THROWBACK: What to Know About a Trademark for Your Business with Joey Vitale

With tax season knocking on our doors, it's the time of year when we estheticians get real about our businesses. And what better way than to ask ourselves the hard-hitting questions?

Have you taken the necessary steps to make sure your sugar business is protected with the appropriate trademark? Do you even know what a “trademark” means to your business?

In this episode of The Sugar Show, SugarMama Shannon O’Brien sits down with her legal guide, Joey Vitale, to discuss the importance of doing due diligence on your brand before you spend years building it.  You’ll learn why trademark research is a crucial first step, and things to watch out for when you are starting your trademark journey.

If you’ve connected with or been inspired by this episode in any way,  leave us a reviewand let us know your biggest takeaway - I’d love to hear your biggest takeways! And while you've got your phone out, make sure to follow us on Instagram @Love2Sugar. Want more? Download the Love2Sugar App for your one-stop shop for all things sugar and join The Sugar Tribe while you’re there!

If you’ve connected with or been inspired by this episode in any way, leave us a review and let us know your biggest takeaway - I’d love to hear how you embrace Sugaring For All!! And while you've got your phone out, make sure to follow us on Instagram @Love2Sugar.

If you are interested in learning more about Radeq Lab's Premium Prebiotic Sugar Line of products, you can find them at www.radeqlab.us.

Cheers to your Sweet Success!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Shannon O'Brien: Hello and welcome to this episode of The Sugar Show. I gotta tell you, it's been a journey. Um, as soon as my clients named me the Sugar Mama, I wanted to make sure that that name was protected and it was a journey for me, and I have learned so much so. This week's episode is with Joey Vitali. He is a trademark attorney.

[00:00:24] He's actually an attorney in general, but really focuses on making your business legally strong. And so he's very, very savvy in the trademark space. He's a trademark attorney. Um, he is the founder of Indie Law and he's also just a real guy. Who can answer our questions. He is, is, is my guy and I wanna share him with you.

[00:00:47] And so I'm bringing him on this episode today so that you can make sure that you are legally strong and protected and that no one else takes your name. So check it out. Here's Joey. [00:01:00] All right, Joey. Today is the day we're gonna educate the beauty world on trademarks. . We're gonna make this happen my friend.

[00:01:09] Let's do 

[00:01:09] Joey Vitale: it. Shannon. And I have to say straight up, thank you so much for the gift of being able to tell my friends and my people on Instagram that I now have a sugar mama. You do. 

[00:01:22] Shannon O'Brien: You officially have a sugar mama, my friend. You tell your 

[00:01:24] Joey Vitale: wife I, I, uh, yes, I did. I love that. I love that. She now understands.

[00:01:29] Okay. She was a little confused at first . Good, 

[00:01:33] Shannon O'Brien: good, good. Well, let's dive down into this because. Really, truly the beauty industry. We have so many fun things we can call ourselves, uh, especially in the sugaring world. Sugar this sweet that, you know, there's, there's lots of sugary sweet names we can use. Uh, But as strong business owners, we wanna make sure that we are protected and that we aren't actually using a name that's, that's truly been [00:02:00] registered and u is being used by someone else.

[00:02:02] So let's start very simply, what actually is a trademark, the TM versus the R? Great. Great question. 

[00:02:12] Joey Vitale: I have two questions, . So let's, let's talk about the first one first. And I know that. There's a free training that I do that dives into this more. So if you like where we're going, this free training is a full 60 minutes or more.

[00:02:27] It, it goes into this in other things, but in terms of what is a trademark, I could give you the legal definition, but it's, it's not helpful. Your eyes are just gonna start rolling. You're gonna start yawning. What I like to do is say, okay, we know a trademark when we see it, right? We think of Nike or Target or Starbucks, and we think of their logos and we've all been consumers for however long we've been alive.

[00:02:53] So we, we know kind of what a trademark means when we buy from a company. But if I were to ask [00:03:00] you and Shannon, I've done this with you enough times, I think you know the answer. If I were to ask you who owns the trademark for Akuna Matata, you'd probably be able to tell me the answer. Disney. Disney.

