Evolving Business Minds

Protect Your Brand or Risk Losing It: Trademarks and IP Management with Ana Juneja | #130

• Andy Silvius • Episode 130

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Curious about the critical importance of trademark law for your business? Discover essential insights from Ana Juneja, founder and managing partner of Ana Law, as she shares her extensive knowledge on why trademarks—names, logos, slogans, and unique brand elements—are vital for protecting your brand identity. Learn to avoid common misconceptions about LLC names versus trademarks and understand the financial risks of neglecting early trademark registration through real-world examples, including Ana's personal experiences.

Explore a comprehensive overview of intellectual property (IP) and its significance in today's business world. From patents to trademarks, copyrights to trade secrets, we break down each type of IP, illustrating their unique roles and how they contribute to increasing your business's value. Gain practical advice on proactive IP management, avoiding costly mistakes, and understanding the trademark application process. Ana's expertise shines as she guides you through potential pitfalls and emphasizes the importance of securing trademarks and domain names early.

The future of business operations is here, and AI is at the forefront. Discover how AI can revolutionize trademark searches and other business efficiencies, but also understand its limitations. Through compelling stories like the legal battle faced by a small diner named Burger King, grasp the necessity of federal trademark registration over state trademarks and common law rights. This episode is packed with actionable insights for business owners and entrepreneurs eager to safeguard their brand and navigate the complexities of intellectual property law effectively.

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Andy Silvius:

All right, welcome to a new episode of the Evolving Business Minds podcast. Today's guest is the founder and managing partner of Anna Law. She handles all aspects of intellectual property services, from procurement, licensing, enforcement of trademarks, copyrights and patents. She's the number one IP attorney on social media. I want to welcome Anna Juneja to the show.

Ana Juneja:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Andy Silvius:

Absolutely so, if you don't mind, if you could take a few minutes and just kind of give everyone an idea of how to reach you if they're in need of your services.

Ana Juneja:

Sure, I am pretty easy to find. You can Google my name or you can just go to Anna Law so A-N-A-L-A-W dot com and you can just email anybody at my firm or call us and you'll get in touch with me. And you can book a call with me directly on the website as well.

Andy Silvius:

Okay, awesome, we'll make sure we put everything in the show notes as well. So a quick side note before we get started. I was already excited about having you on the show because you're the first attorney I've actually had on here. I don't know why, I've just never really explored having attorneys on as guests. But once I started digging into your background and how much knowledge you have around trademarking, then I really knew I wanted to have you on here, specifically because I think myself included I think most business owners don't realize the importance of trademarking. They don't understand the risks of running a business with logos and all these other things that aren't trademarked, and I think once you do start digging into it, it's easy to get scammed as well, which I know firsthand. So yeah, so thank you for being on today.

Ana Juneja:

Yeah, awesome. So I have a lot of experience with trademarks and it's definitely something that gets overlooked, I would say with small businesses. Usually more medium-sized businesses have had at least some experienced business owners, so they know a little bit more that they need to trademark small business owners or new business owners. They tend to skip over all legal precautions and they typically contact us when something's gone really wrong and it's unfortunate because your price tag for that situation is 10, 20x what it really needed to be. So definitely just securing all of your trademarks and other legal precautions in general earlier, just it's like an insurance policy.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah for sure. So for everyone listening today, I definitely think it's going to be super beneficial. I want to dive really deep into this topic with you. So first, before we get too far into the weeds, can you just explain the basics of what a trademark is and why it's important to register?

Ana Juneja:

Yes. So a trademark is basically anything that identifies a business's goods or services. So this is typically going to be a name, logo or slogan. So if you have a business name or brand name, also membership lines, bestselling product names, subscription names, anything that you wouldn't want someone else to copy, if your neighbor opened up a shop and next door to you and they had the same subscription tier model that you have and they called it the same things, would it hurt your business? That's what you need to think of is should that specific brand element in your business be trademarked? So usually for small, medium businesses, this is name, logo and slogan.

Ana Juneja:

I'll say that again Taglines, name logo, slogan, taglines. Also, you can trademark colors, jingles. Lots of podcast owners they trademark their intro to their podcast if they have a specific musical jingle they've incorporated in or purchased or had custom made. That's very common. You can also trademark smells, motions, lots of things. Anything that is going to identify you as the source of the goods and services, because it's really that brand association that's very valuable for businesses. So trademarking is how you own it and prevent others from being able to use it. So that's the general overview of what a trademark is. I will just say something about trademarks versus LLC names, because I know there will be questions about this. Lots of people think that when they get their LLC that the name of their LLC because the state allowed that LLC registration to go through that that means they own their business name. That actually means nothing and you can go get an LLC called 123 Garbage LLC and you'll have just about as much ownership in your business name as that LLC would.

Andy Silvius:

So the only way you can own your business name that happened to us.

Ana Juneja:

Yeah, the only way you own your business name is with a federally registered trademark. Or, if you're going to really want to waste a lot of money, you can try to rely on your common law trademark rights, but I wouldn't recommend that.

Andy Silvius:

Without going into it too deep. We got into a situation where my wife had started a business, picked a name. She didn't necessarily and I'm not trying to throw under the bus, but she didn't necessarily do a lot of research online of like who else had the name or how to protect it. Uh, we had a um cease and desist to stop using the name. But the person who sent that didn't have it their name trademarked either because it was identical. Um, we did switch, you know the type of corporation and then we went through and trademarked it. But it was an interesting situation because I had we've run multiple businesses, I, you know, not not necessarily large multimillion dollar businesses, but multiple six figures, and I'd never trademarked anything. And it was a big eye opener of like, yeah, people can just take your name if they want to.

Ana Juneja:

Yeah, you guys took their name technically right.

Andy Silvius:

We did Not intentionally Not like, hey, we're going to go take this person's business. But unfortunately by the time it all happened we were already pretty established, so she went and trademarked it herself.

Ana Juneja:

Yeah, no, that happens a lot. It's really. You know, if you don't file a trademark registration it doesn't mean you have zero trademark rights. But what it means is you rely on common law trademark rights, which are kind of the unofficial trademark rights. You can still try to rely on those and send, cease and desist and enforce. But it's really risky because, yeah, someone can go and file a trademark with the USPTO and get protection in all 50 states. So federal law always trumps state law, common law. So generally you're going to lose out when you're going up against a really rigid process that is the federally registered trademark.

