In this episode of The Seller’s Edge podcast, Jonathan sits down with intellectual property expert Andrei Mincov to pick his brain about a critical yet often overlooked aspect of business success: trademark and IP protection. As digital markets accelerate the pace of innovation and replication, Mincov reveals why entrepreneurs must think strategically about safeguarding their brands from day one. From the nuanced evolution of IP laws to practical strategies for building a defensible business identity, this conversation offers an eye-opening look at how smart IP management can be the difference between a fleeting venture and a lasting enterprise .Read on for the full transcript:
Episode 24 of The Seller’s Edge – Andrei and Jonathan talk about:
- [00:00] Introduction to Andrei Mincov and IP Protections
- [01:45] How IP has evolved in the last 30 years
- [04:38] The impact of “Dupe Culture”
- [08:00] What should entrepreneurs be thinking about?
- [09:11] Why do trademarks matter?
- [13:03] Branding Then vs. Branding Now
- [16:44] The difference between trademarks, patents, and copyrights
- [22:51] Where should new business owners start?
- [29:48] The common mistakes people make with trademarks
- [38:57] How Trademark Factory can help ecommerce sellers
- [42:36] Recap and closing remarks
Key Takeaways:
- Proactive Protection Matters: Invest in intellectual property early – don’t wait for success to safeguard your business ideas.
- Dupe Culture Moves Fast: The need for robust IP protection has accelerated, as products and ideas can be replicated and distributed globally at unprecedented speeds.
- Trademarks Shield Small Businesses: Trademarks often serve small businesses as their primary defense against larger competitors.
- Prioritize Legal Research: Thorough trademark research upfront can save thousands in potential legal conflicts and protect your brand’s long-term value.
- IP is a Business Asset : Well-protected intellectual property is a valuable business resource that can reduce marketing costs and increase company valuation.
Full Transcript of Episode:
JONATHAN: It’s so funny because 1996, like a radio station, it’s so funny to be like in simpler times. But I feel like it was simpler times because now, I mean, in the day of social media, and maybe this is just as me as being an outsider. It seems like over the last, like 10 to 15 years, IP and trademark and all that has gotten a lot more prominent. And is that because of social media and because of the way that people are repurposing certain types of, like, songs for their reels and things like that, or are there other factors that kind of culminated in that as well?
ANDREI MINCOV: IP is really never. It’s never been just about the money. And I think Lars Ulrich from Metallica said it best during their dispute with Napster, basically said that really it’s about control. It’s about some. Someone taking what’s not theirs. A lot of times today’s artists, they’re more than happy to give away their rights for free just for someone to play their song or, you know, to, to make them more popular. But what they do want is enough respect for someone to ask. It’s when someone takes it without their permission, that’s when it becomes a problem. And with social media, of course, you’re right because it’s so much easier now to do these things. And basically all the laws are still back in the 20th century and they’re really not designed to deal with how quickly you can build a new business, how quickly you can start selling your products all over the world, how quickly, like, you can expand from one category to another category. Like, if you’re thinking about, you know, trademarking laws, they were extremely logical how they progressed historically, but they were based on the idea that it takes significant effort for someone to replicate the products and for someone to expand both internationally and from category to category. It’s not the case anymore. If Apple wants to start selling refrigerators, it’s not going to take them very long to do that. Right. And the whole system really wasn’t designed around that. So I don’t know how quickly the international laws are going to catch up. I’m past the stage when kind of I was that activist that cared more about what the laws should be because, I mean, that’s, that’s an interesting way to spend your life, but it really helps nobody. My role, as I see it now, is to help entrepreneurs today navigate today’s landscape so that they can solve their problems today and address their issues today. You know, when the laws change, great, you know, we’ll find a way to Deal with them then. But I don’t see it happening very, very soon because governments have a tendency of not wanting to give away control.