[00:03:14] Exactly. Okay, so, so what's going on through your head? Probably when you try and connect the dots from Akuna matata to Disney is like Akuna Matata was in Lion King, which is owned by Disney. Right, right. So that's all a trademark is. It's called Source Identification. In the trademark attorney world, it means when you see something or hear something.

[00:03:38] it makes you think of a particular brand. That's why when we see the Apple logo mm-hmm. , we think of Apple, the tech company. Okay. Or the Nike Swoosh, or the Target bullseye, or you know, just even the word Starbucks and we start thinking about coffee. So that's the power of a trademark is it's a distinctive thing that exists in the world that makes you think of [00:04:00] one particular.

[00:04:02] And to go to your second question of that difference between a TM and a Circle R, this is huge because a lot of times people come to me saying, Joey, I need your help because I, I want a trademark for my business. And they're usually surprised when I tell them, if you're already in business, you already have a trademark.

[00:04:23] Mm-hmm. , what I do is I don't get you trademark. I help you protect the trademark rights and beef them up that you already have, so that little TM symbol that you might have seen before that's short for automatic common law trademark rights, which you get for free. You don't have to file anything just by being in business and using that business name or slogan or logo or whatever.

[00:04:47] You can use that TM symbol. The problem is those automatic common law trademark. Are super weak. Mm-hmm. , you can only exclude others from using your common [00:05:00] law trademark rights in your geographic region. So a little bit bigger than a city, smaller than a state. If you, that used to be helpful back in the day when, you know, my grandpa's best friend who had a deli was competing with someone else across the street and he wanted to be the Ginos or whatever it was.

[00:05:24] It becomes a lot more difficult now when we all have. National brands we're all using Facebook ads and doing other things. And we have customers and, and people following us on social media across state lines. We can't rely on those common law trademark rights anymore. And so it's important for really all brands these days to look into registering your trademarks at the federal level.

[00:05:46] And what that does is it beefs up your rights from those. Kind of puny, but existing common law, trademark rights to nationwide exclusive rights for your brand and anything that's [00:06:00] close to it. So that's the R. That's the R. Mm-hmm. . You gotta pay for the R, but it's, it's really very much worth it. 

[00:06:08] Shannon O'Brien: Right. So let's talk for a moment about a company, uh, an aesthetician, a cosmetologist.

[00:06:19] They get into the business and they wanna start their own business and they, they wanna pick a name. It's like, it's like, I think some of them dream of this name their whole life and they're in beauty school and they're like, when I get out, my place is gonna be called so-and-so. Right. How does someone check to see, obviously there's a deeper dive when you go to apply for the registration of the trademark?

[00:06:44] In a nutshell, how can someone properly check to see if the name has been taken? 

[00:06:51] Joey Vitale: Hmm 

[00:06:51] Shannon O'Brien: mm-hmm , because it's not just, if you can grab the Instagram username, if you can grab the hashtag or if you can grab the website, [00:07:00] that doesn't necessarily mean the name hasn't been taken, which is, this is a big 

[00:07:05] Joey Vitale: ask. So, you know, trademarks are really interesting because when you own that Circle R, you get rights not just to your trademark, but to anything that's confusingly similar to it.

[00:07:18] And so, I found that it's helpful to shift away from the question of, is my name taken or not? To a subtle shift of, is my name available? Which means that you have to run a broader search. We have to put aside what being a business owner has taught us of what I call domain name thinking. Mm-hmm. . We can't just look for the domain name or just run a Google search of that name and if nothing pops up, then we're good to go.

[00:07:45] Because the truth is if something else might be spelled differently or has another word attached or in any other ways can be so similar. That a customer might see these two brands and think that they're associated with each other [00:08:00] or owned by the same umbrella company. That could cause customer confusion.