Andy Silvius:

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Andy Silvius:

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Ana Juneja:

Yeah, so there are a lot of variations of trademarks that you can register, even in a small business, because you're very likely going to have your regular business name and then you're going to usually have a logo, and then many people have a combination of their name and logo and then some people even have a stylized font of their name and some people also have a tagline or slogan and then, like I was saying earlier, different bestselling products, membership names, that type of you know, that type of thing the most important trademark, especially for those small businesses out there. If you're only ever going to get one trademark, it's really going to be your housemark or your main business name. They call it housemark in the trademark world. But this is because it is incredibly expensive. If you have issues with your main business name, because it's usually all over everything, all of your packaging materials it's usually your domain name, which is incredibly expensive in some cases to have to alter, and you have invested SEO, marketing, all of that social media traffic into a specific name and then you have to rebrand and even make minor adjustments. You can lose a lot of money, pretty much all of your investment into marketing and all that time and money that you have spent into it. The algorithms now are pretty tight in that way. So you know you really want to make sure that your business name itself, you're going to consider trademarking and you're going to consider SEO. Those are the two things. And then domain. Those are the three things that, when we are working with someone to help them come up with the best business name, those are the three things that we are looking at.

Ana Juneja:

The reason I say that is because I'm a business owner before an attorney. I've had hundreds of businesses started when I was six years old. Everybody in my family has multiple businesses. So I'm very pragmatic in the sense that I always believe every business owner I don't care if you're opening a lemonade stand you should always start that business with the exit in mind and you never, ever, ever want to grow or invest into a worthless business.

Ana Juneja:

So there are some things that can make a business worthless, like if you don't have a viable product or service, if you don't have a market, if you don't have time to run it or personnel or money to invest into the time or personnel, if you don't have your legal precautions in place. So all of those make your business really, really devalued in the sense that when you go in five years or more or less, to sell out or exit your business, what do you have to show for it? So, trademarking your at least your business name and your very important trademarks, like your bestselling product names or potentially your logos and slogans, if you're investing a lot into marketing those, that those are really going to add value to your business In fact your trademarks once you get your federally registered trademark, your registration numbers, you will put those as a line item on your taxes because they're actually a business asset and when we go to evaluate and exit businesses you know that gets calculated into how much you're going to get for it.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, I love that you brought up the fact that people should start businesses with the end in mind, because it's very easy to just look at directly what's in front of you that day and go, okay, I want to make money, I'm going to take this skill product, you know, service, whatever it is you're creating and build a business from it. And then we just kind of go through the motions over the years of just running it. Uh, you know, whether you grow it or get stagnant, you know it depends on the person and their, their drive and ambition with the business. But, um, it is a huge.

Andy Silvius:

I've seen this happen with a lot of business owners that I speak with, where they maybe get 10, 15, 20 years down the road in the business and they have no exit plan and they build it with no intention of selling it. I mean, you, you spend 15, 20 years in a business. Uh, if you have not set it up properly, are you just going to walk away from all the effort you put into it, or are you going to try to have a payout at the end or do something where it can continue instead of just closing the doors? So I like that. I would like to know your background prior to becoming an attorney. What is your background and how did you become specialized with intellectual property services and trademarking and all of these things?

Ana Juneja:

Yeah. So actually to go into intellectual property you need a science background and there's not that many attorneys with a science background. So everyone who does have a science background, I think, gets pigeonholed into this field. I actually just randomly kind of ended up loving it. I didn't really know what I was getting into until I started in the field and, you know, I just really ended up finding something that I was really good at and that I really enjoyed doing. I love IP, I love trademarks. I think it's so fun.

Ana Juneja:

I have a really heavy marketing background. Very informally, I've just been a user of social media and helping grow so many businesses throughout several decades that it just really combines well with trademarks. And there's so much lack of proper information and regulation in the advertising and marketing space these days, especially with, you know, the coaching space, the courses space, you know there's just a lot of bad information out there. So just I think it's been really interesting as an observer, using my background, to just see kind of all of that happening. And just you know, what I'm trying to do is just provide information to people that is more legitimate than what they're getting from their you know marketing agency down the street from them. That is just, you know, telling them totally incorrect things.

Ana Juneja:

Because, like I said, I work with a lot of businesses and we do the exit plans and evaluate businesses and we have to for my clients, my job they bring me on when they're in that stage of their business to increase the value of their business. So my background with business plus IP, plus marketing and just being in that field and knowing how non-IP heavy firms and valuation companies are going to see IP assets, helps my clients. And we can, you know, we tip, you know my average increase is, you know, I can usually double the value of the business once we boost up their IP portfolio or clean it up or make any adjustments. So that's kind of where my background ties into it. But short story is pretty much everyone, every attorney with a science background, is usually going to be in IP in some way, shape or form.

Andy Silvius:

So, and just to clarify for listeners IP, intellectual property can you just kind of give an overview of what that entails? Like what encompasses IP?

Ana Juneja:

Yeah, sure. So intellectual property is a specialization of business law, corporate law, and intellectual property covers patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. So four main areas, I would say it also touches on reputation management, so sometimes we do have related claims such as defamation or advertising issues come up as well. But for the most part, when you hear the words intellectual property, it means patents, trademarks, copyrights, and those are all different things. I'll give you like a one sentence summary for everyone listening. So intellectual property, like I said, it's that specialization of corporate law.

Ana Juneja:

And then the four main types of IP are the first one is patents. So this is going to be inventions tools, chemicals, processes, things of that nature. If you've invented something, it's going to fall under patent law. If you have patentable subject matter, if you've actually invented something, basically actually invented something. Basically Copyrights are type two and copyrights cover anything that is an original work of authorship. So this is going to be art, sculptures, paintings, also photos, videos, podcasts, also architecture, software. So anything that is going to be considered original artwork of some sort is going to fall under copyright law.

Ana Juneja:

And then trademarks protect brand names, logos, slogans and anything that is a brand identifier. So, like I said, even sounds, smells, motions, colors, anything that is specifically identifying the company as the source of the goods and services that they are selling. So that association is what trademarks cover. And then trade secrets are basically anything of value that you've kept a secret and you have to have all these special documents like NDAs in place to make sure you're protecting your trade secrets. So that's kind of the rundown of what are the different types of IP. Your business might have multiple kinds. There's different processes for protecting, registering and increasing the value of all the different kinds of IP, and they all have different processes to obtain the registrations. They all last a different amount of time. They all have different monetary values, so they are not interchangeable terms at all of different monetary values so they are not interchangeable terms at all.