JONATHAN: Yeah, that was perfectly put. It’s so interesting because I was talking to an E Commerce seller last week because the duplicate, like the dupe culture, as you said, like there is no Runway needed for someone to steal your product overnight and basically like sell it all over the world. Because, I mean, in 1996 or whenever, before sort of social media and the Internet and artificial intelligence and all the things that we have at our disposal now, you know, you’d have a product, you’d sell it in a specific town, like no one would really know about it. Like, you’d need to have national media coverage before people and then like the whole country knew about it.
ANDREI MINCOV: Yep.
JONATHAN: But now it’s like I, I never really thought about it until last week where you have this product, you come up with it and you obviously the first thing you do is trademark it in your country and start selling it in your country. But people could start selling it in other countries before and trademark it in other countries before you even have a chance because they could see it. Somebody could send them a picture, somebody could send them a video. So it’s just so interesting. It feels almost impossible to keep up with. Which is why I like, I admire that there are people like you trying to keep guardrails on the entire thing.
ANDREI MINCOV: Yeah. And you know, a lot of people say, well, IP is just for the big and successful companies. It’s just the opposite. The big and successful companies have all the cash in the world to drown you in litigation. In advertising. They can buy you out if they need to. Right. It’s the little guy for whom the IP often is the only way to actually get into the fight with these. Like, if you think about it, Google, basically, they’re a textbook example of what not to do with a brand. In terms of the name Google. Right. They even had to fight this in Supreme Court over whether the name became generic. But they’re so big, they don’t give a shit. Right. When you have all these billions, you don’t really care whether you’re going to spend a few million on a law firm fighting this. Right. Because you can. It becomes a problem when you don’t have an extra billion dollars just lying around. Right. And most entrepreneurs who listen to us today, they probably are more likely to be in the category of not having an extra billion dollars just flying around. So going to give you an example. What’s his name? Sean Merriman. The football star who came up with Lights out tagline, he acted very smart when he came up with that very first thing he did, he trademarked the brand because he knew he wouldn’t be playing football when he’s 65. Right. And so he wanted to have a stream of revenue. And so he actually successfully sued both Nike and Under Armour, who used Lights out in their business. And if he didn’t have that trademark, he’d have no case. So, again, it’s the. And it’s. It’s the little guy who needs it more than anyone else.
JONATHAN: Yeah, for sure. And so, like, for somebody out there, like, let’s say there’s an entrepreneur and they have an idea for a product, or maybe they’re already pursuing making that product a reality, what are some of the crucial trademark considerations that they should be thinking about?
ANDREI MINCOV: The first one is you really want to get you what. You really want to know whether your brand is trademarkable, because there’s really no reason in the world to spend a minute of your life or a dollar out of your pocket building a brand that you can’t own. You’d be surprised how often we get requests from entrepreneurs like, well, I did my. You know, I checked. It’s all good. We run a proper search, and, like, it’s not good. You will never, ever be able to trademark that. And, you know, they go through all the stages of, you know, grief denial and stuff, basically trying to explain to us why we’re wrong, that, you know, that other trademark is very different because it has the. In the beginning. And we’re like, that’s not how trademarks work. And eventually, you know, they realized. But the thing is, this is something you want to find out about really, really early on, because every day that you’re investing in promoting a brand that’s not yours, it’s not a very smart strategy. And once you realize that you have a brand that is trademarkable, you want to get it trademarked sooner rather than later. Because, again, by the time you become big and successful, someone will have trademarked your brand. Might as well be you. Actually, I was on a walk today and just came to me. I’m going to test this idea on your audience. So this is something I realized for most businesses when we start out, right? And I made that exact same mistake, and I’ve been making that mistake for years. What we do in the beginning, we kind of struggle in the beginning with the expectation