this can go one of two ways, right is you’ll have some people saying that patents are incredibly important. Patents are incredibly valuable. You need to patent your product, right? But there are other people that would say, nah! basically, patents suck. Patents aren’t worthwhile. If you get a patent, then someone can just make a little change and get around patents. So don’t bother with patents. And the truth is that both of those are true at different times. Sometimes a patent is valuable and strong, sometimes a patent is weak and has very little value. The thing that controls that is how different the product was when you patented it. And of course, it’s got to be written correctly and done well to embrace what was new about it. But probably the biggest mistake that people make when they’re thinking about patents, or they’re looking to patent something, is not understanding how new the thing actually was. Because you can get a patent that’s as broad or as though that covers as much ground as possible by whatever existed before. But if lots of things like it existed previously, then you could get a patent. And it looks the same as every other patent, you’re like, I got Patent, but it could be very much focused on the details. It could just be about the minutiae of what actually is different about yours. That’s I think the most important thing to understand about patents is that every patent has its scope and it’s related to how new it was at the time.
Norman 23:21
And having a patent is going to add value when you go to sell your business at the same time, right?
Rich 23:28
Yes, absolutely but the value that it has is going to be, well, does this patent actually prevent people from making products like mine? Or is this patent only about a specific aspect of it, which the competitors don’t care if they’re doing the same thing or not? So if it’s possible, I apologize, that noise in the background. Yeah, that’s the value of having a good good mic. I literally have a leaf blower probably 20 feet behind me and you didn’t hear it. So I love that.
Norman 24:07
I just thought it was your stomach.
Rich 24:09
Yeah, well, it could be. But I’ll take care of that after we’re done talking about patents. So when Oh, as far as the value to your business, so when you go to sell the business, if the patent actually prevents all the people from making a product like it, then yeah, that patents going to add tremendous value to your business. But if the patent was just really about the details, and when it turns out, your competitors could make a product that’s just as competitive that customers will want by leaving out a few of the things about your product, then it doesn’t have much value. So that’s the thing you want to consider is what details with the patent will be stuck in and that’s going to make all the difference. And whether you could enforce it while you own your business, and while there’s going to have value when you go to sell your business. Do you want me to give an example or Is that clear?
Norman 25:08
Yeah, give us an example.
Rich 25:10
Okay, so you know you’re out shoveling snow and you say hey would it be great to have a heated shovel so it doesn’t ice up. And so you go to patent your heated shovel, and maybe you don’t look really closely at what existed before but your patent attorney tells you, Oh yeah, I could get you a patent on your heated shovel. But it’s because you also had a heating coil along the front edge of the shovel you had a timer built in. And let’s say a motion sensor so that if it was left in one position for more than five minutes that it automatically shut off, right? And so your patent attorney is able to get you a patent based on those details. But it turns out that heated shovels, you can go back to the 1920s and see people were thinking about heated shovels, right? So you don’t have a patent on the idea of the heated shovel. So now the question is, if someone’s going to see your product on the market and want to want to sell heated shovels, are you going to be able to stop them? And then it’s going to be a matter of like, well, do they also have that heating coil along the front edge? Do they also have that motion sensor that has the automatic shutoff feature? If they don’t, they wouldn’t be infringing this patent. So now, is it necessary for them to do that? I mean, could they be competitive by leaving out those features? Or are these the things that your customer is looking for? If your customers insist on having those features? Then it’s still a valuable patent. But if customers don’t really care about that built in timer that you’ve patented, then there’s not so much value in your patent. And that’s the situation a lot of people find themselves in. They think they patented the heated shovel, but as it turns out, it wasn’t as new as they thought it was. So they’re patenting the details.
Norman 27:06
Got it? Yeah, I think that makes it perfectly clear. So what are the types of patents that people can use?