Andy Silvius:

The smell one really gets me because it's like trademarking a smell. It just seems like so subjective to different people, but it's just interesting. Do you have any examples of like just to kind of hammer this home the risks associated with not trademarking logos, stuff like that? Do you have any stories you could tell us of clients you've worked with that have gone down that route and got into trouble with it?

Ana Juneja:

Yes, most clients right, because when you're hiring a lawyer, most of the time it's because something went wrong. I actually would not be in business if people were just registering their trademarks or patents and things. On the front end Lawyers and law firms we make our money because you guys don't do that. And then mistakes are made and we have to do the cleanup and you're never going to get that good of a result. But you have to pay the lawyer even more than you would have had to. So that you know, I don't have any incentive to say that, but I wouldn't be in business if people weren't making all these mistakes. But basically I would say the major things that happen are number one people fail to get their registration. This is a big one. This has been a big one lately, I would say in the last three years. People fail to get their trademark registration and then they've spent a lot of money on a domain that they now can't really use because somebody else has a trademark. So that is a huge risk factor. And vice versa, sometimes people get something trademarked and they don't get the domain on time and the domain is held hostage and there's other legal proceedings. Then you have to go through with that. So making sure that you, you know the earlier. With trademarks it's patents, it's different because you have disclosure rules and you know time limits and things, but trademarks last forever. So you can also reserve, so to speak, trademarks for a few years. So the earlier you can file, the better.

Ana Juneja:

If you look at any popular celebrity or brand and you go and you search them at the USPTO, you will actually see that they file the trademarks and brand names they want or logos they want about one to two years in advance. That's because it's the cheapest, smoothest, easiest way to get a trademark. You can kind of pre-reserve it and then on the back end of the process, you just submit your final evidence of using the name and then they give it to you a couple of months later. So it's, um, you know, on the backend of the process, you just submit your final evidence and you know using the name and then they give it to you a couple of months later. So it's, it's just a way to. It's a loophole in the system, so to speak. So lots you know that successful celebrities, influencers, companies, that's what they do. That's the typical standard.

Ana Juneja:

Um, so one to two years before publicly launching your brand is the best, safest way, I would say, to get a trademark. The second best time is usually now, if you're not facing any issues Once something happens. So once you get a cease and desist, or once you're in a domain dispute, or once you're in a situation where you've picked a name, invested a lot into it, picked a name, invested a lot into it, and now there's SEO issues because someone's copying you and driving all the traffic away from you, or they're creating similar names on social and driving traffic away from you or confusing people as to who's what. The brand is right. Once you're in that situation, whether or not you should trademark is going to be more something that's on a case-by-case basis and you'd have to, you know, discuss with an attorney because there's risks involved as well when you get into that situation of how much more you know. Should you cut your losses, should you have rights to fight the other person and all of that. So big mistakes that are made that cost clients a lot of money. Like I said, is the domain thing. And then, second would be not trademarking fast enough and then someone else is going to trademark it or drive traffic away from you.

Ana Juneja:

So in today's day and age, pretty much every small business is online. It's a lot different than it was, you know, even five to 10 years ago. So your IP assets are just more important and valuable these days. Assets are just more important and valuable these days. Concurrently, what's going on is that there are also thousands of trademarks being filed every day, which means that the space to get a trademark is more limited and it is harder now. So, just like real land, real estate, trademark real estate is also decreasing as people populate, as more and more people file trademarks right, our digital assets and our name and presence and online presence is more valuable now to your business than it would have been 5, 10, 15 years ago. So that has now created issues where small business owners are encountering many more trademark issues these days than ever before.

Ana Juneja:

So you know, like I said, taking precautions is the best thing you can do. But even while taking precautions, one thing small business owners do that is very expensive for them that I recommend you never do anyone listening is do not fall in love with a name until you have your trademark registration, because being a diehard fan of a specific name that is either very risky or expensive to get is, you know, maybe not where your funds and energy should be going when you're starting a business? Just I'll give you an example. Zuckerberg probably spent about 20 to 40 million obtaining the meta mark, and he did it in a very clever way, using an international protocol where he didn't have to disclose things. So it was all done very effectively, but it cost him 20 million.

Ana Juneja:

Even with an attorney filing a regular trademark. It's going to cost you max a couple thousand. So you can see that comparison of how expensive it can really get and what it should really cost you. So it's kind of you know do not get married to a name that is not available or has some inherent defects with it. Small business owners choose a lot of names brand names with inherent defects in them. They like that. So try not to do that. Try not to get married to the name. That's the best advice I can give a small business owner.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, the thing about Meta too. I believe he didn't own the domain. He had to go out and buy this stuff back from other people, which was probably a lack of planning on his part. When you discuss inherent defects, what do you mean by that?

Ana Juneja:

So Meta, for example, is very inherently defective because it's quite generic. Yes, he definitely probably bought the domain, but lots of people buy domains. He probably spent several tens of millions, though, on it, but the whole naming and domain process for Zuckerberg probably did take five years around five years. So it was definitely planned out and strategic. It was just expensive because it was a short name. So short names are expensive, tend to be more expensive to get in most situations. So, you know, inherent defects, though, can be genericness, it can be descriptiveness, it can be because you have just chosen something that is either in too crowded of a field or not a crowded enough field and it's too similar to someone else. So there's, you know, 20, 20 different factors. You know that might go into why your name is inherently defective.

Ana Juneja:

Small business owners tend to like really generic, descriptive type of names, which are, unfortunately, most of them are taken at this point. You have to be pretty clever to come up with something that's not already out there and that's going to be an actual valuable asset as a trademark and be functional for domain SEO. You know trademarking purposes. You know trademarking purposes. So it's just. It just takes, you know you just have to do it better than they've done it before, because the people before 10 years ago you could get any trademark you wanted. There weren't that many trademarks being filed, so that's kind of just just the early bird gets the worm type of thing.