that one day we’ll figure one thing out and we’re going to have a Hockey stick and we’re going to become rich and famous and we’re going to get all the money to pay for all the stuff that we can’t afford today, right? So for now we don’t need anything, right? Nobody knows us. We can fly under everybody’s radar. Who needs a trademark, who needs a brand? Who gives a shit, right? One day when suddenly we’re going to make all that money, that’s when we’re going to deal with that. Whether we have to fight with someone or we’re just going to buy it off, where we’re going to do that, that’s not how real world actually works. The way the entrepreneurial world works is like this. You go a little up, you go a little down and it’s a very non steep slope. Like it’s slow and painful. And what usually happens is that as you’re crawling up, right? And just when you are about ready to tell yourself it looks like this thing is working, looks like we’re finally getting some traction, looks like we’re finally getting noticed. That’s when you get that demand letter from some law firm that tells you that you’re actually using their brand. And that’s really painful because at this point you don’t yet have those extra millions to fight. You’re just starting to, you know, get your, get yourself known. And that’s how a lot of great brands end up dying. Again, the only way to prevent this is to look at your business basically as a long term investment. And a trademark is really the investment in your future, right? In the future value of your brand. Because if you’re, if you, if you don’t plan to be around, you know, for a year or two, then don’t get a trademark because the process is so long, takes about a year and a half in the us, about three, four years in Canada. You know, if you don’t think the business is still going to be around by the time you get the trademark, don’t waste your money, obviously. But if the plan is to become successful and keep it long term under that brand, do it early on. Don’t look at it as a nice to have. Look at it as something that will, something that will give you the highest return of all of your investments. Because if you think about it, Coca Cola is one of my favorite examples. They filed their first trademark in 1892. So I wrote two different versions of this. One version is that they were selling nine drinks a day in 1892. The other version that I’ve heard is that they only sold 23 bottles in the entire 1892. I don’t know which version is true, but either way, right. They weren’t really making lots of money selling Coca Cola, but they, they did made the investment. They got the trademark done, and today their brand is worth over $80 billion. Not their factories, not their recipe, not their employees, not their trucks, not their, you know, commercials with polar bears. The brand. And if, if you, if you try to calculate the ROI on this, it’s, it’s insane. Right? And you know, they’re, they’re selling sweet water, you know, with syrup. Why? Because, because they’ve got a brand.
JONATHAN: Yeah. That’s really fascinating because, I mean, do you, I’m curious, like, do you think that that’s starting today? Do you think that those brands are still out there that can, can have that kind of trajectory and power like Coca Cola does? Or do you think that those days are kind of, well, I’m gone, or you think there’s really no way of knowing?
ANDREI MINCOV: Naturally, there’s no way of knowing. But I do feel that the brand is extremely important.
JONATHAN: Yeah.
ANDREI MINCOV: Still, when people line up at five in the morning in front of Apple Store without even knowing what they’re gonna buy. Right. And, and when we’re talking about sales and how do you improve your closing rates and everything, how much closing does Apple really need from those geniuses, right, who, who, who meet you and greet you? And there’s zero closing required because it’s all done by the brand. All the selling is done by the brand. And also, if you look at data with paid ads on Facebook or TikTok or Google Ads, your CPC is significantly lower if you are a recognizable brand. Why is that? Because the platforms calculate the risk. They calculate the risk of someone clicking on that ad, ending up on some landing page, buying something, and then realizing that they got screwed. Right. So the more unknown you are, the higher premium you’re going to pay to the platform because they have no idea who you are. If you are a recognizable brand, the platform is happy to serve those ads because they know they’re not going to have any problems. So that’s, that’s really how it works.
JONATHAN: Yeah, that’s a great point. I also thought about like the Coca Cola thing and I’m like, now you have brands like TikTok that’ll come out of nowhere overnight and all of a sudden have like this sort of like staying power that Coca Cola has.