[00:08:04] And if it's possible that someone buys from you thinking or expecting to buy from another company, that's trademark infringement. Yes. And that's a theory, but you have to cast a 

[00:08:15] Shannon O'Brien: wide net. That happens a lot, Joey. We get, for example, I have Registered Sugar Mama and there are people that think, oh, well I'll just spell Mama different, or I'll just put the on the front of it and then I can register myself as the Sugar Mama.

[00:08:33] Or Sugar Mamas or Sugar Mama. M O M M A. And that's right, not the case. 

[00:08:40] Joey Vitale: Exactly, and that's, I'm really glad that you raised this point because a lot of business owners are, are pretty shocked when I tell them that not only are there over half a million trademark applications filed every year, but over half of them get denied.

[00:08:57] Mm-hmm. , it starts to make more sense to them [00:09:00] when they learn that the biggest reason for trademark rejections. Is because the trademark office thinks that your trademark is too similar to another person's trademark for Exactly. That recent, and I, sugar Mom was a great example with all the different spelling variations, adding the before it and other things.

[00:09:18] Mm-hmm. . 

[00:09:19] Shannon O'Brien: And what's another interesting topic when I was going through this with you, uh, is hair removal in general. So, Sugar is a form of hair removal. Wax is a form of hair removal and there is a facility that has that trademarked the name Sugar Mama's Wax in the studio. And when I originally went to look for the name, Because I said to you, I said, well, can't I use it because I sugar and they wax?

[00:09:54] It's very different things. We know that. Right, right. But the trademark office [00:10:00] says, Nope, too close. You both do hair removal. So I am actually trademarked as an educator. Right in a different category, but the physical location and products that they use, they have the trademark for that. Even though they're a wax studio, which I thought was super fascinating.

[00:10:22] In the beauty industry, we have to be very careful because. There's a lot of ways you can provide beauty services, right? Mm-hmm. . Sure. So waxing and sugaring is actually very similar and could be considered very confusing. So for example, if your name is, I'm picking something, the Sweet Spa, if they wax and you sugar, you still can't use it if they've registered the name for trademark.

[00:10:52] Is that correct? 

[00:10:53] Joey Vitale: Potentially. I will say. Trademarks are an art, not a science. So [00:11:00] if you have the budget or willingness to take risks in the trademark world, I like to do a lot of risk assessment with my clients before we start moving forward. Because sometimes a client is saying, you know what? Even though there's a low chance of success here, I'm willing to apply because either I.

[00:11:22] And that's a celebration or it's a lesson learned that I know can, I can shift away from. One of my favorite examples is LeBron James tried to trademark Taco Tuesday. He did, his attorney filed for a trademark application for Taco Tuesday and it got denied, and the trademark office said, not only are we denying it for you, but Taco Tuesday is such a big phrase right now.

[00:11:49] No one has that Acuna Matata source identification. Mm-hmm. , no one hears it and thinks of any particular brand, so therefore, taco Tuesday cannot be a trademark. It can't [00:12:00] function for source identification and. You would hear that and think, okay, that's kind of a loss for LeBron James, but his attorney was interviewed and he said, you know what?

[00:12:11] We were actually pretty grateful for the response because now we know that LeBron James can continue to talk about Taco Tuesday and not get hit with cease and desist letters, right? That are legitimate because no one else can own it. And so if you do have, if you are in a place where you're like, Ooh, can I use this?

[00:12:30] Can I own it? It might help playing defense to say, you know what? I'm gonna see if I can get it, and even if I can't get it, that will give me peace of mind knowing that nobody else can. Yes. Yes, 

[00:12:42] Shannon O'Brien: exactly. So let's go back to the basics. Where would someone go if they were sitting at the kitchen table thinking of all the wonderful names they wanna use and they just wanna start in the right place?

[00:12:54] Not Instagram, not Google. Where did they go? And you talk about this more in your course, [00:13:00] but where did they go to just at least start to see if someone's already grabbed that. 

[00:13:06] Joey Vitale: There's two things you wanna do. First, you want to go to the free trademark database@uspto.gov. Uh, it works, it looks like it's still stuck in the 1990s, right?