Andy Silvius:

I'd like to kind of dive into the process of actually trademarking, or researching. So you, so what does that process look like? How expensive is it? And let's discuss this assuming that there's no one else that owns the actual trademark, you're the first initial person that's coming up with a unique name that you're going to trademark or logo. What does that process look like?

Ana Juneja:

Yeah. So one thing, too, I will say is that it doesn't matter if someone else doesn't have the exact trademark as you, even if they have something that's confusingly similar. Any phonetic or visual variation might still bar you from getting that name that you want. So it's a very lots and lots, it's very fact, based on whether there are names, similar names you know out there to you. Um, so that's one caveat. Lots of people go and they search and they see that it's available and they think that that means it's available. But if you ever go to the USPTO search just search Starbucks with an extra S and search Starbucks regular You'll see that there are 300 hits for Starbucks with the correct spelling. But if you add an extra S, you're going to get zero. That doesn't mean you can go trademark Starbucks with an extra S. So, depending on if your field, though, is actually clear so we're going to assume no refusals in this situation and there's no inherent defects you just have a regular trademark that goes through smoothly.

Ana Juneja:

The process goes like this you file a trademark application with the USPTO, so this is, you know, the initiation of a one to two year long proceeding with the United States government. There are other steps that you have to take in order to get the registration. But once you file, your trademark is going to basically sit in queue for about 10 to 12 months until it is reviewed by an attorney who works for the government. So the government attorney is when it finally gets on their desk, they will review your trademark application and they will do their own due diligence. They'll do their own search, make their own assessment and they will either move it forward through the process or they will issue some sort of refusal, which I'll talk about in a second. Now let's say that the government attorney so this is kind of the first step in your process approves your mark to move forward. It's going to move forward to what's called the publication period.

Ana Juneja:

It's a 30-day window where your trademark gets put out in front of everyone and people have 30 days to file any notice against you or try to prevent you from getting this trademark. It's kind of like that time in a wedding where they say speak now or forever hold your peace. Once that 30-day window closes they can't really do much. So if your trademark receives some sort of opposition notice during this 30-day window, it will derail into opposition proceedings, which is kind of mini litigation. So it's very, very expensive. That can cost tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it is to be avoided at all costs. There's lots of strategy that goes into avoiding oppositions. It can be your competitors, enemies. It can also just be people who are very aggressive or who have very aggressive attorneys and are monitoring their trademarks that will file these notices against people.

Ana Juneja:

So then let's say though, you've filed the application, it's been reviewed by the government attorney, approved by the government attorney to move forward, and then you close that 30-day publication period and nobody has a problem with it, no third party. Now it's going to be registered. So that's kind of the flow of it. There might be some additional paperwork at the back end if you've not submitted your evidence of use, but very minor things. It's not really going to hold up your process.

Ana Juneja:

The risk factors are really where the government attorney is reviewing your trademark application and where a third party might file something against it. Those are the two big risk factors. The entire process assuming that nothing goes wrong and everything is smooth and moves forward takes a year or so. And then, in the case that the government attorney reviewing your application issues some sort of refusal, which is very common. About 70 percent of all trademark applications receive some sort of refusal or request for information, just something. You have to write arguments and overcome any of those refusals to move forward and in the case of if a third party files something against you, you kind of have to fight it out with that third party.

Andy Silvius:

So how about the cost? And I know you mentioned that you can go directly to USPTO, which is the US Patent and Trademarks Office, correct?

Ana Juneja:

Yes.

Andy Silvius:

Online. So what is the typical cost? For you know, a smooth trademark that you go in and register.

Ana Juneja:

So your filing fees for a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office are going to be $250 to $350 per category of trademark of you know goods and services that you're filing under. That's just the government fees. So if you're you know goods and services that you're filing under, that's just the government fees. So if you're you know, if you have a store or a brand that covers multiple categories maybe you're selling clothing and which is in category 25, class 25, and you're also selling lipstick, which is category three you are going to be paying for two of those. So it's 250 to 350 times two because you'll pay for each individual. You know category. So there's 45 total categories and you know, depending on how many your brand covers and what's, you know in your normal zone of expansion, is how you'll decide which categories to go into. That is what the cost will be.

Ana Juneja:

Attorney's fees are going to be, you know, depending on how complex your mark is and what you're buying and what's all included are going to be between one and $3,000. So it's not as expensive, you know, as legal fees can be, but it's an investment, you know, into getting your trademark done properly. You'll have. You just have a better success rate when you use an attorney. If you are a US citizen, though, you do not need an attorney to file your trademark. If you are not in the US, though, you do need a US bar number, so you need a US attorney to file that trademark.

Andy Silvius:

Okay, but people can go directly to that office to file yes, and then they set you up with an attorney or you have to go out and find your own.

Ana Juneja:

You have to find your own attorney. Okay, so the USPTO is not even though they have attorneys that are reviewing your case. They are against you. That is like it is a legal case, right, when you file a trademark. So the government is your opponent in the trademark process. So, no, they will not give you an attorney, they will not give you any legal advice. They say that very specifically. They're not allowed to do that If you are not going to use a law firm or attorney and this goes for LLCs, trademarks, everything, patents, literally anything in the world If you're not going to use an attorney or law firm, you should never use a middleman service.

Ana Juneja:

And I'll tell you why. You can go on the USPTO and file the same trademark form on your own and pay only the government fees. Or you could go to LegalZoom and they're going to give you the exact same form and you're just going to pay LegalZoom, you know, a thousand dollars and then they'll also charge you the government fees and they're not doing anything. They're illegally and not allowed to do anything at these middleman companies. Only law firms are allowed to give legal advice in the United States, so they are not allowed to edit your application, correct it, give you any guidance.

Ana Juneja:

So they're literally giving you the same form in a different color scheme that you could actually go right to the USPTO and file it yourself, or any secretary of state type of website and file it yourself. So that's what they're doing. It's a form filling service, and they don't provide any service though. So if you're not using a law firm which is recommended because it is a legal proceeding, just like when people file their own divorces and other cases they don't get good results. People typically don't get good results with trademarking on their own either, just statistically. So it's always advisable to hire your own private attorney, but if you're not going to do that, you should go directly to the USPTO and you can file right there.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah. So I'll share a little bit about what we dealt with. My wife had found a third-party company, didn't do enough research on it and it was a little give her credit. It was kind of difficult because even after we ran into issues, I started digging around and it was kind of hard to find until I realized like, oh yeah, there's a lot of people who've run into this issue where they hire this specific company.