ANDREI MINCOV: So like, yeah, yeah, the speed is different. So the speeds are completely different. The reach is completely different in Terms of that. One of my other favorite examples is scooter company Bird. So these guys ended up being the fastest company to get to a billion dollar valuation. Someone keeps track of that shit, apparently. So like they took them a certain number of months. I don’t remember the exact number, but the thing they did on the 13th day of starting the company was they got their trademarks filed. This was before they had any scooters. This was before they had any agreements with the governments, with the cities. This was before anything. Because these guys realized that if they don’t own the brand, you can’t have a viable business model. Because if anyone can slap Bird to a scooter, like the whole network doesn’t work. And again, they got to a billion dollar valuation pretty quickly. So you know, these guys, they’re doing something right. And you know, not every business is going to get there. Some businesses are never going to get there. But again, it doesn’t mean that the brand is valueless. And really it’s your responsibility as the, as the, as the business owner to build the brand up so that first you invest in the brand, then the brand helps you. It helps you acquire better talent, it helps you lower the client acquisition costs, it helps you increase your sales conversions. Like it helps you do so many things if you build something that people actually care about.
JONATHAN: Yeah, I’ve always been, I mean, I think I have this right, but you can correct me if I’m wrong. So like trademarks, patents and copyrights, trademarks are branding, cotton surfer, physical, actual, like schematics and things like an actual physical object. And then copyrights are more conceptual.
ANDREI MINCOV: No.
JONATHAN: Oh, okay. I’m glad that I asked then.
ANDREI MINCOV: So I use what I call magic words for each of the three categories to explain it in a way that a nine year old can understand the reason I mentioned nine year old. So I wrote a book called the Ultimate Insider’s Guide to Intellectual Property back in the day. And I had my daughter, who was at that, at that time, nine years old, I had her read this and tell me whether I lost her somewhere and I would rewrite it. So three magic words. So for copyright, let’s start there, the copyright. Because this is where I started, right, with my dad’s music. The magic word is how. Because copyright is about how you express some ideas or feelings that you have about something, right? Copyright doesn’t protect the substance, it doesn’t protect the meaning, it protects how you express that meaning. So in that example, when I wrote the book about ip, I don’t own the wisdom around what is copyright and what is patent, what is a trademark? But I own the monopoly on the sequence of words and sequence of paragraphs how I expressed my thought in that book, right? When someone writes a book, writes a song about how a boy meets a girl and you know, they, they have a good time, it doesn’t mean that someone else can’t write another song about a different boy and a different girl having an even better time, right? But that other person can’t just copy lyrics, they can’t just copy the melody. So copyright is about music, videos, texts, books, software. So things that express an idea, okay? But not the idea itself. The idea itself is not protected with trademarks. You’re right. So that’s about branding. And to me, the magic word is which you go to a supermarket, you go down the aisle with a bunch of toothpaste with the same glop in different tubes. The only thing that makes those tubes different is the name, right? Is the logo, is maybe the tagline that you see on the packaging. And that’s how you decide which of them goes in your basket, right? That’s the purpose of a trademark, to help the market tell products of one manufacturer from the same or similar products of everyone else. Same with services, right? So when you go to H and R block for accounting, for whatever reason, if you decide that that’s your best choice, you know that this is, you know, accounting services like anyone else, right? Or tax filing services, whatever, right? But you seeing that green square, you know that you’re buying it from them and not from, I don’t know, Intuit or someone else, right? So that’s trademarks of the witch for patents. The magic word is what? Because that’s as close as you’re going to get to protecting that spark of genius that you had when you invented something new. It could be about physical products, but it could also be about processes. So Amazon famously patented their one click solution when you give them the credit card and they could just charge that credit card next time you wanted to buy something. And Apple actually licensed it from Amazon to do the, the Apple Pay or itunes. By the time Apple got to Apple Pay, I think the patent expired. But itunes was built on that same, on that same idea, right? And they had to get the license. So it could be about something intangible, but something that so different, so new and so practical that the government says this is, this is good enough for you for us to be able to give you a monopoly. And patents have the shortest monopoly of all, right? It’s 20 years from the date of filing. And usually it takes about five years to get it. So you get about 15 years of life from a patent. And after that, like the best example is pharmaceuticals. That’s how you get those generics. Because when you get a patent, you are required to disclose the secret to the government in exchange for them giving you the monopoly. And after the monopoly expires, everyone else can use the same formula to sell you the same Viagra pill. Right? They just. And so speaking of Viagra pills, right, Everyone can replicate the formula, but the trademark you cannot use, because trademarks have different scope of protection, different length of protection. And trademarks are the only type of intellectual property that you can own forever as long as you keep renewing and renewing and renewing and renewing. So Coca Cola has been renewing their trade box since 1892. Same one.
