Part 1: Leveraging The Power of Trademarks in Your Go-to-Market Plan
Brett: Welcome back to the Grow Method! My name is Brett Schklar and you're here to join us for a special series we're calling, “Go-to-market office hours” today we're here to talk about something that, to be honest, I don't think of as a part of a go-to-market strategy and I'm thinking about it wrong because it should be. It is a defensive strategy, it is an offensive strategy, and it is all about trademarks. It's all about the power of the trademarks as a part of your go-to-market plan but I don't know much at all about trademarks, to be honest but luckily I do know someone who knows a lot about that stuff. Her name happens to be Tamara Pester Schklar, She happens to be my incredibly, amazing, and accomplished wife and so I feel very lucky to have her on the show. Tamara, who are you? Say hello, and introduce yourself.
Tamara: Thank you for that wonderful introduction, Brett. First of all, I'm Brett's wife. I am so lucky to have him as my hilarious and brilliant husband. I am also an attorney. I've been working in trademark and intellectual property law specifically for about the last 25 years. I love helping people protect their brands.
Brett: So, one of the things I'm really impressed with and it's a single chart and I think it’s awesome, is your success rate of getting it through and it's like and it is not just your success right but it's a benchmark across averages. And the average, I don't remember the numbers exactly but the averages are like down here kind of in the lower percentages and you're like up in 80% something range of success.
Tamara: I remember showing you that visual and you told me that I should use it on all marketing materials. The average success rate of someone who applies for a trademark on their own without an attorney, I believe is around 40% meaning 40% of the time, they will get a trademark registration issued with no issues from the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, no Office Actions or anything like that.
When they're represented by an attorney, that number goes up. I think the average for an attorney-led trademark application is closer to 65%. Our firm boasts a success rate of around 90%. We are known for being pretty aggressive with our strategies. We always try to find ways you can go about getting trademark registrations – there's usually some creative way that you can get something if someone's really married to a mark and committed to it.
Brett: I love that and it's very cool obviously. I don't hear company names but I hear some of the things that you're doing and how much you're going to bat for these companies so I think it is pretty amazing. Let's talk about the ability to work with companies. A lot of other types of practice such as family or corporate or this or that, you know you have to be accepted by the bar in the state in which you practice and you have to practice within that state otherwise you have to get other counsel involved if it's in different states. But trademarks are really very national and international, about 85% of the people who file trademarks are in the U.S. Do you need to find a trademark attorney in your backyard?
Tamara: No, not unless you're doing a state trademark registration which we don't usually recommend. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is a federal agency, so most trademark issues are nationwide. That means an attorney just needs to be admitted somewhere. We represent clients throughout the world. Actually, we have clients in Europe, we've got a few clients in South and Central America, and of course a lot in different places in the United States.
Brett: So a trademark lawyer doesn't need to be State dependent because it's a federal thing.
Tamara: It's not State-dependent. The only caveat is that if there's a foreign company trying to apply for a trademark they do need to engage a U.S. attorney. So we can represent companies from anywhere, but they can't necessarily file their own trademarks like they need me.