Andy Silvius:

They, they give you these expectations. You're going to have a dedicated attorney on your on file, uh, that it's going to, you know, set everything up for you. They're also going to be available to you for the next four years to send out cease and desist and so on. So they charge you this very large amount of money, Charge you this large amount of money.

Andy Silvius:

And to find out a little later, you know, we got the trademark almost complete. It was already registered, filed, or I guess it would have been filed. They came back and demanded more money from us that we weren't told prior, and then what they did was, if we didn't pay that money, they said that they would take the trademark back. Well, we learned later they can't do that and we ended up getting an email from the attorney who was sent our file and he recused himself from it because he had found fraud basically on the third party company and how they were going about everything. He said it was fraudulent so he didn't want to be tied into it. But yeah, later we realized that we could have gone directly to the USPTO and then hired an attorney and it would cost us a third of what we ended up spending.

Ana Juneja:

So I think that even LegalZoom is not cheap. It's like the same cost as an attorney. So people still choose to go, though, because legal zoom has a great website and it is like their website and marketing is to be studied, in my opinion. Because they have, they went into a market where no one has good marketing or websites and they dominated. Their service delivery is terrible, but, um, legalom is in like the top 10 trademark filers in the United States, so they're marketing wise, doing incredible even though the results are incredibly poor. So you know, but I but you know I don't hate on LegalZoom because I think they really filled a certain need for people who do not want to deal with an attorney. They just mentally can't wrap their head around paying an attorney $1,000. They'd rather pay LegalZoom $1,000.

Andy Silvius:

So that's really kind of what it is. I wonder why do you think that is? Do you think it's because it's a larger company in their mind, like something that's not just one individual attorney?

Ana Juneja:

No, I think lawyers just have a bad rep. You're almost always going to get a better result when you can work with someone one-on-one. Legalzoom, these companies, these third-party companies, are form filers. The attorneys associated with LegalZoom and these other type of companies are incredibly poor attorneys. They're attorneys who couldn't get jobs at firms generally.

Ana Juneja:

Because what attorney is attorney is going? If legal zoom is charging you know a thousand dollars for a service, legal zooms keeping you know 600 of it, the attorney is probably getting 200 of it. What attorney you know legitimately an IP attorney? Which IP is you know litigation at least IP litigation is exponentially the most expensive type of law out there. Um, you know who's going to take that type of you know work and just the results are so poor. Right? So the attorneys associated with these middleman companies they typically will do the service in the sense that they will rent their bar number out. It's not like you're getting an attorney who's going to understand your business, understand your revenue streams and be able to properly advise you. That is not happening out there For a small business having a really good small business attorney, really good accountant I mean, these are key people that are going to add value to your business and you know if you skimp out on it you might not run into any legal trouble. But you're not maximizing the value of your business.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, Well, you made a clear point earlier in the show that just if you were to exit your business and you do have it it's listed as an asset. It's something that the next person doesn't need to go file or worry about.

Ana Juneja:

Well, no one's going to buy your business if you don't have a trademark. No one's going to touch it, so it is valueless. The problem is that if you build up a business, you go five years with no trademark and you're looking to exit and someone's valuating your business. There's a reason on Shark Tank right why they say do you have your trademarks and patents? Because it's a liability. So it's a massive liability when it's a trademark issue, especially for the brand name, because then it becomes a domain issue, a packaging issue, an inventory issue, a service deliverable issue, all your contractor dealing with issues, so you're not having your main trademarks, especially, is a huge liability when you're evaluating a business and looking to buy it.

Andy Silvius:

So you may have already covered this, but I kind of want to touch on it again, because there's a lot of small local business owners that are in a, you know, one to two, three city market, um, that are not planning on expanding outside of their area, are not planning on going outside of state lines, but it is still important for them. So so can you explain why someone like that should focus on getting trademarks, even if they're in a very small market? Why is it important to them?

Ana Juneja:

Well, the main reason is and I'm going to tell you a story about Burger King when I say this but the main reason you want to get your trademark and protect your IP assets is going to be because it is, you know, at minimum at least, owning your IP assets is kind of an insurance policy, because if you don't do it, someone else will, especially these days, like when so many trademarks are being filed so much. Someone else will and then they can shut you down or they can sue you and get all your profits. Like it's, it's a horse. It can be a horror story, um, or you know, let's say, you don't trademark your name, um, you? This is where I would say sorry, let me backtrack. Where you do not need to get a trademark is if you are doing something very temporary. So this is going to be drop shippers. You know, you're opening a halloween store and you're selling this specific, really popular character costume for two weeks to, you know, make a lot of money, and then you're going to shut that store down. No, of course, you're not going to be getting your trademark for that, because your you know, trademark process takes a year or so and your store is up for two weeks, right. So no, in that case, very temporary businesses do not need a trademark.

Ana Juneja:

The second type of situation where you do not need a trademark is going to be if you are very, very local and you do not have any sort of presence. So if you are not really, you don't have a website, you don't do any marketing, you don't have business cards, you're not doing anything to market your business Okay, you're just like a word of mouth only business. You don't really have a big brand, you're not doing anything, you're just somehow, you know, having a business. That's incredibly rare, Um, it's, it's very, very rare. Uh, where I see that happen is people who do, you know, mostly real estate investments and things like that. That is kind of the situation where it applies to everybody else. Doesn't matter if you have one location, if you're in one city, one town, if you have a website, you have a presence. That should be protected. You should have a compliant website, you should have your trademarks, you should have, you know, basic contracts in place. That all that costs like less than 5k. It's kind of like a one-time investment for a small business owner and you set that business up to be able to exit it in five, 10 years and not have any headache issues, legally speaking, right. So not, I can't say any cause. It's America and people can sue for anything. But you know, having your basic precautions in place is like the bare minimum you have to do as a business owner.

Ana Juneja:

I like to say that running a business is a luxury. Having a business it's a luxury. You don't have to have it, you're not entitled to do that. Once you do have a business and you're a business owner, the legal and financial parts of it are not really a luxury, they are a requirement, and when you skimp out on those, you are just, you know, you have a really expensive hobby. You're not legitimately running a business. So that's kind of just how it goes. But I will say something for the small businesses who are local.