[00:13:16] But it's a search database where you can search, you can do what I call a knockout search, which again, isn't the end goal cuz you wanna run a broad search. But that will tell you if someone has, uh, registered a trademark for the exact name that you want to use. Correct. You also quickly wanna hop onto, Because a trademark registration isn't where your trademark rights are created.

[00:13:40] Trademark rights are created upon the first to use, not the first to file. So you also wanna make sure that you do, you search Google and you just see, are there other businesses out there that have a name that is the same or can are pretty similar to the name that I want to use? Mm-hmm. . Because even if there's a, so my company's indie.[00:14:00] 

[00:14:00] And we now have indie law as a registered trademark. If I were to run a search and find out that there was another law firm that maybe hadn't applied for indie law yet, but was using it and was a law firm like mine, then I would basically be lying under oath when filling out the application. Cuz there's a checkbox that says, do you have a good faith belief that you're the first person to use this brand or the first company to use this brand?

[00:14:28] Right. And. It, the practically speaking, the risk is low that they, you could get called out there, but we have had clients who have gone through the registration process and then someone reaches out and says, Hey, we were using it before you were, and we can prove it, so we're gonna cancel your applic.

[00:14:47] We're gonna cancel your registration. Here's the thing, when it comes to getting a trademark, a lot of times we think about coming up with the name and then wanting to protect it as soon as we can. , before we talk about protecting your [00:15:00] brand, we have to talk about availability. Mm-hmm. and applying for a trademark is the best way to make sure that your brand is available and not stepping on anybody else's toes.

[00:15:12] So yet, yes, it costs money to file this application, but it's a win-win either way because either you know that it's available and you're protecting it, or you're learning that it's not available. And I wanna be clear here, if you apply for a trademark and the trademark office refuses it, that doesn't mean you get accused of infringement.

[00:15:32] It doesn't mean you automatically get a bunch of cease and desist letters. It doesn't mean anybody's coming after you. It just means the trademark office is not going to allow your registration. So getting that rejection can be really helpful to proactively pivot before you get to a point where you have to do a forced rebrand.

[00:15:51] Shannon O'Brien: Yeah, which is really critical here because you don't wanna get a cease and desist letter. You don't wanna be doing this for three or four years and find out the [00:16:00] whole time that it was trademarked by someone else. And you're gonna have to change your name in your town. Yeah. Uh, or you have a, all of a sudden your brand is so big and someone comes by and says, no, no, no, no.

[00:16:12] I actually have the registered trademark and I've had it for this many years. You're gonna have to pick a different name for that beautiful brand that you've spent a lot of money on. You have to do your 

[00:16:21] Joey Vitale: research. Exactly, exactly. And you also as much as you can when it comes to trademarks and really in general as a business owner, you wanna zig or other zag.

[00:16:32] Yep. Again, you wanna have that Kuna matata. To Disney kind of mental dot connection happening. And so the more that you just pick names that are really easy to think up, kind of trending, cute names that maybe a lot of people are using in the space, even if you get the registration, those tend to be weaker.

[00:16:54] Trademarks are harder to enforce. So the more you can come up with a name that is pretty [00:17:00] distinctive is really different. You know, we had to build indie law as a brand from the ground. And, and now we have a reputation around it. But it's not like we picked indie law because, you know, that was a cute phrase on shirts for a while along lawyers.

[00:17:16] And then I went with it. And the same thing with our, our program for Trademark's Power Brand. If I wanted to call that the super awesome trademark course, I could, but I wouldn't be able to probably get a trademark registration for it. We intentionally, strategically decided to call the program Power Brand.

[00:17:36] Because you don't really automatically think trademarks when you hear that, but that's essentially what trademarks help you create is a powerful brand. 

[00:17:45] Shannon O'Brien: And that's what we wanna help estheticians, cosmetologists, sugaring professionals, beauty babes. We want to help you be strong with your brand. We want to help make sure that we all.