JONATHAN: And then copyrights expire at some point, and that becomes public domain?
ANDREI MINCOV: So copyright varies country by country, but in most countries, it’s about 70 years after the author dies. So the whole life of the author plus 70 years. The. The idea there is the whole life of the author. Because, you know, the idea was if we end it when the author dies, you know, a lot of potential licensees would have a very easy idea how to use that work without permission of the author. So they. And then they wanted to give it to two or three generations after, right? So that the, you know, the family could get some benefit out of that. So that’s. That. That’s how it works.
JONATHAN: Okay. So there’s a method to the madness for each of those. So then if somebody, I develop a new product, let’s say I like tomorrow, I’m like, eureka. I have this great idea. Is there something that I should do to kind of like litmus test whether that’s a unique idea or do you recommend somebody goes directly to a lawyer for it? Like, what’s your. What’s your first advice to somebody?
ANDREI MINCOV: So I’m not a patent attorney, but I had a personal situation with something like this. I thought I invented something. Something genius. I thought I invented Becca when I was in my second law school in Canada, because I had to go, I did the whole thing to get my lawyer license in Canada. I thought I invented a unique new way to serve books to lawyers. And I checked everything, found nothing. I tried to run my own patent search, which I had no idea how to do, found nothing. And by that time, I was already bitten by that entrepreneurial bug. I thought, hey, you know, I’m going to do some passive income for this. It’s a genius idea. I need to patent it so that I can license it to the publishers because I knew that I didn’t have the books to distribute. So the only way to monetize that idea was to own the method. I’m like, I’m gonna go and patent this stuff. And I realized that. So I spoke to a firm, I think they, they quoted me like 15 grand to, to, to file that patent. And I didn’t really have the 15 grand back in the day. And something, I don’t know what it was like, I had this other spark of genius told me, why don’t you first get some, get someone who knows what they’re doing to tell you whether this is doable. Right. The patent search. And so I found a company, we still, we’re still great friends with a guy today, all these years after, paid him it was 500 bucks. He did the search, came up with a 96 page report that buried the idea right there. And as upsetting as it was, as frustrating as it was, the guy saved me 14,5k and a lot of misery after. And so if you think you invented something genius, I would say first thing you want to do is find out whether this is really unique enough, whether this is protectable if the patent is the only way for you to protect it. Because if you, I always say this. If you can monetize and protect and build without using a patent, don’t use the patent. Because again, unless you’re Apple and you’ve got huge budgets, patents are extremely expensive. Unlike trademarks. Like patents, they have annual maintenance. Doing them country by country is super difficult. Again, unlike trademarks, with patents, if you start in one country, you only have six months to protect your invention everywhere else, and after that it’s not protectable even if you want to, even if you start making the money, you can’t. Right? So you have to basically put all this money upfront with zero proof that you know there’s, there’s something to it. So if you can’t protect it without it, try to protect it without it. It’s basically, it’s, you need to really have a good business plan whether you’re going to get investors on board, whether you know how you’re going to run this, how you’re going to budget this with, with, with, with trademarks, it’s completely different thing, right? I, I think with trademarks you ask, it really boils down to two questions. First question is, do you Think you’re still going to be selling products and services under that brand two, three years from now, right? Remember I said how long it takes? If the answer is no, then don’t bother. If the answer is yes, then second question you ask yourself is, do you think that if your business is as successful as you hope it might be two, three years from now, do you think the brand is going to have any value? Do you think the brand is going to help you with anything? You know, whether it’s, you know, getting more clients, getting better talents to work for you, or maybe, you know, you get a better valuation when you exit. So if your answer is the brand, even in the best case scenario, when the, the business did that hockey stick for you, if in, even in that case scenario your brand is worthless, I would say go back to the drawing board, come up with a better brand, because it’s just stupid not to use the tool that all of the companies that we look up to use to make more money more easily, right? So if you don’t think that in the best case scenario the brand is going to serve you, find a better brand. And if the answer is it will help me, in the best case scenario, then do the search. Or actually, let me rephrase that, get someone who knows what they’re doing to do the search. Because again, so many times we see these mistakes and they’re easily preventable. Get, get them to confirm that the brand is doable, it’s trademarkable. If the answer is it’s not trademarkable, again, go back to the drawing board. Because it’s more important to own a brand than to have the brand, but that you can’t own. Unfortunately, the reason, the reason, you know, it’s the monopoly that gives you all that valuation, that your ability to go to a competitor and said, this is mine, stop this, right? And really, until you can say that to someone who’s copying you, you know, this is mine, stop doing this. Until you can do that, you don’t really have a brand. You just have a word or an image or a phrase that you want to be your brand, but nobody cares, right? It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not just about you don’t own your brand, you don’t have a brand that’s not a brand when anyone else can use the same thing to sell, to compete with you. So that’s, that’s kind of my, my take on this.