Ana Juneja:

I'm going to tell you a story about Illinois, which is the state that I originally, you know, opened my law firm in. Now we have a branch in Chicago, but, you know, based out of DC. So, um, there was a steakhouse or nice restaurant diner type of thing called Burger King in Illinois, um, many decades ago, and they were operating their restaurant, um, in Illinois, and they just had, you know, one, I think less than three locations one to three locations and in a small area of Illinois and they actually had their business registrations properly legally set up. They even had a state trademark registered with the state of Illinois. Okay, what happened, though, is that the Burger King chain that we all know, the big Burger King they came in, of course, with their federally registered trademark, and they basically told the original Illinois Burger King diner nice restaurant that they can't do anything. They have to stop their business.

Ana Juneja:

Okay, the Illinois Burger King diner restaurant fought it out in court. They had the state trademark, they had common law rights, they had been there for many, many decades prior to the Burger King chain. They tried to fight it out in court. They had the state trademark, they had common law rights, they had been there for many, many decades prior to the Burger King chain. They tried to fight it out. Guess who won.

Andy Silvius:

Burger King the chain.

Ana Juneja:

Yes.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah. Because they have deeper pockets or because of the types of registrations that they had.

Ana Juneja:

Well, they just had a federal registration. So it's either you have a federal registration or you don't. Everything else is kind of just fluff. You can have a state registration, you can have an LLC, you can have common law rights. It's never, it's just, it's fluff, it's nothing. The only time I will ever recommend filing a state trademark is if we are in an emergency situation and we need an injunction and we can get that state trademark faster than the USPTO. So in certain situations we do need to do a straight trademark, but very, very, very rare. So your federally registered trademark is just going to, you know, federal, always Trump state and common law and you know non-existent rights, so to speak. Not saying you can't go to court and fight it out. It's just a very high chance that you're going to lose and this is you know that's.

Ana Juneja:

That's a example of a local business who just wanted to do their own thing. They had no plans to expand, but they wanted to continue to operate and the federally registered, you know trademark company said no. And now that restaurant is limited, I think, to one location and a 10 mile radius. They're not allowed to do any advertising, they're not allowed to have an online presence. I mean, it's really hindered their business. I don't know if they're even still open. I know chicago, you know, kind of went rough over covid, but um, it was just very, very detrimental to them. You don't know what's going to happen in the future with your business. Losing the ability to have, like, a website and social media is detrimental even to local businesses.

Andy Silvius:

Well, and I can only imagine, like Google business profile is probably an internet presence.

Ana Juneja:

I mean that even for that's like a lively you know, yeah, you want to get into like this, you know, online services, delivery, that kind of. I mean, it's just you never want to limit yourself for no reason. It's just you never want to limit yourself for no reason.

Andy Silvius:

Right Now again. You may have mentioned this earlier, but there are multiple types of trademarks. Right, and I remember from ours, there was the I don't know I'm going to call it standard trademark, but then there was the right to market our logo and our business online.

Ana Juneja:

It was a separate thing we filed.

Andy Silvius:

Is that okay? So that might've been a word.

Ana Juneja:

A word trademark and a logo trademark are two different types of trademarks.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, and I don't remember exactly. My wife had most of the interactions with everything, but I thought she had registered to market our business as well. Maybe that was, maybe it was just the logo.

Ana Juneja:

So yeah, no, there's no such thing as the right to market your business. You don't have, there's no legal right to market your business in the United States.

Andy Silvius:

I might be miss remembering what it was too. Maybe it was just the separation between the name and then the logo itself.

Ana Juneja:

Yeah, definitely, when you file a trademark you're going to file one specific trademark. So I'll just give you an example, if you you know, nike is its own trademark n-i-k-e, just the standard latin characters, that word. Now, um, nike also has that block tilted, italicized right logo of their word, just nike kind of, in that block font, right that we all know. That's a second trademark. Then Nike has the swoosh. That's a third trademark. Then Nike has their slogan, just do it, they have that in the word and that slanted block font. So that's two logos, or sorry, one logo, one word mark. So now I lost track. Is that five trademarks we have for Nike? Now another thing they have is what's called a combination or composite trademark, where they have Nike plus their swoosh all in one logo. That's like a sixth trademark or whatever number we're on. And then they have all their special things, right, nike cool, nike fit, whatever else they have.

Andy Silvius:

So it breaks down all the variations of any logos and slogans and tags that they use.

Ana Juneja:

Every single different element is a different trademark or a combination of elements is a separate trademark. So your combination marks lots of lots of small business owners. They love to file those combination marks, thinking that they're doing something. They are actually just getting nothing. Because that is the weakest type of trademark that you can get, because you only have protection. Then in that specific combination you always want to first protect your standard Latin character words and then your logos and then do the combination.

Andy Silvius:

So we're getting kind of close to the end. I want to, I want to kind of wrap this up, but give people like you know, I don't know, do you have any like strategic advice for business owners that have not filed trademarks, have not done any of that?

Andy Silvius:

like, should they just start today, should they contact you or an attorney, like if, you know if it wasn't you just contacting an attorney, like what would be first steps for somebody who is listening to this and says, wow, I've never trademarked, not sure still how to do it, what would you advise them to?

Ana Juneja:

do. Yeah, I mean, um, if you've never trademarked in your business owner, you might have some other also pressing issues. You know you want to make sure your website's compliant. You want to make sure your business is compliant. You have all your basics so you can always contact an attorney for that. An IP business attorney is going to be who you would want to contact If, specifically, your business owner, listening to this, and you want to know.

Ana Juneja:

You know you can get a trademark for your name and you want a free trademark search from an attorney you can go to on a lawcom slash free search. I'll email you this link to put in there. But it's just on a lawcom a N a, l, a wcom slash free search and you can fill out that form and um, we will do the trademark search for you and send it to you and give you like tell you you know what's going on, because a lot of times we will just be able to tell you that, hey, you can't really get that trademark or hey, you know someone else already has it or it's good. So you'll get at least like some pointers of what's going on and you'll get all the search data sent to you and so you can always fill out that form. If you're specifically looking that, can I get you know. If you're thinking about a specific name that you want or logo that you want, we'll send you the search data for that. You can do that as many times as you want because we have like an unlimited software so we offer that service for free. Otherwise, you know, if you need like a full business audit yeah, you definitely want to you know contact an attorney. And if you need like a full business audit yeah, you definitely want to you know contact an attorney. And if you're in the US, I can assist you. If you email me and we can take a look at your website and all your names and things no-transcript, make adjustments and whatnot.