Rich 27:16
Well, I mean, there’s a utility patent, which is most generally what you think of when you think of an invention like you think of someone in the garage coming up with an improvement for a product, like it functions better. It’s that shovel that they’ve added a heater to or something like that. Something that’s structurally different for functional purpose. That’s a utility patent. So most typically what you think of when you think of someone inventing something. There’s also a design patent, which is just about the shape of the product. It’s just about what they call the ornamental appearance. So just about the design, like the design of that microphone in front of you, that could be a design patent. And it’s just for preventing people from making a product that looks substantially similar. Now through most of my career, people would say that design patents not so important. Not so valuable, mainly because if it’s just about the appearance, and then you competitive changes the appearance, they’re going to get around the design patent. But lately on Amazon, design patents have become extra important. Two reasons. Number one, is when people knock you off on Amazon, they don’t just look at your product as inspiration and say, Okay, great. Well, let me make my own version of this. That’s even better. They just knock it off. They just copy it, exactly. And so if you have a design patent for the appearance of the product, and they make a product that looks just like yours, it’s going to differentiate the design patent. So that’s one and the other thing is, is that Amazon more readily shuts down other sellers from a design patent than from utility, and the reason is that utility patents are complicated. They are and infringing a utility patent is all about wording and whether it fits the definition of the invention as it’s defined in the patent. That’s hard for Amazon to figure out if they received an IP complaint. But if they receive an IP complaint based upon a design patent, which is just about the appearance, they’re going to look at the pictures, they look at the picture of the competing product, they’ll look at the drawings from your patent, they’ll say, looks pretty close. Let’s shut them down. So design patents have become a very helpful, very useful tool when you’re on Amazon to prevent knockoffs.
Norman 29:49
Yeah, I’m right now, I’m going through this with two of our clients. But you’re guilty until proven innocent. They click you, they suspend your listing, and you’ve got to prove it. And even if there are, there are a lot of false claims that are out there. But you still get your account suspended or the listing suspended until you can prove that you own that patent.
Rich 30:19
Absolutely. Yeah. And even worse than that is like, so then they put you in a position where you need to prove it, but then they don’t listen. But then there’s no one to actually hear those arguments about why you’re not infringing.. You put together a well thought out argument about why you can possibly infringe this patent, and you get back a form letter that says something like, to properly respond to an IP complaint, you must get copies of invoices that show that you are legitimately purchasing this product from the seller or a licensing agreement, and like no, that’s not the point is like I’m not infringing. But often at Amazon there’s no one minding the store, no pun intended. I mean, they’re not paying attention to reasonable arguments or fairness. So, again, like what I said before it pays to be the IP owner. It pays to be the person who has the IP, because they are shooting first and then barely asking questions later.
Norman 31:29
I don’t know if you can touch on this. But let’s say you are the IP owner, and somebody puts in a false claim your listing gets shut down. Other than following those instructions, which usually come back with a form letter from somebody or just a form email. Is there something that the sellers can do to help get Amazon’s attention? Other than showing that you’re the IP owner, is there anything that they can put in the email or do you know of any tricks that could help?
Rich 32:00
Don’t know any tricks specifically to get Amazon’s attention. But one thing that you can do when there’s a false complaint is you can sue. And you could threaten to sue and those get the attention of the complainant. So it’s not many people actually follow through and do that. But yeah, I mean, I’ve along with my litigator colleagues like we’ve been in that situation where we’ve had people falsely claim infringement and shut down our client. And then we’ve gotten them to pay us 10s of thousands of dollars. because they recognize, oh, they made a mistake. They damaged that business through their false claim, so you can sue. It’s a more extreme measure that you can take. One thing you should always know though most people don’t realize about threatening to sue. It is when you threaten someone to sue you, you could end up in a lawsuit. It differs according to the state of the jurisdictions. State law versus Federal law, but general principle in many places is to declare what’s called declaratory judgment action, which means, I’m saying,Norm, you’re infringing my patent, I’m gonna sue you, you’re infringing my patent. Well, you’ve got the right to take me to court to clarify this issue and not let me just hold it over your head, that I might sue you someday. So you’ve got the right to do a declaratory judgment action to clarify that you’re not infringing my patent to get the court to declare that so keep in mind, people are always like, let’s send a cease and desist letter, then how much is a letter gonna cost? Oh, maybe 1000 bucks. Okay, that’s worth it. But yeah, that could rope you into a $50,000 lawsuit. So you always have to be aware that if you’re sending a threatening letter, you could end up getting sued.