JONATHAN: I like that. It’s kind of like if the tree falls in the woods and no one’s around to hear it doesn’t make a sound. But with a brand.
ANDREI MINCOV: Yeah. Except as entrepreneurs, you spend time, money and energy trying to build this thing. Right. You’re already doing this. Why not do it? Right? Right. So it’s not like, you know, you woke up to having a business and you know, it somehow grows itself without you doing anything to it. If that was the case, well, then whatever grows, grows, great. But you are actively spending so much of your life trying to get this to, to where you want it to be. Right? All the frustrations, all the, all the fights, all the problems that you solve in order to get to the point when you win. How upsetting must it be for you to realize when you’re at that point that someone actually is going to pocket that win? And that’s not you.
JONATHAN: Yeah. You mentioned the mistakes you’ve seen people make. Is there one example that you just recall as being like, this is how bad it can get, or somebody kind of having a really great idea for a trademark or. I mean, listen, I’m a big fan of the Social Network movie. I think that’s a pretty good example. But yeah, I’m just curious if there’s other things that you’ve seen where you’re like, yeah, this is the reason why you should do it.
ANDREI MINCOV: Yeah, I wish I saw less of them, to be honest, because it’s painful. Like, it hurts to have this conversation with a brand owner who came to you hopeful and excited and you tell them, dude, it’s too late. And like, I, when I was starting this business, I did most of the sales call. I did most of the, like, everything really. And I remember I was still living in Vancouver back in the day. There was a, there was a company, a garbage removal company. I saw their name on a, on a, on a bus, right at the back of the buses there commercial. And the name was really, really, really, really good. Good name. I’m not going to say what it was. And great name. And I’m like, you know what? I’m, I’m, I’m just starting out this trademarking company. I’m not too proud to pick up the phone, call them and say, hey, why don’t you guys consider trademarking that? So we had a conversation, I had a conversation with the founder, told them everything, you know, I’m telling your audience right now, like, you gotta do this early on, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, well, you know, we’re still thinking like, guys, you already paying for your commercials to be on the back of the bus. Like, like, you are promoting the brand. Maybe. You know, we actually have, have our own taglines that goes like this. If it’s worth promoting, it’s worth protecting. So we’re like, you are already paying for your commercials on the back of the bus. Like, what else do you need to know to figure out that the brand has some value? Well, we’re going to think about it. So they thought about it. They got back to me seven months after and I’m like, great, finally these guys saw the light. I’m so excited we’ll be able to help them trademark this. So they buy, we do the search and I see that 3 months ago someone else filed for the same trademark. And I’m like, we can’t help you. Like, it’s not something that we can help you with. Unless you want to go to court, fight those guys. It’s probably going to take three, four, five years more because first you got to wait for them to get to a certain point in the trademark registration process. Then you need to initiate a pro. Like, like, why didn’t you do it when I told you, like, it was free and clear back in the day and now it’s not. And so they actually went out of business, these guys, because they put all of their chips on one thing and they just couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t get anything back. Yeah, and that’s, you know, I’m telling it as, you know, as a fun story with, you know, with, with a smile, but really, this hurts. Yeah, like, like, I don’t, I don’t. I definitely didn’t want to be in the shoes of that guy who had to hear it from us.