Ana Juneja:

But if you're just thinking of something and you have a name in your head, you also kind of want to get that trademarked sooner than later as well. I will get. I will end it, you know. My last piece of advice is I'm just going to give you all an overview of what makes a good business name, because this is something people don't teach you anywhere.

Ana Juneja:

So I will tell you that there are two very strong type of business names, very valuable trademark names. These are the best kind that you can get these days. And the first is arbitrary. So this is going to be a name that is unrelated to what you're doing. So Apple is not related to fruit. Well, computers, electronics, are not related to fruit. So Apple is very strong because it is an arbitrary trademark. So if you can find an arbitrary trademark that isn't taken, that's very, very strong. That's one first type of trademark.

Ana Juneja:

Second type of trademark that's very strong is called fanciful, and this is going to be something that is a made up kind of jumble of letters Think pharmaceutical names. They sort of just jumble up letters and throw everything at the wall. Right, google doesn't really mean anything. So this is going to be very strong because it's very unlikely that someone else has something similar. So very easy to enforce, very easy, you know, get your domain be doing, you know, enforcement, monitoring. It's going to be a little bit harder to gain that traction because it's kind of a new word that you've created, but once you get your SEO and marketing going, it's an incredibly valuable type of brand to have because they're you know it's unique, it's bold and unique. So fanciful and arbitrary are the two best or strongest, most valuable type of trademarks, business names that you can get.

Ana Juneja:

Now, in a middle tier of something that's not, as you know, valuable or as good of a business name, is going to be something that is called suggestive trademarks, and this is going to be like Netflix. It kind of alludes to the fact that it's movies on the internet, but it doesn't really say that straight out, right, but it suggests that. So this used to be the sweet spot for business owners. They wanted a suggestive name, and if you can find one, that's great. If you're, you know, if you can be clever enough to find one, a lot of them are taken these days, so this tends to just be a little bit more saturated. This tends to be the names that kind of have issues with SEO. So just lots of things to consider there.

Ana Juneja:

And then down a tier from suggestive, you're going to get descriptive names. Descriptive names are pretty weak but it's not impossible to get, and if you invest enough time and money into that name in terms of advertising, building up the brand, you can still get a descriptive trademark. So this is going to be anything that is describing the goods and services that you have. So, just off the top of my head. One of my clients is a balloon shop owner. Her trademark is balloon and paper. She does balloon decor for parties. She's not a balloon shop owner, but a balloon decor shop owner, so she does balloon and paper as her trademark. So that's more of a descriptive mark right In order to get that. We were able to get that, though, because she's so incredibly established in her industry and she's been using this for, you know, so long that we were able to provide enough evidence and enough arguments that we were able to get that for her. Very tricky to get a descriptive trademark, though. Incredibly tricky if you do not have more than five years of use. So new business owners should stay away from descriptive trademarks.

Ana Juneja:

Now, the weakest type of name that you can have for your business, which is not very trademarkable unless you are willing to spend hundreds of thousands per month in advertising, is going to be what's called a generic trademark. So because when I say you have to spend hundreds of thousands in advertising, you have to really prove to the USPTO that you've invested so much into this that it deserves to be a brand, which the threshold is, you know, like 500K per month. That's what I've found works. But if you're spending any less than that in ad spend, it's not going to work well for you, I don't think. But generic trademarks are things like if you want to open a juice store and call it juice store, they're really not going to. You know the USPTO, the government is not going to want to give you that name because that means they are preventing other people from being able to use juice store in their brand right. So they're very unlikely to give a generic trademark out. So that's just kind of a higher.

Andy Silvius:

What's so creative, though?

Ana Juneja:

What's so creative? Well, you know, a lot of people say it's, it's so good because it's. You know, I'm local, people will know what it is. But you know that's, that's fine, but it's not a brand. So you know, you know, when you're starting a business, you really want to think about branding at the start, especially these days when everything is so competitive. There's no business you can start today that isn't already out there, even locally in your area, right?

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, no, and I've seen it too at a local level and then seen chains that are bigger than them, you know, kind of similar to the Burger King story. I just haven't seen them go down like that or they've gotten in trouble, but it's probably only a matter of time.

Ana Juneja:

Yeah, it's usually a matter of time.

Andy Silvius:

Well, I appreciate you covering all this. I mean, I think we've covered quite a bit. I definitely highly recommend to everyone listening that if you still have questions to reach out to Anna, we'll make sure that all of the her links are in the show notes. I have one last question for you, and this is something completely off topic. I just ask every guest that I have on, because it's been such a big topic these days, but it's about AI. So what are your thoughts on AI and how do you think it's affected business owners and entrepreneurs currently, and how do you think it will affect them in the future?

Ana Juneja:

I think AI is great. I'm pretty pro technology. The softwares I now use in my business are amazing and I actually think people in my type of business or my field of law who are not using these softwares which most of them aren't because they are incredibly expensive. But if you are not using the AI out there, in my opinion, in my field, it's malpractice. That's how good it is. So I would say AI right now in a technical field.

Ana Juneja:

I'm an attorney and IP. So just for example, like a trademark search software that we use can search in about 10 seconds what would take about a hundred attorney hours to search. So just comparison wise analysis is not there with AI. Yet it's great for compiling data, doing basic grunt work that business owners and humans you know used to do. Every business owner should see where they can use it in their business and then, you know, put their own. You know keep the touches that still need to be there.

Ana Juneja:

So you cannot rely on AI right now. I don't think it's there. It doesn't do that deep critical thinking that humans can do, but it's not that far off. Maybe, I don't know that you can replicate true critical thinking of a human being in AI. I haven't seen any legitimate example of that yet. So, you know, I don't think people need to be as scared of AI as they are. I think the people who aren't using it and who are anti-AI should be scared, because people said this about the internet. You know, you said the internet is not going to be a thing. Now, people said this about the internet you said the internet is not going to be a thing. Now, people who say AI is not going to be a thing. I think you're going to regret it. So this is an opportunity for business owners to be using. I will say I know we didn't cover copyright. We might have to do another episode for copyrights and small businesses.