[00:17:59] [00:18:00] Are doing things the right way so that we can move forward in doing the amazing work that we do, and we don't have to worry about our business and Right. We talked about that in a, in the podcast a while back, about being legally strong. And I offer to you, for those of you that are starting in this industry, or even if you've been around for a really long time, like myself, Take a moment and a lot of moments to really do the research on your brand, to really make sure that you've legally protected yourself so that you can sleep at night and not worry about whether someone's gonna send you a cease and desist letter.

[00:18:34] And honestly, if they send you one and they have that business registered and it's been registered for a long time and you just came up with the name, you have to choose a different. 

[00:18:46] Joey Vitale: Yeah. You know, I like to think about it, um, this way my, so I come from a big Italian family and my dad loves hunting dogs.

[00:18:56] Hunting dogs tend to not make great family pets. [00:19:00] So when I grew up, I'm not kidding, we probably have had over a hundred dogs in my lifetime of my dad being crazy, bringing home a hunting dog, and then my mom being like, no way. This dog can't exist in a house with seven young children. , and yet they all had names.

[00:19:18] And for the most part, my family and I kind of have somewhat of a connection where we think of Otis or Oliver or Sue or Lucky or whatever. Mm-hmm. , a couple years ago when my wife and I had our first dog, we were like, okay, we so many dog names are taken just with my family, so how can we think of a name that when we say, okay, this is the dog's name.

[00:19:41] No one in my family thinks of any of our other dogs that we had a while ago, and that's what you have to think about as a trademark. Okay. What is a name that I can think of that when people hear. It's not gonna confuse them with these other names. And the, the more, the more different distinctive, the better.

[00:19:59] Um, [00:20:00] you're, you're a really great example Shannon, of using, you know, using something that is kind of a part of the, the brand. Part of the industry and the name, and the fact that you are in the education space helps with that a lot. Yes. Um, something that you can do if you are, you know, really no matter what business owner you're in, instead of going in the direction of thinking about, okay, how can I play with what my business does?

[00:20:27] Think about your values and what sets you apart from others in your space, and how can you come up with a, a word that really speaks to that difference that you. . Yeah. Instead of trying to describe what your business is about, and then you can combine a couple of those words together For 

[00:20:44] Shannon O'Brien: sure. That's actually how I was named Sugar Mama was because I was coming up as the sugaring person in my town.

[00:20:53] Right. And I was a single mama with two boys. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . And my clients actually named me the Sugar Mama. They were like, [00:21:00] everybody needs a sugar mama in their speed dial. And it just clicked. And so yeah, I went and checked. It. You know, it wasn't trademarked and it took me a little bit, and I wanna talk about my journey just for a quick moment in trademarking the name Sugar Mama.

[00:21:17] Because I actually started, before I met you, Joey, I started with one of those legal websites because I didn't have any money and I didn't, I found out that an attorney was thousands of dollars to get the name trademarked. And was I, I was kind of actually shoot away from using an attorney by friends and family.

[00:21:36] They were like, oh, it's so expensive. You don't wanna do that. Right? And so I actually used one of. Inexpensive. I'm using air quotes for those of you that are listening to the podcast, those inexpensive, um, program, uh, websites where you can just put your information in and they'll, you know, do it for you.

[00:21:54] Right. Well, the problem was they said, ah-huh . Yeah, no problem. You can do this. Give us your [00:22:00] money and give us all of your, your documents, your specimens, and we'll handle it for you. Well, it wasn't until six months later mm-hmm. , mm-hmm that I find, found out that it was rejected. So I thought that when I used this legal website that, that it was insurance that I was getting someone that was gonna slide it through, slide it through the U S P T O, right?

[00:22:23] Yeah. And so when I got it back, I was shocked. I, my stomach just was a knots I the fact that someone else was using this name. Made me sick cuz everyone in town knew me as the sugar mama. What am I gonna do? Right? Yeah. And so then of course Universe works in such amazing ways. I met you through the tech space.

[00:22:48] Mm-hmm. , because I was, I had brought on I Sugar University and we were in similar groups and your power brand program actually helped me to understand. [00:23:00] Trademarks and be legally strong. And so I was able to start to do the research by taking your course, and now I can apply for another trademark based on the knowledge that I got from you.