JONATHAN: Yeah. I used to work in the film industry. I still do independently on the side, but there’s so many times I’ve heard stories of people who, like, you know, their dream is to grow up and make a movie and they’ll like spend years writing a script, script, and then they’ll sell it to a studio and then that studio will just take it and like, just change it and make it an entirely different thing. And it’ll just be like watching a dream die and they can’t really do anything with it after that. So I completely understand and get that. Is there ever a situation where, because I know, I’m like, you know the dot com era when people would like buy up URLs and then like sell them. And now I feel like even on social media I hear stories like people buying screen, like, Usernames from other people. Is there ever like a, like, is there somebody out there who like buys up copyrights or whatever or, and, or trademarks and then tries to like broker them or something like that?
ANDREI MINCOV: A little bit. But it’s, it’s a lot more expensive, right, than domain names. That still happens. But what usually happens is I’m actually going to give you real life example. I don’t know the full story behind that, but it just happened. I just found out about it like a couple of weeks ago. You know 11 labs, right? The AI company? Yeah, yeah. These guys are genius. They’re a product. I freaking love it, use it all the time. A father trademark relatively early on. The problem is someone else, a guy, just one individual filed for the same trademark on the same day, same day as 11 Labs just a few hours earlier. And now 11 Labs trademark is being denied based on the prior application filed by this dude. And again, I don’t know, maybe there’s, there’s, there’s a bigger story there, right? Maybe, maybe 11 labs try to steal that brand from the guy. Maybe. I don’t know. Right. But if it’s not the case, what I’m assuming is that they made an announcement somewhere. This guy figured out that they’re going to be big. He filed this for the, for this trademark before they got big. And now, now what are they going to do? They’re going to change their name or they’re going to pay him off. Something’s going to happen. But either way, for them to get this trademark in their name now is going to be significantly harder compared to if they did that just the day before. Right? And you know, like, I have this tongue in cheek answer when someone tells me, well, when should I trademark my brand? I’m like, really doesn’t matter. Like anytime you want, as long as you do it a day before somebody else does, right? And they’re like, well, how do I know? Like, exactly, right? But, but really that’s how it works, right? It. The whole thing is around uncertainty, right? Business is. There’s so much uncertainty around it that if you can limit the number of ways you’re exposing yourself. And here’s the thing, the more successful you get. So actually, like, there’s this chart. I’m gonna, I’m gonna have you imagine that this is a chart, right? So there’s a point when you come up with an idea for your brand, right? There’s point in time when it’s just inside your head, right? Like I’m gonna call this company Apple, right? When Steve Jobs came up with that, there was a, there was a point was just here, right? Not here in Steve Jobs’s head, right? At that point, the value of the brand was zero because nobody knows it has potential value, but the actual value is nothing, right? It’s also the most trademarkable that brand ever was because it might not have been trademarkable then because of something else, like some prior trademarks, but it was at that point when it was the most trademarkable. And then as you build the business, the visibility goes up, right? So the value goes up because the more people know about your brand, they like and trust you, the value goes up, but the registrability goes down because of that same risk that someone filed the treatment. Not even if they actively decide to prevent you from getting a trade, they may not even know about you, right? But someone independently comes up with a similar name that blocks you, right? So, and at some point this gap becomes so big between the value and registrability that you’re like, oops, it’s no longer trademarkable even though the value is there. And that’s, you know, the bigger that gap, the more painful it is to, to go back to, to the drawing board. Unless, unless you are in that, you know, in that group of multi billionaires who can just pay, you know, who can, you know, you know, you know how they say, you know, if you have a problem that can be solved by money, you don’t have a problem, right? So, you know, if you can solve this problem by just buying everyone else, well, you don’t have a problem, you probably don’t need the trademark that much. But again, for most of us, it is a problem when you have to spend, you know, 150 grand on lawyers to fight this or 70 grand on rebranding, which both, by the way, are average amounts that it takes to deal with either trademark litigation, 150 grand or rebranding. You know, when you have to change everything, all your social media, all your emails, all your, you know, if you have, if you’re in the physical business, it’s even worse. Like all your menus, all your everything.