Norman 33:54
And I think that a lot of people send them out like they’re nothing. They don’t understand that, Yeah, if somebody, some savvy business guy or lady can turn that around on you and cause you a lot of grief, you just don’t send out these cease and desist orders just like candy, right? Yeah, so good point and I guess the other thing I’d be interested in is the cost. So between the two, is there any sort of average cost that you can give?
Rich 34:30
Yeah, I mean, generally, I would say utility patents are going to be north of $10,000. Design patent, a few thousand. And Trademarks, probably a couple thousand soup to nuts. So Trademarks, the least expensive. Design patents a bit more. Utility quite a bit more like, at least a few times more than what a Design patent would cost.
Norman 34:58
And one of the things that I would do like for the design patent anyways is or even the other but just the design side is talk to your manufacturers and if somebody you know making, you know Norm the gnomes, what can they do differently and try to get that design patent because you know it does come in is very helpful and you’ll stop the predators coming and well at least if you police it, you can put in an infringement claim. But it’s so helpful if you just talk to your manufacturer to see what they can do. Look at the Amazon’s listings, do some competitive analysis and see how you can change it. I know our buddy Kevin King, he always talks about the products that he’s launched and all he does is just make them that much better. So people will buy them and it’s not only will you get a really great looking product, It’s different. And people will probably take a look. I mean, if it’s a really crappy adjustment, I don’t know what people do. But if it works, I mean, that could be a real big benefit to sales on Amazon, right?
Rich 36:17
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it pays to look at all those ways to differentiate.
Norman 36:25
So I know I like to understand patents and trademarks and a half hours is pretty good. You did a great job by the way.
Rich 36:35
Thank you. I’ve been practicing.
Unknown Speaker 36:37
Oh, Keysey. Is there any questions before?
Kelsey 36:42
Uh, yeah, no questions. Danny McMillan just said that you have a very nice setup.
Norman 36:47
Oh, this is coming from Danny. Thank you.
Rich 36:51
Yeah, that is quite a compliment from Danny.
Norman 36:54
So I guess we can wind it up and what I like to be able to do is, I know you were an author of a patent book, you want to just let people know how they can get that?
Rich 37:09
Yeah, absolutely. So, the book is the American Bar Association’s Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent. It explains in plain English, how patents work. Kind of the way I’ve been explaining this is the way the book is written, just down to earth, I’d like to think. It’s available on Amazon. It’s the ABA Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent by Rich Goldstein. Pretty easy to find. Norm, I also have a podcast that you’ve been on, I appreciate and that’s called Innovations and Breakthroughs, where I feature top leaders and the path they took to create change and I would just say that if you want to find out more about patents in the patent process, you could also go to my website, which is goldsteinpatentlaw.com/ and you could Learn more about the process, you connect with my staff and see if it’s a match to work together. And that’s really it.
Norman 38:08
Well, I know, I was able to grab that book and I took a look at it and it’s so easy to understand . It’s not legally ease, It’s layman’s terms. So it’s really laid out quite nice. I highly recommend it if you want to get more information about patents. It’s the book to get. So anyways, Sir. We’re at the end of lunch. I’m sorry that you didn’t bring any lunch or get any for me?
Rich
Well, I actually do have my lunch here. But yeah, I was gonna say like, it’s the end of lunch and I’m starving.
Norman 38:43
Well, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. And so if there are any questions that come in, we’ll make sure that we answer them. And again, Kelsey, what do we do?
Kelsey 38:56
Follow us on social media or on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. Just search Norman Farrar and also we have the new podcast, I Know this Guy. So we also have a Facebook, YouTube and Instagram page for that. So there’s lots of Norman Farrar content out in the world.
Norman 39:19
And I should say that the I Know this Guy podcast has nothing to do with Amazon at all. It’s just interesting people. Their ups, their downs and everything in between. If you’re interested in listening to a little bit different approach to what I do, check it out. And let’s see. I appreciate your tuning in today and next Thursday we’ll have another guest actually, I think it’s going to be Kevin King, and I look forward to seeing everybody. So have a great day and thank you for listening.
Norman 40:01
Thank you Rich.
Rich 40:04
My pleasure.