[00:23:14] Right. I love hearing that so much. It's strong mama like empowerment, right? And so what's wildly cool is now if I wanna trademark something else that I've been using a long time and I didn't realize I needed to register the trademark for now that sugaring is becoming so popular, um, I now can go back to my course, refresh my memory and apply for the next one.

[00:23:38] And so thank you for creating Power Brand because. , it now gives me the strong tools to know what I can and can't do, and to be able to research first before I call one of my programs something, or I call a service something. So thank you for creating that, and we're gonna share that with the audience, um, in the show notes.

[00:23:59] And, [00:24:00] you know, my Sugar Tribe can always DM me and, and ask me directly. Um, but I, I want to thank you because Joey, what you really have created is, A tool for our tool belt to be able to do this for a lifetime and have that, that wisdom. You know, now it's it the separate things you learn through Power Brand and you guide us through how to apply for a trademark.

[00:24:27] So you can apply for more than one by taking this course. So it's, it's a little bit different than, you know, Joey just does it for you, . 

[00:24:36] Joey Vitale: Yeah. Well, thank you for saying all of that, and it really is my pleasure. And I know as a, as a fellow course creator, you know, that what really lights us course creator, the reason why we create courses is because we realize that there are certain things that people need help with, that just going to Google and figuring out what to do.

[00:24:56] Doesn't give you that easy fix and that result that you want. [00:25:00] And the reason why we built Power Brand was because any other attorneys who were listening to this, you can just turn this off, but a lot of the legal stuff for businesses, you probably can use some of those legal Zoom like solutions to do like getting an L L C, not rocket science.

[00:25:24] Getting certain contracts that you need for your business, not rocket science. And when I first started my law firm, I was doing all of that stuff and seeing what people wanted and I understood it when my clients were like, you know what? I think I can get this stuff elsewhere, but I've been burned before on trade and I was learning along with them that trademarks just weren't something that was as easy to.

[00:25:49] Do yourself or to go to what is essentially like a form filling service. Mm-hmm. , and as I know you know this cuz you went through the course, but the, the, [00:26:00] the most valuable part of what you can pay a trademark attorney to do for you is not the application. It's running a strong search. Mm-hmm. , and then being strategic on how to fill out the application based on that search.

[00:26:15] Yeah. And you lose that handholding when you just go to either a service like Legal Zoom, or frankly any attorney who doesn't really focus on trademarks. Right. Because they think it's easier. They see Legal Zoom doing it. They're like, oh, I'll do the same thing. Mm-hmm. and just fill out an application.

[00:26:36] Shannon O'Brien: Yeah. Well, thank you for putting all that work into the curriculum because it worked. As you can see, I'm so, so happy for I'm officially the sugar mama, uh, which is, which is, I feel not only do I feel protected, but I feel empowered. Yeah. Because I feel like. I have strong legs to stand on, which I am a strong, [00:27:00] tall girl, so that, you know, is appropriate.

[00:27:02] But I feel like I have a strong foundation with which to really march forward. Yeah. And that's what I want for sugaring businesses, beauty businesses. I want you to have a strong foundation so that anything you do to build your brand, it's, it starts with. Being smart and being protected, and being empowered and, and I, what you 

[00:27:27] Joey Vitale: have, I wanna zoom on on one of those areas of strength, Shannon, because I know you see it and I just wanna call it out.

[00:27:33] Okay. Part of the strength, and I think the empowerment that you're feeling is knowing that. No one else is gonna beat you to the punch of filing for Sugar Mama in this way because you haven't gotten around to it. Right. And that's when I really talk to, to my clients and business owners about what their fears are.

[00:27:52] Especially ones who have kind of checked all the boxes of what we talked about so far in the training. They've done the search, they know that they're the first to use, [00:28:00] they're feeling competent, they, they know they're not accidentally infringing on someone. Then the fear shifts from Oh, I know I'm okay, but what if someone else applies for this before I get around to it and they get it?