Ana Juneja:

There's lots of businesses maybe business owners listening today who are selling digital products or they are somehow monetizing their creations of IP or AI. You know, with digital products they're writing books or they're using AI to you know, create certain types of content, things like that. So AI generated content is not copyrightable. No-transcript Somebody else uses your script and creates the same video, makes it with you know. They just say what you're saying and they post it. You are not really going to be able to do much about that because you don't own this underlying script. Because you didn't create it AI did. You don't have the copyright protection to it. So same with digital products.

Ana Juneja:

I think that's an easier example to understand. If you create some digital products using AI, whether it's artwork or written, you can't own it. You can't own the copyright to it and therefore, if somebody rips you off and copies you and spends five extra ad dollars behind it, they're going to do better and there's not much you can do. So caution about using AI for products and fully relying on them. You're limited in your protection. But in your business, where you used to do a lot of grunt work data entry, information, summarizationization, all that and all that you know ai is able to do it in seconds, so use it to your advantage yeah, I agree with you and I have, like I said, I have a lot of different business owners come on and ask the same question and the answers vary from both extremes uh, and everything in between.

Andy Silvius:

I personally think it's's funny because I think there's so many people, like you said, that are afraid of it and they're just refusing to use it. And I could be completely wrong, but I just don't think it's going to replace people in the sense that we are all so fearful of, except for the people who refuse to use it. I think the people who do use it. It can help amplify your business. It can help you take on a lot more than you could have before. I mean, it just increases your bandwidth, where you normally would have spent a lot of time on minuscule, like repetitive tasks that we can now automate and get it done faster. But there's so many people that are just terrified of of AI and I don't know. Maybe I'm just super ignorant, but I think at least now we have the opportunity to use technology to just help increase our output.

Ana Juneja:

Yeah, that you know. That being said, I do think people with um, with jobs or careers where they are doing a lot of repetitive tasks or they are not using that human critical thinking will be replaced, even if they're pro AI. So, people who are doing data entry people who are just sitting there analyzing spreadsheets and you're getting paid 200K to do that, I mean I don't know if your job is really going to be there in five years.

Ana Juneja:

You know if an algorithm graphic design? You know basic lower level copywriting. You know those jobs are not stable, I would say with AI. So I would you know if you're mediocre at what you do, this is the time to elevate your skills, even mediocre attorneys, you know. I just I'm giving this example because it's in my field. I'm a business owner too.

Ana Juneja:

I have to think about this. Mediocre attorneys will be wiped out because if AI can write a cease and desist letter as good as a mediocre attorney, why would anyone pay for, you know, 500 bucks for a mediocre attorney? No, you're not getting that $2,000, you know cease and desist letter from a legitimate attorney. But the people who are paying mid-level or low-level skill sets would rather take the same quality AI, or they're going to pay up and get good quality. So that's where and you can apply that example to every business or every service-based business so if you have mediocre skills and you're not producing something truly valuable where people would choose you over AI, maybe because you have a really great brand and maybe because you have truly better skills, then you are in danger, I would say, of losing your job, and certain skill sets aren't applicable to other areas and other careers. So this is a time to kind of think about all that.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, no, you make a great point there. What I was saying was, assuming that you are good at your job.

Ana Juneja:

But most people aren't. Most people are mediocre.

Andy Silvius:

You're right, you have to think of that, and it's gotten worse over time, because everyone's a business owner now, like there's so many people who have gotten into the business space and there's, I feel like, in general not to go on a tangent but I think in general, the quality of just the output that we have for most businesses is very low, whether it's customer service, whether it's the product or service you offer. So you're correct. I mean, I do think that those are the people that are in danger. But if you're great at your job, I don't think that there's anything that will ever replace humans for most stuff, but I think that it can help us. It may bring your margins down. Maybe you can't charge as much, but maybe you can handle a lot more volume. You know there's a lot of scenarios.

Ana Juneja:

So yeah, there's a lot of different scenarios like that. So, but I would say, yeah, I would say, you know, I hate to say this, but if there's, you know, out of the I don't know how many people are going to be watching in like per hour on this, but let's just use an example there's going to be a hundred people listening to this in one hour. You know, 70% of the 70 people out of those hundred people are mediocre or below average. So for those people, whether you know it or not, really evaluate your skillset. But for the majority of people now, I don't think you should wait two, three, four years.

Ana Juneja:

Now is the time to evaluate your skill sets and make a move, or, you know, up level or something, cause the vast majority of people are not really good at what they do and they um, start a business cause they think, oh, I'll get tax write-offs and it'll be so easy. And then they realize it's a lot of work and they don't really have the requisite expertise or skillset and so they have very mediocre business and mediocre deliverables. Right, and you know, not every business is a law firm. You know, for attorneys there's a high barrier of entry to start a law firm because you have to have.

Ana Juneja:

you know you have to be a lawyer first, but if you're just opening up a business to be a digital marketer or a real estate agent or a social media manager or a coach or something of that nature, you have a very low barrier of entrance. High competition, your brand and your skill set is really what's going to set you apart and you know if you can incorporate even teaching other people how to use AI with what you do, that's going to set you apart. Using AI to, yes, increase your output or increase the quality of what you're doing or decrease you know your prices and still keep your margin, like doing all. That is how you can adjust your business and you know, use AI effectively and have it actually help your business. But the vast majority of people listening to this forever, you know, just statistically, are average and below average and you really need to self-evaluate and think about that. Not to discourage anyone from being a business owner, but it's not everyone's, you know, cut out for it.

Ana Juneja:

And if you can make some adjustments in your skillset and pathway. It's a great time. July 2024, at least, is when we're recording this is a great time to be thinking about that move.

Andy Silvius:

Yeah, absolutely. They make a great point. I just want to thank you again for being on. I definitely think we need to do another episode. We'll discuss that off camera, but for everyone listening, I just think the trademarking, the copywriting, it's just a huge piece of people's business that they don. Oh yeah, we need to do that someday. And then we push it off, and push it off, and then when something slaps you in the face where you go oh man, I should have done this five years ago. You know they'll regret it. So thank you again for being on and we will definitely plan another show where we go into deeper topics around this subject.

Ana Juneja:

Of course, it was great to be here, absolutely no-transcript.