JONATHAN: So yeah, I’ve heard this story a thousand times if I’ve heard it once, because I’m surrounded by people who are entrepreneurs who have an idea and they’re like, and it’s going to be called blah. And then like, I’ll talk to them two more times and I’ll have like gone through two different name changes because they don’t have the trademark or can’t get It.
ANDREI MINCOV: Yeah.
JONATHAN: So it is definitely something that people should be thinking about proactively for sure. So, Andre, I know this stuff is really complicated, and I know there’s a lot of entrepreneurs listening who, like, have trademarks and ideas that they definitely need to have protection for. How, like, how can they reach out to you and get in touch with you? Obviously you seem like you’re a mile ahead of everyone else.
ANDREI MINCOV: Thank you for saying this. Really, the way to get started is go to trademark factory.com and get on a free call with one of our strategy advisors. And their role is not just to take your credit card number, really, their role primarily is to do exactly that, be your strategy advisor. Because usually when an entrepreneur comes to us, they have all these ideas. They have a name, they have a logo, they have a tagline, and they’re, you know, trying to run their business in different countries. And like, how do I prioritize? What do I do first? Because usually they don’t have the budget to do everything all at once. And so the role of our guys who take these calls is to actually walk you through, understand what you’re trying to accomplish and help you figure out, you know, what to get started with, what’s the best package and things like that. So that’s what you do. There’s something that I’m extremely proud of having built over the years. Trademark Factory really is the. The one company out there that does trademarks with a guaranteed result for a guaranteed budget. When I started it, everyone told me I was nuts when, when I offered everyone a comprehensive trademark search with registrability opinion that was built into the project, into the fee, one flat fee that covers everything from start to finish, no matter how difficult the process becomes in the, in the, in the, in the middle and 100% money back guarantee if a trademark that we tell you is registerable doesn’t go through. So this is kind of the package that we are known for, that’s. That we are famous for. And this is obviously not for everybody, but that’s for someone who actually cares more about the result of getting their brand registered rather than filing it on the cheap and hoping that it goes through. But we have different packages that you can choose from. And again, one of the reasons you get to talk to a strategy advisor is they can actually explain this. As you know, I’ve been running this business for, what is it, over 11 years now, right. And I’m still struggling with explaining this in a, you know, in a snippet that I can wrap in seven words. It just doesn’t work. Trademarks are freaking complicated, right? So it always takes some explaining and a lot of most, most entrepreneurs they, they over estimate how much they understand trademarks. So that’s why we have those. They give you the opportunity to, to business owners to get on a call for half an hour to talk to our guys, answer all your questions and get started. So trademark factory.com is where, where you can go or if you just want to learn more about trademarks. We have a YouTube channel with over a thousand videos there. If you had a question about trademarks, I probably answered it more than once.
JONATHAN: Andre, I appreciate it especially because I feel like we should not be trusting people who can boil it down into a simple one sentence elevator pitch. So I know, I know that you probably are definitely more credible than the person who’s like, no, it’s no problem, I can get it done for $5, come talk to me. But no, I appreciate you coming on and talking. I was worried, you know, it can be when you get to anything legalese, you always worry that it’s going to be dry and sort of boring listening to someone talk about it. But you’ve made it very engaging and entertaining and informative. So I appreciate it.
ANDREI MINCOV: I really enjoyed having this conversation with you is one of the more conversational interviews I’ve done. So thank you for or being this amazing host who turns a dry topic into a great conversation.