[00:28:13] Yeah. And so it's really important to follow up on all of the searching and strategy that you do with taking action and getting that filing done. Yeah, and the one thing that I can't do for people inside Power brand, Is, file your applications for you. And so it really means a lot about you, Shannon, for taking the course, going through it.

[00:28:38] I mean, how many of us have read books or taking courses that we don't take action on? Right? But there, there's an extra action here of not just finishing the course. But then implementing what you've learned in the course, 

[00:28:50] Shannon O'Brien: right. The whole point is able to apply for it. 

[00:28:52] Joey Vitale: So props to you for going through all of that.

[00:28:54] You have to actually do it. Oh, I 

[00:28:55] Shannon O'Brien: was on a mission. Exactly. I was on a mission , [00:29:00] so at the end of the day, Sugar world, beauty world, we want you to be protected. We want you to follow through. We want you to feel confident in your brand moving forward. We know you can do that. Joey has helped me and he can help you as well.

[00:29:17] Um, and so Joey, share with them kind of the journey. There is a free course that they can take with you and kind of get to know you a little bit and learn a little bit more, and we'll put that in the show notes. Again, you can also DM me if you would like to chat a little bit more about my experience with Joey.

[00:29:33] Uh, but talk about protect your brand. 

[00:29:35] Joey Vitale: Yeah, so in that free training, I go through the main three mistakes that you wanna avoid, and, uh, if you've enjoyed this conversation, you're gonna love this training. Um, there, there is, you know, that power brand program that I'll offer to invite you into at the end of that training, but honestly, no matter.

[00:29:57] This training is meant to be valuable for you [00:30:00] no matter what you do afterwards. Yeah. Um, after you watch it, assuming that you take action, you have options. You can work with an attorney like me one-to-one. You can invest in a program like Power Brand or you can do it all on your own. Yep. Um, that will help you get all of your ducks in a row so that you complete the application once you submit the application.

[00:30:26] You then have to think about the trademark office timeline. And I have to say, ever since Covid started, I've seen a delay in that timeline. So it used to be about four ish months before you would get some type of a response back after you submit it. Now it's closer to six months and later. So it's looking even longer.

[00:30:47] Just so you guys know. Uh, hopefully that gets shortened up soon. Um, but that's still what we're seeing. And then it might take a year or more for you to actually get the trademark registration after you apply. [00:31:00] Yeah. But, but if you, but if you do follow, if you follow this again, no matter how you get there, I know Shannon would love to cheer you on.

[00:31:09] So if you are applying or if you're getting registrations and you remember this conversation helping you do that, it would be amazing if you took like a selfie of your registration or whatever and tag Shannon and I. Yes. 

[00:31:23] Shannon O'Brien: I love it. I love it. We wanna cheer you on. Both of us are here to cheer you on.

[00:31:26] Joey, thank you so much for. Always being our real lawyer that can just, just shoot straight and help us to understand because there's a lot to know when you have your own business, there's really a lot to know and you just give it to us straight. And I always appreciate you for that. 

[00:31:46] Joey Vitale: Happy, happy to help.

[00:31:47] And thanks for, uh, thanks for allowing this space. So we can talk about as a topic, as important as trademarks. And you guys can't see it on the podcast, but both of us have been [00:32:00] smiling throughout this, and I know that's, that's a, a tough feat in and of itself. So, um, 

[00:32:05] Shannon O'Brien: not with you. And I though we could, we can smile and laugh all day long.

[00:32:09] Joey Vitale: We, we would be those two people at a funeral cracking up. Right? Thank you, friend. Of course. Thank you. 

[00:32:17] Shannon O'Brien: Hey, sugar Pros. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you are interested in getting certified in Sugaring, growing your already existing Rockstar Sugar business, or joining the Sugar Network with us, head over to my website, www.lovetosugar.com for more information about all things sugar from Sugar University to the Sugar Network, or even if you just need a little coaching, it's all right there at.

[00:32:47] The number two, sugar.com. Until then, I hope you have a fabulously sweet day and cheers to your sweet success.